Investigating Three Indie Superstars Accused of Emotional Abuse (Transcripted from Youtube)

4:46PM Mar 18, 2022

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Over the last few months, I've interviewed 24 game developers from across three different highly prestigious indie studios about the emotional abuse they've experienced at work. In all cases, this abuse has come straight from the top from high profile founders, typically known for their inclusivity their activism, or for having worked on some of the most heartfelt video games of recent years. I think together, the stories make a fairly compelling argument that this isn't just about free game studios at all. But instead, something bigger, a problem of the way in which power in the indie game space is distributed, because as well as being a story about abusive bosses. This is also about how those bosses have been protected. But perhaps I'm getting a bit ahead of myself there. Let's start at the beginning. Our reporting started here with a set of tweets written in 2019 by Tony Hawk luzie, a former employee of mountains, the game studio best known for creating Florence. Here's my story, he writes about how I was abused to the point of depression and suicide for two years by indie superstar Ken Wong, I posted that all that information publicly the day I was getting married, it was just the thing that was constantly weighing on me, you know,

for just with everything I did in my life, and I was just like, you know, I want to get I need to get this off my chest, I need to move on from

it. In this spread, Tony described being constantly undermined by Ken, who is not only the founder and creative director at mountains, but who's also a renowned figure in the games industry at this point, thanks to the success of Florence. But also, prior to that while working at another studio, he'd been the lead designer on Monument Valley as well. Tony's tweets about his experience are pretty raw, let me read just a couple. Within the first week, I was doubting my decision to work for him, every contribution I've made every idea every opinion was not only wrong to him, also stupid. This was how he slowly started to wear down my self worth I was being gaslit and didn't know it. And when you mentioned to everyone at work, that you're starting to struggle with depression, and he laughs about how he stole your friends. And now you don't really have anyone to talk to, that's when you should have quit and called him out for health, for person he is it paints a picture of a workplace that clearly left its mark on Tony, and the response from the wider games industry was immediate. I didn't expect it to blow up, I didn't expect it to be get so many eyes on it and have such a huge response, like I had hundreds of people reach out and say, you know, they're so sorry that this happened. And then they would tell me about other people and other people in the industry especially

like higher up, you know, kind of superstars. It was never intended to be, you know, like, big.

However, as I've heard from several people who still worked at mountains at the time, these tweets were published, the ramifications of a moment like this can be complicated, for a start Tony to refer to another person who he felt had suffered because of Ken, but in a way that quite clearly identified them. And he was still working at mountains at the time. And also, when so much of the studios reputation is attached to one person's great division, as was the case with mountains. And can there's also a worried that the rest of the team might end up being tarnished with the same brush. Florence wasn't made by one person, and neither were the studios new games in development. But suddenly, as a shadow over all of them, I feel like now would be a good time for me to say that people make games is aware that the media can also be an imprecise tool. In these moments, I'm talking about us here. Although we're going to be talking about free individuals in particular, who were of course, intertwined with the studios they helped create. These studios are more than just those free people. And that's something we should all try and remember for this video. In fact, thinking of the studio and the founder as the same thing is actually where some of these problems seem to originate from. So yeah, more on that later. And let's get back to the tweets. Ken Wong responded to Tony's allegations the following day, saying this was my failure as a leader and as a co worker, to the person who wrote this Fred and to other people I've heard through my career. I'm sorry, I don't know if there's a way to make up to my former employee for how I hurt him. Ever since he left I've worked harder to contribute positively to Martin's work culture, and take better care of my team. That message was posted on the 29th of August 2019. And it does suggest some amount of self reflection was taking place. However, just one year later, mountains had completely fallen apart, falling multiple resignations. The remaining staff would vote unanimously for Kenton, he stepped down from his leadership position in order to protect the team from the impact they felt he was having on them. And so starting in November of last year, I've now spoken to a significant portion of the people who've ever worked in mountains since it first opened in 2016. And aside from Tony, these people agreed to be interviewed under the condition of total anonymity, as they were concerned about the impact it might have on their career, or in some cases, feared legal retaliation. And although we will be including quotes from those interviews with hired voice actors mostly from Melbourne, which is where the studio is based to read them on their behalf. And again, to protect the identity of our sources, the gender of those voice actors weren't necessarily matched the gender of the person who had been interviewed.

