The development studio Moon Studios is currently facing serious allegations. In a report by GamesBeat several current and former employees spoke about their time at the company and the atmosphere there. They describe the management style in the company as oppressive.
In the meantime, Microsoft has reacted and ended the cooperation as publisher of Moon Studios. Ori and the Blind Forest and its sequel Ori and the Will of the Wisps were released under the Xbox Game Studios label.
Leadership at the center of the allegations
Sexism, racism, bullying – Basically, the testimonials of those affected revolve around these topics, which leads to a Tod [des Studios] through a thousand cuts
should have led, quotes GamesBeat.
The working atmosphere is therefore oppressive
described. The public image as an open and honest workplace was used as a pretext for abuse. The founders of Moon Studios, Thomas Mahler and Gennadiy Korol, are said to have sharply criticized employees in public chats and were generally stingy with praise.
An ex-employee has this to say about his time at the studio:
It’s an oppressive place to work. But it’s hard to pinpoint one thing because, individually, all these incidents, if they happen once, would give the impression that they are small things. But when you face it for years, you see how people’s mental health suffers. Personally, I was completely broken after we finished. I had never been depressed before that moment. I lost my passion for my job because they drove it out of me.
Antisemitic chat messages
In a chat available to staff, Mahler joked that he wanted to kill Jews by making them work on games until they died. In the context of the conversation, this statement is clear as joke
been recognizable the rough tone is said to have been normal. Discussions about penis sizes and other things were also held.
GamesBeat claims to have received the relevant chat passages and verified their authenticity. Franciska Csongrady, who was the only woman on the story team, was also critical of her time at Moon Studios and describes it as an “experience that destroys the soul.” Once again, the studio bosses are the focus of criticism:
link to Twitter content
Statement des Studios
According to former employees, working in such an environment ultimately left mental scars that one has to struggle with after leaving the company. The decentralized company structure is also not as advantageous as it initially sounds. Because the communication tools were also used to record and monitor the behavior of employees.
GamesBeat gave Thomas Mahler and Gennadiy Korol the opportunity to comment on the allegations. This was done in the form of a statement stating, among other things:
We do not believe that these experiences are representative of the 80+ Moon Studios team members who do great work every day, nor do they represent the experiences of previous members of our team. We are very proud of our history of making people happy, advancing their careers and contributing to their financial success.
The allegations of anti-Semitic jokes are also addressed indirectly:
In closing, we recognize the irony that we – an Austrian and Israeli Jew – started this multicultural enterprise. We see each other as brothers. And like brothers, we often argue and tease each other. We have joked at our own expense about our different backgrounds – and there may have been times when our quips came across as callous and made other people uncomfortable.
Also internally one should have reacted: GamesBeat reports that corporate leadership held a roughly 30-minute private meeting with the current team, during which Mahler and Korol commented on the allegations and offered the workforce an anonymous feedback system.
Microsoft reacts and terminates cooperation
The serious allegations have already had consequences for Moon Studios. Because Microsoft has ended the cooperation with the developer, after having previously managed the two Ori games as a publisher. This begs the question: did Microsoft know about the allegations?
GamesBeat describes the relationship between Moon Studios and the Xbox Group based on its own report as difficult. In the course of the ten-year cooperation, deadlines were often missed, which led to release delays. The fear was always present in the team that the money supply from Redmond could be turned off at some point and the project could be put on hold.
According to a developer, Microsoft also knew about the conditions, but the contractual situation did not allow it to help the workforce.
For the new project, codenamed Forsaken, Moon Studios partnered with Private Division, a subsidiary of Take Two.
Sony is also currently under criticism: There is a lawsuit against the Japanese company that revolves around gender discrimination. We have summarized for you what exactly it is about and what the current status is.
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