Julian Faylona, the artist whose fan art was used in a Destiny 2 cutscene, says Bungie has yet to compensate them, despite promising compensation over a year ago.
In 2023, Bungie faced significant backlash after using fan art without permission in a Destiny 2 cutscene, released during Season of the Deep. The cutscene, which focused on the origins of the Witness, “mistakenly” featured artwork from Julian Faylona.
Update, September 16, 6:02 AM PT: In response to the controversy surrounding Bungie’s failure to compensate a fan artist whose work was used in Destiny 2 cutscene (linked above), former Bungie legal chief Don McGowan has addressed the situation on his LinkedIn profile.
“What’s funny to me is that the next article below this one [citing this article] is a thing I had meant to take care of, dealing with a situation where a fan artist had their work built into a trailer. But I guess when you let go of the guy who fixes your problems, those problems don’t get fixed.”
Shortly after Faylona’s post on X (Twitter) went live, the principal communications manager at Bungie, Chris Shannon, replied apologizing that this got missed and promised they would “track this down”.
Original story: At the time, Bungie apologized, stating that an “external vendor… mistakenly used this art as a reference, assuming it was official Bungie art.” The studio quickly promised to “credit and compensate” the artist.
However, a year later, Faylona claims that Bungie never followed through on its promises. In an update posted today on X (Twitter), Faylona expressed their frustration:
“I’m the artist whose artwork was used for the Witness cutscene from last year. It’s been a year and Im still waiting for that compensation that you said will be given. Haven’t heard a word since.”
Destiny 2 Fan Artist Reveals Bungie Failed to Deliver Promised Compensation
Faylona’s update came in response to a tweet from the official Destiny 2 Team account, where Bungie had just promised credit and compensation to another artist whose fan art was used without permission.
Bungie’s original apology was well-received at the time, as it was transparent about the mistake and acknowledged the artist’s work. “We have reached out to the artist to apologize for the mix-up,” Bungie stated last year.
But now, it seems the situation was never fully resolved behind the scenes, leaving Faylona without the promised compensation.
This isn’t the first time Bungie has been under fire for using fan-created art without permission. Just this week, it faced new accusations for using another fan’s design in the promotion of an Ace of Spades NERF replica. Bungie has responded similarly, saying it is in touch with the artist and plans to offer compensation and credit.
At this time, Bungie has not responded to this situation. We will update the story as we get more details on whether the studio addresses Faylona’s claims and follows through on the promised compensation.