Working at mountains was great. I loved the team, I loved what I was able to achieve. I love that we could all work together and support each other. It was just one person that dragged the entire thing down.

So what was the problem and mountains having spoken to so many people who've worked there over the years while the studio is based at the arcade and indie games co working space in South Melbourne, Ken has been described to me as someone with major communication issues. Multiple former employees describe the way in which he steadily chipped away at their self confidence and expertise as emotionally abusive.

I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that every single thing I did during my time at mountains was questioned, interrogated almost the long term consequences of that, that you don't trust yourself anymore, and you don't feel like you can do the job. Every time

we brought somebody new in, there would always be a point where you had to have a conversation with them and say, It's not you. This is just how he acts.

We had a glass wall with all of these awards on display, and tour groups would be brought through the arcade sometimes and they'd stop outside of mountains and be told all about this darling indie studio with all its accolades. Meanwhile, we're sitting inside in silence because one of us has just been torn apart by Ken. There were so many times I wished that people could know what was going on.

Everybody I've spoken to has pointed to the way in which can often feed back to his team as a significant problem with one former employee describing it as a constant pushing of what was acceptable.

You had this thing where he just question everything you did. For whatever reason, Ken's gonna shoot you down and pick your work apart into 1000 pieces. You won't know why, and he won't have a better alternative.

It's such a difficult thing to describe if you haven't experienced it. The rather few years I worked there, I was constantly trying to manage his emotions and trying to enter every interaction in a way that wasn't going to blow up.

This wasn't someone I didn't get along with. This wasn't a bad job. It was, I think, a very cruel person in a position of power, who'd like to make people feel bad to make himself feel better.

By 2020, the studio needed to implement a new policy in which any employee could decline to have a one on one interaction with Ken if they felt he was overstepping. At any point, they could say the word pause, and the conversation would end then in there with other members of mountains leadership team coming in to help mediate

what kind of studio needs a safe word though. Let's be honest,

Ken's behavior was heavily criticized within the studio both before and after Tony's tweets were published. And this would sometimes lead to moments in which apologies were made. And Ken would promise to change that behavior going forwards, which some employees described as him having had good intentions. But then inevitably, he'd relapse later on. Others have a far less charitable view. The team

would sit around and basically they can to acknowledge his management style. He was given chances, he was given warnings, he was given strategies and he was given aid. And that's why at this point, it feels like a choice. Negligence at best,

after Florence mountains had two games in the works although both have been described to me as being in a bad way, due to a variety of factors, one of which was the high turnover of staff. The first game codenamed Sugarloaf was Ken's passion project, he'd secured funding from Annapurna interactive, who you'll be hearing plenty about throughout this investigation. After they published Lawrence in 2018. Sugarloaf began life a little closer to what Florence had been, it was talked of as a narrative experience about traveling abroad, perhaps in Hong Kong or Melbourne when York, but at some point, that idea ended up being scrapped, and it was replaced with something else entirely. It became a game of terraforming islands populating those islands with procedurally generated towns, which could then be explored and documented, and they'd be NPCs and dynamic storytelling. It was, for lack of a better word bigger. Former mountains employees have described it to me as being extremely ambitious, and also as having spin its wheels in research and development for years, as entire feature sets were prototyped only to be scrapped again or started from scratch. But the game that most of the mountain staff working on and well, the one that saw all of this come to such a dramatic end was called Tambo again, that's a working title. Tambo was being funded by a different major games publisher and was considered the much more feasible of the two projects, described as a chill game about building furniture and interior decorating had players ordering flat pack furniture and then assembling it using gestures on their touchscreen in a way that felt tactile and calming. original plans for this game and seen different gestures for screwing in every screw and hammering in every nail. There was going to be pottery that you could create and decorate with a pattern texture generator. There were plans for upholstery, electronics and houseplants. But following a Tribble development in which the game needed to be delayed several times, this was steadily pared down to most actions being completed with the same handful of gestures, and some pre selected colors. For the decoration. Multiple former employees have described a moment to me in which the team's brand new lead programmer Sherry Davidson was hosting a team meeting in order to get everyone talking about what Tombos problems were and how they could go about addressing them. This was in her first week, as an official employee of mountains,

