Jamison Stone & Satine Phoenix's Apotheosis Studio To Wind Down [UPDATED]

After being accused of abusive behaviour towards freelancers and co-workers, the game company run by D&D influencer Satine Phoenix and her husband Jamison Stone, is to enter a 'reduced capacity' mode.

After the accusations were made, Jamison Stone resigned as CEO; after a couple of weeks he was added back to the company's staff page, saying that he was never actually removed but merely taking personal time while Apotheosis Studio conducted an investigation.

In a draft of a recent statement obtained by Dicebreaker, Stone indicated that the results of this investigations were that the 'vast majority' of the accusations made were 'factually inaccurate'. He went on to discuss the ramifications of 'cancel culture', although the statement was updated to rephrase that as 'extreme changes'. Other than the initial apology to tattooist Chad Rowe, Stone has indicated that no further apologies will be forthcoming.

“The rest of the team now has completed those investigations and found that while some individuals had legitimate complaints, the vast majority of the allegations to date levelled against Jameson and others on our team have been proven to be factually inaccurate. We believe that people should be shown compassion, given the opportunity to write their wrongs and grow as individuals.”

As for the company itself, it will finish fulfilling existing Kickstarter projects. It will not be accepting requests to cancel and refund pledges for existing funded Kickstarters, and noted that most of the freelancers and contributors have been paid. When asked about the company's future, Stone said "As it stands - and I don’t know what the future will hold - it’s just a company that is there. It just exists and sells books. Some of my books, some books by other people. It will sell The Red Opera and eventually sirens. All of the people who are there are just contracted at this point."

A statement is expected to come soon from Apotheosis.

UPDATE -- Apotheosis Studio's statement has arrived:

Thank you for your patience. We have had a lot of questions about the future of Apotheosis Studios, its team, and our projects. While Jamison Stone did step down as CEO to take personal time while Apotheosis Studios did an internal investigation on the allegations brought forth by numerous individuals, we in no way claimed that we were removing Jamison from the company. Having completed our internal investigation, we have found that while some individuals had legitimate complaints, the vast majority of the allegations to date levied against Jamison and others on our team have been proven to be inaccurate. Jamison will directly address major allegations and misinformation within the month.

We at Apotheosis Studios do not support abuse in any form. We believe in accountability and the ability for everyone to reflect, learn from their mistakes, grow, and be given the opportunity to show what they’ve learned by actively being better through action. We encourage everyone to stand up for themselves in compassionate ways with the hope to make things better so no one has to live in fear. It is in this honesty that we can learn from one another and each be better for ourselves, our families, and our communities while not furthering abuse, bullying, harassment, and other dehumanizing behaviors.

Sirens: Battle of the Bards will be delayed while those who are still working on the project deal with the ramifications of the extreme changes that we have had to make due to this situation. We will be sending out merchandise that we already have in hand for US backers first. Sirens: Battle of the Bards is 90% finished and its contractors have been paid, therefore refunds will not be issued. We will provide additional updates on fulfillment as we know more.

Because there seems to have been some confusion regarding the nature of our operations, we wish to state again that payments to writers started in March 2022 and as new invoices were received, we processed them promptly. All artists and contractors who have completed their work and were authorized for billing have been paid. The only remaining work is rewrites, editing, and layout. This, as stated above, will take longer than originally planned.

For reference: we had the following number of contractors working on this project:

• Writers - 22 writers. Paid 10 cents per word
• Artists - 4. Paid monthly or per image
• Graphic Designer - 1. Paid monthly
• Layout artist - Paid monthly, even when not working on a project
• Musicians - 2. Paid promptly per song
• Sculptor - 1. Paid promptly per sculpt

The Sirens writing Deadline was Oct 31. Approval passes started in November. Unfortunately, the approval passes took longer than expected which pushed out approval for the contractors to bill by 3-4 months. Billing authorization was issued in March of 2022 and we promptly paid all invoices properly submitted to our accountant.

For this project, we provided templates for Adventure Chapters with an 8,450 words max budget. 9 of 22 chapters were over word count

• 4 over by 1000 words
• 1 over by 3700 words
• 2 over by 4750 words
• 1 over by 7000 words

Despite the fact that many chapters were over the word counts outlined the writers were paid for the overages after appropriate approval. Writers whose writing was not used were still authorized to bill us and were paid 10 cents per word.

