Last week, several Starbound developers accused the Chucklefish studio of non-payments. The company commented on their statements.
Recall that several people said that the studio did not pay them hundreds of hours of work on the game. We are talking about non-payments to dozens of employees. Damon Reece raised a wave of accusations, and Rho Wattson was one of those who supported him. Artist Christine Crossley and composer Clark Powell also spoke about the studio’s attempts to leave them without payment.
But, as Chucklefish explained, many of the people who worked on the project were “willing participants.” There were also those who signed a contract with the studio, and their work, according to the studio, was paid in accordance with its terms. Voluntary participants were not forced to create content for Starbound.
“We are aware of and saddened by the ongoing allegations against Chucklefish regarding the development of Starbound,” the studio said in a statement. — During the development of the ak, the main team and voluntary participants collaborated via chat and gave their time to the game for free. They were not required to create content, adhere to a deadline and work a certain number of hours.”
Such an approach is called unethical by the developers accusing the studio, writes Eurogamer. In particular, Damon Rees claims that volunteers were promised to be employed in Chucklefish in the future.
Many were “naive newcomers to the industry” (Rees also includes himself among them). And when Starbound came out, it turned out that a lot of content in it was created by the hands of volunteers. “Regardless of whether a contract has been signed, it is extremely unethical to allow employees to create content in a huge volume without any payment,” Rees is sure.
Artist Ro Wattson told about the contract system in Chuklefish in a similar way. She also stated that volunteers were tempted by future positions and salaries.
“Those who were passionate about the game and wanted to help with its development were given a “standard participant contract,” supposedly “standard for the industry,” she said. — Simply put, you either signed it and joined the work, or left. Some were only too happy to sacrifice their time just to see their content in the game. But the majority wanted to earn a paid position, and they signed this contract, thereby refusing compensation for labor.”
These people are particularly dissatisfied with the fact that Starbound became a hit and allowed the studio management to “earn millions of dollars at someone else’s expense.”
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