[Update: Focus Home Interactive has since issued a statement on Aeon Must Die, which reads as follows:
"Focus Home Interactive has always praised and supported all our partner studios and the developers who compose the creative teams. We pride ourselves on treating our own employes and third party developers fairly and respectfully and this will not change.
Focus Home Interactive was informed of serious allegations raised by some of the developers at Limestone who have worked on the creation of the video game Aeon Must Die!.
These grievances are directed at Limestone, their direct employer.
As the publisher of this video game, Focus is carefully looking into these allegations and will draw the necessary conclusions if they are proved to be well-founded, and then take all appropriate measure.
No further comment will be shared until we have a clearer and complete view on this matter."]
Many fans tuned in to PlayStation's 40-minute long State of Play today in order to get updates and announcements on upcoming PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 titles, but there seems to be way more going on behind the scenes of Aeon Must Die’s reveal trailer than was shown - namely that the developers working on the project for Limestone Games say they quit after battling workplace mistreatment. The practice of management requiring or allowing excessive unpaid overtime is prevalent enough to get a name that's now a household term in the games industry: crunch.
This story follows in the wake of similar accusations made against gaming giants like Blizzard Entertainment. The company behind World of Warcraft and Overwatch has found itself in the headlines this week as employees shared their stories of wage disparity and minimal growth opportunities. Many of these employees recently organized to pool their demands and correct these issues. Other major developers including Rockstar Games and CD Projekt Red have also been accused of engaging in crunch recently.
As for the Aeon Must Die developers, the game’s trailer had barely made its debut when Twitter user Calibrono challenged the decision to include the clip in the State of Play, claiming studio-wide abuses like crunch and missing payments that led to the entire development team resigning. Calibrono also claims that what was exhibited in the showcase was a product of outsourcing to non-contracted artists. Screen Rant reached out to Aeon Must Die publisher Focus Home Interactive, but has yet to receive a response at the time of writing.
Calibrono's tweet also linked to a YouTube video which further alleges that the trailer "was created with abuse, manipulation, theft.” The description under the video includes a Dropbox folder that appears to contain several letters addressing the studio’s issues. Though some of the letters are not in English, there is one entitled “History of the team leaving AMD,” which levels pretty serious accusations at the company’s CEO, Yaroslav Lysenko. The letter claims, among other things, that Lysenko sought to underpay and then drive off the project’s developers while keeping their IP. The team, it seems, received no positive responses after raising concerns with management and are no longer working on the project.
The gaming industry can be a wonderful place full of marvelous talent and supportive teams. However, it happens more often than it should that game creators find themselves in toxic work environments. Despite increasing outcry and attempts to reform the games industry's working conditions, crunch, inequality, wage disparity, harassment and all manner of horrible issues endure. The push to get more unionized jobs into the industry has made some great strides recently, but in the meantime, stories like what's emerged from Aeon Must Die's developers continue to show what's still going on below the surface.
Source: Calibrono/Twitter