For those of you who have reached out with constructive feedback, we greatly appreciate your support and patience. We will have further updates as more information becomes available.

Sarah Urfer

 

[mythago]

Enforcing agreements costs money- a lot of money. Which means that contracts often just memorialize power differentials; the party with more power can demand the more favorable terms, and the party with more money can choose to litigate it or breach it.

It also means that bad actors take "what are the odds the other person would try to enforce this, and would win if they did?" into account when entering into contracts, and in their business practices generally.

Because sure, anybody can, in theory, file a small-claims court complaint for the price of a moderately expensive lunch. But the cost of filing an initial complaint (even in small claims court) is the easiest hurdle in trying to enforce a contract - especially if we're crossing state lines, and if we take into account the opportunity cost of preparing and continuing with a lawsuit without a lawyer (as you do in small claims court), or of hiring a lawyer and proceeding with litigation (as you do otherwise). And nothing prevents the bad actor from filing their own lawsuit, frivolous or otherwise, as a counterclaim or a separate proceeding.

TL;DR - defensive attribution is no way to discuss business disputes.

 

[Voadam]

If it is $8 billion a year (hard to believe, really), then it isn't being sorted out.

Doing a quick search the top hits I get on "how much wage theft is there in the US"

Estimates vary.

Social Justice Resource Center "Nationally it is estimated that workers are not paid at least $19 billion every year in overtime and that $40 billion to $60 billion is not paid due to all forms of wage theft. This compares to national annual losses of $340 million due to robbery, $4 billion due to burglary, $5 billion due to larceny, and $3 billion due to auto theft."

EPI "Wage theft is a nationwide epidemic that costs American workers as much as $50 billion a year, a new Economic Policy Institute report finds. In An Epidemic of Wage Theft Is Costing Workers Hundreds of Millions of Dollars a Year, EPI Vice President Ross Eisenbrey and EPI intern Brady Meixell examine incidences of wage theft—employers’ failure to pay workers money they are legally entitled to—across the country. The total amount of money recovered for the victims of wage theft who retained private lawyers or complained to federal or state agencies was at least $933 million in 2012, almost three times greater than all the money stolen in robberies that year. However, since most victims never report wage theft and never sue, the real cost of wage theft to workers is much greater, and could be closer to $50 billion a year." also "The authors also conducted a study of workers in low-wage industries in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles and found that in any given week, two-thirds experienced at least one pay-related violation. They estimate that the average loss per worker over the course of a year was $2,634, out of total earnings of $17,616. The total annual wage theft from front-line workers in low-wage industries in the three cities approached $3 billion. If these findings are generalizable to the rest of the U.S. low-wage workforce of 30 million, wage theft is costing workers more than $50 billion a year."

Golan Law - Employee Rights Law Firm "When you consider the most common form of theft, you may think of a whole range of activities, from grand theft auto to home invasions and burglaries. You may also think of different types of financial crime, such as a small business being victimized by theft.
It is certainly true that these things happen, but none of them are the biggest type of theft in the United States. That “honor” goes to wage theft, which outpaces all of these other issues significantly. The financial impact on workers in the U.S. cannot be understated. Some estimates put it around $15 billion annually. "

Here is the Wikipedia Wage Theft article.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Doing a quick search the top hits I get on "how much wage theft is there in the US"

Estimates vary.

Good sourcing. The trouble is that we know it is massive but also that it is difficult to estimate. I think it is instructive that the amount recovered in 2012 by private attorneys as approximately $1 billion; now, think of all the wage theft that doesn't get to the point of litigation (or is even known about). That's what makes it so hard to estimate ... although I think that if you combine all the various type of wage theft, you'd end up at the highest end of those ranges (40-60 billion).

Primary forms of wage theft include, but are not limited to:
1. Failure to pay overtime at all, or incorrectly.
2. Classification of employees as "exempt" (salaried) when they should be paid hourly.
3. Classification of employees as independent contractors.
4. Tip theft (this takes all sorts of forms- but usually involves sharing part, or all, of the tip with the employer).
5. Forcing employees to pay for things that the employer is not legally allowed to.
6. Forcing employees to do work "off the clock."
7. Failure to abide by minimum wage laws.