Kim was disrupted to the point that the whole thing just fell apart, questioning why the meeting was even happening, and implying that she wasn't credible. This was someone who'd run this kind of thing in a triple A studio at a huge scale, and was being made to feel like she didn't know what she was talking about in a room of 10

and the end, Tambo was cancelled by his publisher just three days before its final submission deadline. Although former employers will admit the game wasn't in fantastic shape. In this moment, nobody had been expecting it to end just so abruptly. One developer described the moment as totally crushing having exhausted themselves sprinting from one deadline to the next only to see it all amount to nothing. I've heard from a couple of sources now about this publisher having been approached by at least one influential figure in the games industry, who expressed their concern surrounding mountains following what they'd seen on Twitter in 2019. Although it's unclear if this did actually factor into the decision at all, or if it was simply a case of the game itself. not meeting expectations, either way, tambor was canceled and mountains began almost immediately to unravel. Just a couple of months later, as mountains was in the process of pitching Tambo to new publishers and transferring more staff over to work on Sugarloaf. Two members of mountains leadership team announced their resignation simultaneously with both of them citing Ken's behavior as the main reason for them needing to move on. This would have had huge implications for the studio regardless, but with multiple resignations having already hit mountains in recent months. It also attracted the attention of the studios other publisher, Annapurna interactive, and so ahead of a call with Annapurna. The entire team at monckton's Aside from Ken took part in a company wide meeting that would change everything.

It was here that the floodgates opened. Everyone shared their experiences about Ken, some people were in tears. It was awful and cathartic at the same time.

Following hours of discussion. All seven remaining staff members and mountains voted unanimously that Ken should be stepped down from his leadership position in order to protect the team and give them any chance a possible future here. The two that had given their resignations even said that should that happen. They may well consider staying mountains instead. Other questions were voted on to including Would you feel comfortable recommending mountains as a workplace as it currently stands? This received six knows and one yes. In the last six months? Have you thought about leaving mountains because of Ken? Six months for yes, one vote for no. And do you believe that Sugarloaf isn't a viable project for mountains right now. This one was unanimous. Everybody voted yes. The minutes of this meeting, including those votes with them written up is a 16 page document that was sent along to Annapurna interactive. I've since had the chance to read that document and it comprehensively details the team's issues with Ken's behavior, and also their lack of trust in Him as both a leader and a creative director.

That document was damning. Nobody could look at this and say kin can stay.

The hope at this stage was the Annapurna might be able to act as some kind of mediator between the team and can because although yes, Ken does own company and Annapurna can't force him to resign, the entire studio voting for him to step down is not nothing. That hope, however, were short lived. It started with a phone call between the majority of the team again excluding Ken and free representatives from Annapurna interactive, those who are on the call describe as having lasted for something like 45 minutes if that, and that the tone for out was dismissive. It's unclear what the exact wording was here, but multiple people who I've spoken to who on that call, remember one of annapurnas more senior representatives saying something along the lines of without strong personalities, games don't get made suggesting that Ken's actions towards them may just have been a part of the creative process.

There was a comment made about how making games is really hard. It was very Ken apologetic, and we all came out of that meeting feeling really disheartened,

Ken at this point and temporarily stepped back from his position at the studio, and in fact moved from Melbourne to Adelaide instead, and it was in Adelaide, that a phone call is meant to have happened between him and the team at Annapurna interactive. That conversation he would lay to relate to the rest of the team at mountains secondhand.

