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

 

[Deset Gled]

Because power brings responsibility, and if kickstarter CAN force refunds or blackball creators then on day one they're going to be deluged by a million takedown/refund requests - many of which are valid, many of which will just be vendetta-driven or lowlifes trying to gain the system for some sort of political reason, and many of which will be ambiguous or disputed.

It feels weirdly on topic to say it, but I really loved my Ouya and used it for a few years before eventually upgrading away from it.

 

[Malmuria]

Unsure if you are being unironic or not, but I do think this may become necessary, or indeed has been necessary all along and Kickstarter has mostly gotten away with it; I do think there should be consequences for those acting in clear bad faith and, while full refunds may not be appropriate or possible in all cases, Kickstarter should do something to perhaps ease things with backers who took risk on something that they were mislead by or were lied about or did not receive because the creators did not act in good faith.

I recognise however that sometimes the lines can be blurry between some kickstarters that failed for legitimate reasons and some that did not.

not being ironic! Crowdfunding platforms should have increased regulation. They are ambiguously between investment platforms and web stores except you can buy something and it might just never arrive. Kickstarter won’t do anything in its own without at least the threat of consumer regulation

I've been burned (to the tune of a couple hundred dollars) by a few Kickstarters that haven't fulfilled - all by the same company. (Which you can read about here: Blacklist Miniatures Fantasy Set 1 - Failed $1M Kickstarter)
That's on me. I will be more selective about projects in the future - backing companies I trust or not going in so expensive.
The best thing we can do is to educate ourselves (and others) about problematic creators and poor business decisions.

In kickstarter, you are being asked to invest in a company or project yet are nit provided with any information to assess your risks. Kickstarters now have a boilerplate-ish “risks” section that is just the company’s word that they’ll try their best. Most of the page is a very long advertisement with images of pledge tiers and stretch goals.

 

[Umbran]

not being ironic! Crowdfunding platforms should have increased regulation. They are ambiguously between investment platforms and web stores except you can buy something and it might just never arrive. Kickstarter won’t do anything in its own without at least the threat of consumer regulation

Three's nothing really ambiguous about it - Kickstarter makes very clear that they give no guarantees that projects will complete and deliver what was promised. If they say, "no guarantees from us" and you say, "Yeah, but I wanna do it anyway," that should not become Kickstarter's responsibility. You are an adult, and get to make your own choices about risk.

The platform exists to allow risky projects to at least try. Since they are risky, they may well fail. If you aren't into that risk, you shouldn't buy from Kickstarter.

Expecting (or forcing) Kickstarter to take responsibility (which in commerce means financial burden) would lead to them having to vet projects before they are listed, and control project execution. That would kill the platform.

If there's a form of redress, it may be in an class-action lawsuit against J&P to force refunds. But again, the clear and direct statement of risk likely protects them as well.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Part of it is, I suspect, more hubris on their part. "Well, you're all ditching us, so we're going to prove how little we need you by redoing it all ourselves." Either that or they have been misleading backers from the start about the progress - it's been clear for months that it wasn't going to be anywhere near making the original delivery date, even before the public relations catastrophe.

Not surprised it was tone deaf. Both Jamison and Phoenix seem to have little self-awareness. But yeah everyone has a right to be furious. They obviously fraudulently claimed this product was much further along then it ever has been, and done so at multiple points. A product that was supposed to be released in late 2021 should have had all the writing and editing done.

 

[Umbran]

They obviously fraudulently claimed this product was much further along then it ever has been, and done so at multiple points.

Unless they did it before the kickstarter closed it probably isn't fraudulent.

Fraud is misleading intended to result in financial gain. After the kickstarter closed, lying to you about the project's status doesn't get them any more money.

 

[jerryrice4949]

Unless they did it before the kickstarter closed it probably isn't fraudulent.

Fraud is misleading intended to result in financial gain. After the kickstarter closed, lying to you about the project's status doesn't get them any more money.

From Websters:

Definition of fraudulent​

: characterized by, based on, or done by fraud : DECEITFUL

 

[billd91]

Fraudulent by common vocabulary, but probably not fraudulent by legal vocabulary.

 

[Umbran]

From Websters:

Definition of fraudulent​

: characterized by, based on, or done by fraud : DECEITFUL

Did you not click through to your own cited definition of "fraud"?

The first definition there? "Intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value or to surrender a legal right." So, kind of supporting my point there.

And, in a discussion of regulation or getting compensation, the legal definition is far more relevant as well.

 

[Morrus]

I always say that once a conversation has devolved to the point where people are posting definitions of words from the dictionary, it’s pretty much over. There should be one of those internet laws named after that!

 

[jerryrice4949]

Did you not click through to your own cited definition of "fraud"?

The first definition there? "Intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value or to surrender a legal right." So, kind of supporting my point there.

And, in a discussion of regulation or getting compensation, the legal definition is far more relevant as well.

We will obviously have to agree to disagree. You know what I meant and how the word is used in common culture. Let’s not hijack the thread.