And, again, this doesn't include independent contractors getting ripped off (as appears to be the case here, until public outcry changed things).

 

[Umbran]

Doing a quick search the top hits I get on "how much wage theft is there in the US"

Estimates vary.

Yeah, I did a similar search and took a lower-end estimate just for sake of being cautious on a topic I'm not an expert in.

 

[Jd Smith1]

"You didn't preemptively defend yourself hard enough, so you are not a victim"? Is that what you mean?

That's not what I said, so no, its not what I mean.

As noted above, those "facts" don't hold up to scrutiny. Please try different "facts".

I haven't seen any evidence that using contracts is not a solution. Nor any other solution offered that did not boil down to casual talk on social media.

I'm offering a real life, viable solution to the problem. Why is anyone against this?

You are asserting they were stupid, but have apparently neglected the possibility that they were simply ignorant (these are artists, not business people, after all), or under pressures that you, not being in their position, do not understand.

There is, in US courts, a simple rule: ignorance of the law is not a defense.

If they're setting out on the track to be a contractor, they really ought to devote a little time to actually finding out what contracting means. Especially if they need the money. Even a casual examination of a state's civil law, available free on line for all 50 states, will establish the fact that contractors operate by different rules than employees.

The simple fact remains that unless a contractor uses a valid contract format, they will be vulnerable to the type of financial loss described in the thread. This is a valid practice, and good advice.

 

[Gradine]

The question then becomes:
If the payer in question realizes that their contractors are unaware of their legal rights and uses that knowledge to take advantage of their contractors, is the payer acting morally or ethically?

 

[MGibster]

Legally binding contracts are wonderful, but they don't offer any guarantees. This is where the concept of "breach of contract" comes up. And sure, you can sue for breach of contract, but it takes time, effort and money, and you're still not guaranteed a favourable outcome.

I think you'll find that the entire point of a contract is that they offer guarantees. "Evil Game Company will pay contractor X amount for work delivered by Y date." You have a breach of contract when one of those guarantees isn't met. I realize where you're coming from, just because you have a contract doesn't necessarily mean the terms will be honored, but they still offer guarantees.

 

[Dioltach]

Pretty sure that a contract creates rights and obligations, not necessarily guarantees. As in, there is no guarantee that the obligations will be fulfilled. If an obligation goes unfulfilled there is no guarantee that you can enforce your rights. Claimants in an insolvency rarely recover the full amount of their claim, for example.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

The question then becomes:
If the payer in question realizes that their contractors are unaware of their legal rights and uses that knowledge to take advantage of their contractors, is the payer acting morally or ethically?

I think that the world would be much improved if people would stop focusing on, "What can I get away with," and instead focus on, "What is the right thing to do."

 

[Umbran]

That's not what I said, so no, its not what I mean.

That is what it amounted to - by your own writing, if they failed to use a contract they aren't victims. You seem to be blaming those who were treated badly for not having protected themselves better.

If that's not what you intend... well, maybe you need to step back a bit and think on your approach to the discussion.

I haven't seen any evidence that using contracts is not a solution.

Several have noted that defending a contract takes resources - they won't be a solution for anyone who hasn't got the resources to take it to court. Do you deny seeing these, or do you deny that they constitute "evidence"?

And, you haven't seen evidence? Earlier this morning (about 6:45 AM), you yourself wrote about how out-of-state contractors could be particularly vulnerable. You have deleted that since, but it amounts to recognition that contracts aren't all that reliable as a solution. That rather belies this statement, so maybe you'd like to retract it?

Nor any other solution offered that did not boil down to casual talk on social media.

This thread isn't, "Solutions for contractors who get screwed," so folks didn't think that was a requirement.

I'm offering a real life, viable solution to the problem. Why is anyone against this?

They aren't against normalizing the industry to have better contracts.

They are against you 1) speaking of contracts as if they were a silver bullet, when they are not, and 2) insulting people who you've never met, and whose situation you know in only the barest of sketches.

To be clear - sure, normalizing better contracts in the industry would be a good idea. But as a practical matter, contractors can only demand them when they are unified, and in a position with a bit of power. We, the consumers, can be part of that power. But that requires we know the situation too - that "casual conversation" you refer to is part of the process.