We were told that Annapurna then had a conversation with Ken, in which they suggested he rebuild the studio in Adelaide and hire a new set of graduates instead, the implication being that we expected too much and that graduates would not

everybody I've spoken to from mountains remains deeply hurt by this decision. Yes, because the publisher sided we can instead of them, but also that they could have read a 16 page document detailing all of the teams concerns with Ken as a leader, and then said something as this interested and cold blooded as well, you know what, if they want to go let them go and just start a new studio, we have a set of new young graduates. Instead, former employees recall Ken telling them that he had pushed back against this suggestion from Annapurna and that he had no intention of doing this. But in the end, the studio continued to fall apart and within months, those who hadn't already resigned, were made redundant

and appear to be traders, the whole team. And for what one person.

We did contact Annapurna, to see if the publisher wanted to respond to any of these allegations. Although we didn't receive a response, Ken Wonka did get back in touch and said the following. I strongly believe games workers deserve a positive and healthy environment and this is the best way to make games. Maintaining such an environment was always my highest priority at mountains, I deeply regret they often fail to provide this for my employees. When I receive feedback about my communication style, I endeavor to understand what occurred correct my behavior and when necessary, make changes to policy and process. I sought advice from teammates from industry peers and from professional coaches. Unfortunately, these actions were not always enough. But what about mountains today did Annapurna encouraged him to start again in Adelaide with a new set of graduates, I relocated to Adelaide for personal reasons and opponent made no such suggestion. The team members and I decided together to disband in March 2021 Mountains is essentially on hiatus and has no employees other than myself. I've spent the time since then, reflecting on both my successes and failures of the past few years and exploring ways to move on. He told us he believes there's been some miscommunication about Annapurna, and as far as he's concerned, no, the publisher didn't say anything about hiring graduates. Now something that came up time and time again as interviewed former mountains employees was an article published by polygon shortly after the collapse of their studio. This polygon article wasn't about mountains however, it was about Fullbright, the studio behind gone home to coma and the upcoming open roads and based on interviews with multiple former employees. It describes how Steve Gaynor, a famous and well respected studio co founder often seen as the creative vision behind the Darling indie game had in reality be micromanaging and belittling his employees to such an extent this has led to a mass exodus of developers from the company. Does that sound at all familiar? Well, what if I told you that Fulbright's next game was also being published by Annapurna interactive, and the employees it also asked them to step in and help mediate the situation in order to save the studio from Steve's actions, former mounting staff who told me how strange it was to read this article and think that they could change the name of the founder and the studio, and suddenly, they're almost reading about themselves. However, and this is a key difference between the two. In the case of Fulbrighters, this article makes clear Steve had properly stepped down from his leadership position at the company, and Annapurna interactive was an a, quote, instrumental in helping the open roads team make changes to its structure. So in this case, at least, Annapurna had done for Fulbright, what the staff at mountains had really hoped they might have been able to do for them. There are a few other factors to consider. Like, for example, the open roads team had not just voted to perhaps stopped working on that game because they didn't think it was viable. And also open roads, I'm told was much further into its development than Sugarloaf was, and so perhaps was a surer bet for the publisher. But given just how similar these stories are, I contacted several Fulbright employees who were at the studio during this moment to find out how well an opponent had handled the situation from their perspective. Again, everyone I interviewed here asked to remain anonymous, mostly because they were concerned about having their name attached to something that could be critical of one of the most influential indie game publishers in the world. And so while you do hear quotes, we've hired bisectors

I know that Annapurna went to Steve and said, Do we have a problem? So they asked the problem if there was a problem. They didn't ask us. I think that was one of their first mistakes. They saw this pattern of women leaving the studio and they went to him and asked only him about it, months before he ended up being removed.

