Evil Genius Games bleeding personnel?

[Umbran]

There's a sketchy vibe here, but to be honest it's coming from you...

Mod Note:
Making this personal is going to be a highly effective way to get yourself ejected from this conversation.

 

[sigfried]

If that were true, sweatshops could not exist and Ebenezer Scrooge would not be a well-recognized archetype.

Fair point.

 

[Kitsune]

Scare words? What words are they supposed to use? How is someone supposed to accurately describe their experiences if they aren't allowed to use words that describe what they are feeling?

Those phrases were absolutely loaded ones and could have been replaced with something more neutral unless the writer was intentionally trying to paint the other party in a bad light. I will explain:
"I left due to the ethics of management" = "The company is doing something unethical"
"I am treating the traumatized employees" = "The company did something very bad to the employees to cause trauma"
Both of those statements are indirect accusations of extreme misconduct and wildly unprofessional to publicly make unless you've got something to back them up. And if there was extreme misconduct:

because they can't. As has been explained a few times why earlier.

They certainly can, NDAs cannot prohibit an employee from revealing that a company is committing crimes. I'm assuming here that an NDA is in place from the dropped hints that the ex-employees are legally constrained from talking, as the only lawsuit concern from talking trash about your old boss online without an NDA in place is if you were going to commit defamation or libel.

And there it is. There's a sketchy vibe here, but to be honest it's coming from you, because you seem to be ascribing selfish and vindictive motivations to these folks without any proof. Which is pretty ironic considering what you just said about "zero details or proof of anything."...

The burden of providing proof is upon the party that's making accusations. The owner and other employees who showed up in this thread didn't say a single negative thing about those who left.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

They certainly can, NDAs cannot prohibit an employee from revealing that a company is committing crimes. I'm assuming here that an NDA is in place from the dropped hints that the ex-employees are legally constrained from talking, as the only lawsuit concern from talking trash about your old boss online without an NDA in place is if you were going to commit defamation or libel.

If you are unfamiliar with NDAs, then you probably would do best to avoid speculating about what they do, and do not, cover on the internet.

Making a blanket statement (such as the one you did above) that is not accurate does not help. NDAs (and more specifically confidentiality agreements) are just contracts, and while contracts that are themselves illegal (such as a contract to kill someone) are unenforceable, and other contracts may be void as against public policy, and still others may be subject to statute (The Speak Out Act), the actual contours of what constitutes a permissible disclosure, and what constitutes a crime, are not something that any reasonable employee would deal with on their own.

Shorter version- what you said is incorrect, and I have no idea why you are so determined to attack employees who resigned on principle.

 

[aco175]

@NativeDev welcome to the site. Like I said to the other one, hope you stay around longer than just this thread and contribute in other areas.

 

[JLowder]

So, something folk seem to miss - managing a business, and managing personnel, are full professional skillsets in their own right! Being good game designer (or a lawyer, or a doctor, or having any other professional skillset) does not include the skillsets for running a business around same.

They aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, either. You can do both, but doing both well means you understand that they are different skill sets.

And while the creator-who-didn't-understand-business-and-lost/destroyed-their-company has been a major theme in TTRPG publishing history, the reverse has also been true and is currently a much bigger problem in the market. It's sadly common for people with business backgrounds to think their experience gives them full knowledge of all businesses and markets. So you end up with VPs at TSR in the mid-90s who knew how to run, say, a battery company and knew nothing about publishing, let alone hobby publishing, let alone fantasy game hobby publishing, and assumed you could force the fantasy game hobby publisher to run like a battery manufacturer, with disastrous results. It doesn't even have to be that great a mismatch in experience. The person who crashed parts of the TSR fiction publishing program in the mid-90s had done good things in New York in fantasy fiction publishing circles, but failed to translate that specific experience to the hobby game market.

Knowing the market or the product as a consumer isn't enough, either. In fact, that can make you reistant to listening to the creative professionals, the people with the skill sets and experience to create and publish the games you may have played. This last is a common problem in the TTRPG market right now.

 

[Umbran]

They aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, either. You can do both, but doing both well means you understand that they are different skill sets.

Correct. And if you get your training in the management skillsets by doing, you are very likely going to have significant gaps.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Knowing the market or the product as a consumer isn't enough, either. In fact, that can make you reistant to listening to the creative professionals, the people with the skill sets and experience to create and publish the games you may have played. This last is a common problem in the TTRPG market right now.

In fairness, it's not just the TTRPG market; it's all markets that are focused on creative talents.

The disputes between the creatives and the business-side in Hollywood, for example, are legendary.

 

[Noven]

@NativeDev welcome to the site. Like I said to the other one, hope you stay around longer than just this thread and contribute in other areas.

Been a member of the board forever and this thread caused me to post for my first (and now second) time.

 

[JLowder]

In fairness, it's not just the TTRPG market; it's all markets that are focused on creative talents.

The disputes between the creatives and the business-side in Hollywood, for example, are legendary.

Absolutely. Because barrier of entry is lower for TTRPGs than other media operations, it's more common for the leadership mismatch, but failure to understand how to work with creative talent is a very common business problem wherever the arts intersect with commerce. The esoteric nature of print publishing and distribution, especailly in the book trade, is a learning curve multiplier in the TTRPG market, as well. Part of the reason Hasbro, even with all their resources, let the fiction program at Wizards wither was they knew they did not have the experience or clout in the book trade they neeed (or wanted) to succeed there.