After filing a lawsuit against Krafton, Charlie Cleveland, Max McGuire, and Ted Gill are now being sued by their former employer for purportedly making off with reams of confidential information including business records, intellectual property, and more.
The wildest thing to me about this whole thing is that the company says one of the three founders took company money to invest in a personal film project, but when you look into what film project they are referring to, it is an ad campaign for subnautica 2 that the company itself told him to make.
I’m really sad to watch this slow-motion train crash continue to play out. Subnautica 2 was a guaranteed hit thanks to the strength of the first game, and somehow the new studio owners have completely fucked that to pieces. Truly a masterclass in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
But why sell out? They had a guaranteed hit on their hands why did they need to sell the IP to a publisher and not just any publisher but one with a history of ruining good projects.
This is why you don’t sell out to
alterakrafton.Almost feels like an elaborate (and nerdy) satirical skit of some sort.
I’m sad to see it happen to Last Epoch too. Both great games, both Krafton owned now. Truly sad…
They had one of the coolest games with a lot of faithful fans and they blew it all up by selling out to a shitty company that is focused on squeezing properties for more and more money.
The only people I have sympathy for are the fans.
and the developers ! the little hands ! the ones that, uh… make the game ! some class solidarity
In addition, the company […] wants to be awarded all rights, title and interest in any intellectual property developed by Cleveland, McGuire, and Gill during their employment at Unknown Worlds, including “all movie scripts, movie footage, game design, game code, play tests, or other software development.”
Ugh.
That’s a fairly standard thing.
That’s why if you are ever developing anything you never do it on company computers, it’s always on your own devices and on your own time. Yet time and time again supposedly smart people load up their side project on work computers.
Somewhat depending on national laws then well yeah that’s usually what you agree to by becoming employed.
In some places that’s legal. In no places is that moral
this is ZA/UM all over again
I’m going to wait on the outcome of these lawsuits and the discovery process before I lean one way or the other.