Because although people's issues with Steve may have been an open secret within the studio, nobody felt able to talk about it publicly outside of Fulbright. Why not? Well, the people I've spoken to have talked about the fear of risking their career by speaking out with Steve being such a popular and influential figure within the indie game space. Also, and this came up in multiple interviews nobody wanted to hurt gun homes reputation either, again, that one former employee described to me as being vital to the LGBTQ community. In 2021. One senior woman at the company did contact Ella Pola directly to let them know that she intended to quit and that Steve had created a toxic environment at the studio, particularly for female staff, which is why so many of them had already left Fulbright. This then prompted the publisher to interview everybody on the team individually. With Steve being asked to take a break from his duties, in the meantime,

and Aparna sat down in one on one with each of us, and I was expecting them to ask me questions along the lines of what were your interactions with Steve like, I was expecting it to be them feeling out what the situation was, and seeing what impact he'd had on the team. It was very different from that. Instead, they just asked about open roads and what we'd need to continue that project. But without asking about the situation itself. It was kind of almost dancing around what the situation was. I remember that was very bizarre.

Steve left his position as creative lead in March 2021. Although he continues to work on open roads as a writer, but with significantly more limited interactions with the rest of the team. However, it was only five months later than this that multiple former employees decided they needed to speak to the press about what had happened, they needed to go to Polygon. Why? I'm told that originally assurances were made, the Fulbright will be making some kind of public statement about what happened at the studio. But this never came to fruition. And for some of the people involved, this was extremely frustrating because without that statement, there would be no public warning about Steve and the impact he'd been having on his employees. There was a concern here that without this kind of public announcement, Steve could potentially later down the line find himself leading another team who had no idea about what had taken place a Fulbright and history could eventually repeat itself. Only when those former employees went to the press did Fulbright release its statement tweeting the following message from the official open roads Twitter account,

and Annapurna didn't tweet it, interact with it, or even comment on it. It just came from open roads, and apparently kept themselves completely clean. I always felt like shame on them for not supporting us.

Perhaps because of the types of games that Annapurna is associated with, there's an expectation that this is a different type of games publisher, if you watch the showcase in the summer of last year, you will have seen a diverse range of developers and games being funded. There's a vibe here that this is a company that values smaller teams and more personal experiences in a way that other parts of the industry may not. And so when that expectation isn't met, it's especially jarring. I've spoken to current and former Fulbright employees who say they can appreciate the limitations of annapurnas power in a situation like this because the publisher doesn't have any direct ownership over the studio itself. They can't force somebody like Steve to resign even if they wanted to. But others. Well, others have been more cynical about the whole thing.

I was thoroughly disappointed when I had my first meeting with them. I remember thinking these are la bros. They're just like any other publisher with money. If anything, they were a little bit rosier.

Again, Annapurna didn't provide a comment on what happened with either Steve Gaynor or Fulbright. And so what began his investigation into just one studio had now become a comparison between two and this is something that I'd bring up in the interviews that I was doing, I'd ask, isn't it weird to you? How many similarities there are between these two stories? How many of the details match up so closely? And universally? The answer to those questions was no more than that developers would mention other indie studios, they'd heard similar worrying things about as well and one name kept coming up time and time again from interviews I was having with people living in entirely different continents, let alone cities. That name was phenomena were founded in 2013. By Robin, Hannah Kay and Martin middle term, this studio is probably best known for having created what am in 2019 with a team led by Katie Takahashi, previously, the game director for Katamari Damacy. And what it's worth noting, was also published by Annapurna interactive. I've interviewed eight former employees often on a row, which isn't a huge studio, by the way, who either worked on what will be 2017 VR experience Luna, and all eight have described studio co founder Robin Hannah Kay as someone who is emotionally abusive, who on multiple occasions was known to use personal sensitive information about her employees at work in a way that was either humiliating or entirely unprofessional. Again, those who've spoken to me and asked for anonymity here as they're concerned about the effects speaking out may have on their own careers. So where you do hear quotes, we've heard a voice actors and agenda won't necessarily match that of the person who was interviewed. Prior to founding Fernando Mel Robbins worked for EA on my Sims and Boom Blox. She'd been an executive producer on journey at that game company, and she's a professor of game design at UC Santa Cruz. She's also a hugely influential advocate for diversity in the games industry, having given many talks and interviews on gender equality, in particular,

ambassadorship and advocacy isn't just about being on stage and performing and being an extrovert. Sometimes it's about having a quiet one on one personal conversation with a friend who has an unconscious bias that they've just discovered.

Many of the people I've interviewed have told me that Robbins message on Those topics was a big part of why they wanted to work at the studio in the first place. But that their own experience of working with her was certainly not in line with those same sentiments, multiple former employees have told me they believe Anonymous has not been an easy place to work as either a woman or a person of color.

I don't think it was intentional. I don't think in her mind, she wanted to tear down women, I think she had some biases herself about women having competency problems, you could also have been a perception that they wouldn't fight back.

There's a psychological phenomenon where if people think they're not biased, or that they're one of the good guys that they don't look for their own biases, and that they're more likely to not self examine. That's what's going on. If I'm being very

generous, I'd say you're always hardest on the person you identify with the most. And if I'm not being very generous, and I'm being very cynical, it's like, who's going to listen to women and people of color when somebody says how bad your studio is. That's why none of us alone have come out and said anything? Who will believe us?

One of the most consistent complaints that came across my interviews with all eight former staff was the way in which Robin would reference intimate details of her employees private lives without their consent, while in a professional environment. And often as a way of evaluating what she saw as their poor performance at work.

It was so personal, she wanted to know so much about people's personal lives, and their own psychology, their issues, their hurts their families. And then she would use those things to explain to people why they were the way they were,

she made comments about people's previous messy breakups, people's current conflicts they're having with significant others, her opinions about people's dating lives, whether she knew they're in therapy or not in therapy, sometimes it'd be comments about people's personal appearance, real feminine there. Or if they were struggling with their sexuality, just generally, things that had no bearing on the quality of work that someone's doing.

Definitely the one that has stuck with me was the one where she was like, So and so was struggling with their sexuality right now. So it makes sense that they're a little bit distracted. I think that happened in a meeting with like six people.

I mean, what are you meant to do? There's no HR, the buck stops with her. She knows things about my personal life. And I just heard her talk about a very private details about one of my co workers, multiple former employees

told me of moments in which they found out that Robin had shared sensitive information about their lives with people outside of anonymous, including with potential employers.

I've talked with people outside of phenomena who have said in conversation, oh, I've heard this thing about someone. And I've had to say like, a that's not true. Or if it is true, that's kind of depth that it got out there.

Since I've gotten out. I've been pretty scared of her influence. Don't let her competitions where See, she's the judge. I don't take part in the experimental workshop at GDC. I would never even try. So scared of her thinking of me being around anybody else.

One current employee told me they were surprised to find out that a journalist was asking questions about Robin's behavior, and that they themselves were aware of several former employees who had had interpersonal issues with her. That being said, they told me that phenomenon had changed in recent years. For start, the team had been working remotely since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, meaning that Robin now had less interaction directly with a lot of people on the team. And shortly after the release of what she also took a step back from some of her more creative responsibilities at the studio to focus more on her role as CEO, Boomer employees tell me that the overlap between these two roles is where some of the issues may have stemmed from we're both What Am and Luna having suffered triple developments, which they feel were exacerbated by Robins input. Luna was at different points imagined as a console game, a mobile title, a PC game, and then more clearly a VR experience. Robin was the creative lead on the project, although her teaching commitments and other responsibilities meant that her attention was often elsewhere I'm told which made it difficult for the team to make progress that she would be happy with. But it was one that had the most glaring problems. Everybody I've spoken to has been very aware of there being a huge amount of tension between Robin and that games lead designer Peter Takahashi, the fight

between Robin and Kato is like tiptoeing around the house. Because your parents are hungover and alcoholics. Somebody is going to explode.

By the end of what ends development. I'm told that the power barely talking to one another thanks to multiple arguments over the creative and financial direction of the game as well as the way in which it should be marketed to the press and to play as pay to declined to be interviewed for this piece. But others have suggested that both parties viewed the other as being extremely toxic to the studio

Qaeda can be really difficult. He's not a soft person. He's critical of people's work, but there's a difference between that and bringing up people's personal lives. Things got

so bad at one point that I'm told Peter constructed a barrier out of chairs to keep robbing out of the bottom team side of the studio. Now although the game had started out as a PlayStation four exclusive Sony had eventually pulled its funding leading to the game being picked up by Annapurna interactive instead in 2017. Both Robin and Kato maintain close relationships with the publisher throughout that project, and I'm told that Annapurna was made aware on many occasions of the growing conflict between the two of them, as well as other employees issues with Robins behavior in particular. In fact, when what I'm required an additional engineer, one former employee was brought back on as a contractor by Annapurna although with the express stipulation that they never need to be in the same room as Robin or have any direct contact with her over developers told me they wished the Annapurna had been able to do more here and outside of the publishers limited influence. They also felt let down by the complete lack of accountability within Fernanda itself, multiple former employees told me they approached Martin Middleton, the studio's other co founder and chief technology officer about Robin, asking him to do something anything about the situation

somehow Martin didn't really voice an opinion. The few times I tried bringing it up to him, he was pretty dismissive about it.

He felt bad. He just felt awful about it. He was just a well of feeling bad, and that inability to do anything but feel bad. It makes him complicit.

Some tried talking to Robin herself about her behavior, although there's an obvious power dynamic to consider there. And I've described feeling worried about pushing too hard and then facing some kind of punishment later down the line. While others have said these conversations could end with Robin in tears, which they felt deflected from the points they were trying to raise. And so the people I've spoken to have left with all eight referencing Robins behavior as at least a factor in that decision. Multiple former employees also described having been traumatized by the experience of Bananarama with this having had a very real impact on their lives in the sense, including the need for therapy, and believing that certain spaces within the games industry are no longer accessible to them.

I don't know how to make sense of it. It's made it very hard to bring these issues to light because I think she's a net positive good in the industry. She's a strong advocate. I think her message is really positive and inspiring. But does it do more good than bad for her to continue to have that voice? Or is it better to do right by the people that have been hurt working with her?

We contacted Robin Hunter K and Mater Milton often unaware about the allegations you've heard here, let us know they wouldn't be providing a comment at this time. And again, Annapurna didn't get back to us, but others did get in touch. Shortly before the publication of this video, people make games was contacted by a group of employees who either still work out phenomena or who left over the last couple of years, we were told they felt concerned about a potential narrative from anonymous leadership that this was an old story and that Robin's behavior since What Am and Luna had drastically changed in the sense we were provided with a document written by multiple current and former employees, most of whom were women, which describes Robin as the instigator of a huge amount of toxicity at phenomena and has caused significant emotional distress to a large number of employees. It continues, this is particularly galling when you consider her public facing personality for which she is celebrated as a champion of inclusivity and empathy, but which contrasts starkly with her conduct behind closed doors, the document details problems with excessive crunch at the studio, as well as what it describes as a culture of hypocrisy of Anonima. One example given is to do with a moment shortly after the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, in which several members of the studio expressed their interest in having fun on a map bring in an external consultant in order to learn more about diversity and inclusion initiatives that could be put into place at the company. According to those that wrote this document. Robin's response to this was the consultancy companies are likely only used to people asking basic questions and the phenomena was already much more advanced when it came to these topics. Although a consultant was brought in for a single session, no follow up action was then taken. Another quote reads there was a burden placed on minority employees to assist in her performance of inclusivity. She rents about discrimination and then boasts about hiring marginalized employees in front of the entire company and the employees in question. She expresses frustration about sexism in the industry but consistently fails to promote or protect female employees. She tells everyone to take time to look after themselves while organizing projects with not enough staff nowhere near enough time and unfeasible scope. Finally, the group states the following we worry that her statement against any allegations would be that she has changed over the years and treats people better now, we wanted to let you know that it is a current pattern of behavior and that Robin hanaki continues to create a toxic work environment. Following this document being received and further interviews with some of its authors. We asked Robin and Martin again, if they wish to provide a comment for this story. And at the time of publication. They have not so what have we got here, free studios free founders currently weathering serious allegations of abuse and around 30 developers who found working for those people, totally intolerable. And more than that felt they had no choice but to come forward with their stories not because it will change what happened to them, but because it might change what happens to others in The future. So what can be learned from all of that? Or it might be helpful to divide this problem into two parts at this stage one? How do these founders enter positions they seem ill suited for and to, even after people raise the alarm about their issues, why is it so difficult to do anything about it? It's obviously true of all industries that people who are good at certain aspects of their job in this case making games don't necessarily also have the broad range of people skills that make them good managers as well. And to be more specific to games just because someone has worked on a title that singularly gentle, it seems as a danger and assuming this means we can also expect them to be as gentle with their employees in their workplace. One thing that's really stuck with me for one of my interviews for this piece was something said by a former employee of Anonima, they argued that very few people start in the studios believing they're going to be the bad guy that they're going to be the problem. And as a result, you should use rarely come with the kind of fail safes you need for that exact situation happening. Okay, so that's how people maybe get into these positions on why it's difficult to deal with internally when problems crop up. But the question then becomes, can publishers in this case, Annapurna interactive be doing more when they receive similar warnings about their clients? And if so, why aren't they? We probably need to say something about otter culture here. I'll try and make it brief otter culture is the today somewhat disputed belief that if art is being made by team, you need a single talented individual at the top with a strong vision, and near total control. You almost definitely have heard about this in the movie business where notoriously difficult directors continue to get work despite the horror stories. So perhaps it's not a coincidence that Annapurna interactive is in fact, an offshoot of Annapurna pictures, which was founded in 2011. With a focus on what variety called otter cinema. Remember that line from the mountains team call with Annapurna, the one that went something like without strong personalities, games don't get made. That's the exact kind of language that's used to defend the abuse of people in these positions. But the absurdity is certainly in these cases, this preference for strong personalities has been a disaster. Let's run through some of the evidence here. Mountains as a studio essentially cease to exist as a result of Ken's treatment of his staff. Fullbright lost so many talented people from its team, with Steve needing to be siloed away from the remaining staff in order to protect them while they finish open roads and for anonymous or both What Am and Luna fix protracted and for many people painful development cycles, leaving former employees so traumatized by their experience of robbing, we were told to investigate what happened there while working on a story that for us began in an entirely different continent. And yet this problem is so much bigger than just one publisher, the entire games industry has long fixated on the role of the otter, from the games press to players to marketing, it all contributes to this outsized impression of what these people do compared to the rest of their teams, which paradoxically, makes them irreplaceable. And that's an unhealthy cycle that I've personally been a part of as a games journalist. It's one of the reasons we wanted to call this channel people make games because after decades of unhelpful messaging about the disproportionate role that a handful of superstars have had, in making the stuff we play, it's a reminder largely towards but maybe a bit to you that most games are made by loads of different people. And it's those people who are not being afforded enough protection. Also, if we hadn't coded that the channel would be what person makes games and that's not very good at all, is it? Thank you very much for watching this video, we'd like to finish by just expressing a huge amount of appreciation to everyone that came forwards and share their story with us for this piece. It's a massively nerve wracking thing to do to open up and trust the journalist on the other side of the world in most cases. And, yeah, we really hope those people feel we've done this very justice and that we do right by them. And yeah, thank you to everyone who spoke to us. And finally, also, I said Finally before denied, but finally, again, thank you to our patrons for supporting this work. The only reason we're able to spend months on a single piece like this is because of our funding for Patreon. Our audience basically is the main funder of everything that we do@patreon.com forward slash people make games, if you're one of them. Yeah, you're the reason we got to do this video. So thank you to you as well. That's all my thank yous.