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

 

[J.Quondam]

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!

Layne's Law, see sub-definition C:

Layne's law - Coined by software developer Layne Thomas, Layne's law of debate states that: ​

A) every debate is over the definition of a word, ​

B) every debate eventually degenerates into debating the definition of a word, or ​

C) once a debate degenerates into debating the definition of a word, the debate is debatably over. A notable example of this law may be the arguments over the definition of "assault weapon" in the gun control debate.[7]​

source
.

 

[Teo Twawki]

Most banks only do transaction reversals within a couple months. This is far beyond the timeframe any bank could/would act.

Claims of fraudulent transactions don't expire after a couple months. Just depends on the bank. e.g. personal experience: Well's Fargo won't block recent fraudulent transactions, but ING and PNC have both helped out with problematic charges more than a year after the fact.

Nothing you just said contradicts what I said. I don’t know if was supposed to.

No, it wasn't. Just expounding, not contradicting.

we don't want those institutions to have that sort of power.

Ample evidence to suggest they already do.

 

[MGibster]

Admittedly, I tend to use Kickstarter as a pre-ordering system. If I put money into it, I expect a product to be delivered. I understand that this isn't always promised given that they have reams of warnings before you send in your money. I think eventually the Federal Trade Commission will have to step in if Kickstarter and similar websites continue to grow.

 

[Malmuria]

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.

I'll have to research more into this, but I think there are likely common sense ways that crowdfunding platforms can and should be regulated. Kickstarter may ostensibly be an investment platform but companies seem to use it as a preorder store; certainly the consumer-facing portion of a given kickstarter looks more like a webstore giving a false sense of security when people decide to back.

I see kickstarters that are in trouble often provide financial information to backers to explain their situation. Why can't something like this be required upfront, to the extent that is feasible? Instead of the boilerplate text at the bottom of a kickstarter that says "well we can't control shipping delays due to covid" etc, there could be more detailed information about whether the kickstarter has found a printer, how they plan to deal with distribution, if they have back up plans, etc. Basically, if when you back a kickstarter you are investing in a company or project, perhaps you should have access to all the information you would want to have if you were buying a share in that company.

Again, I'm just thinking out loud here; I haven't researched regulations that actually exist and I'm not a publisher myself. I just get the feeling that the platform is becoming increasingly anti-consumer.

 

[jerryrice4949]

I'll have to research more into this, but I think there are likely common sense ways that crowdfunding platforms can and should be regulated. Kickstarter may ostensibly be an investment platform but companies seem to use it as a preorder store; certainly the consumer-facing portion of a given kickstarter looks more like a webstore giving a false sense of security when people decide to back.

I see kickstarters that are in trouble often provide financial information to backers to explain their situation. Why can't something like this be required upfront, to the extent that is feasible? Instead of the boilerplate text at the bottom of a kickstarter that says "well we can't control shipping delays due to covid" etc, there could be more detailed information about whether the kickstarter has found a printer, how they plan to deal with distribution, if they have back up plans, etc. Basically, if when you back a kickstarter you are investing in a company or project, perhaps you should have access to all the information you would want to have if you were buying a share in that company.

Again, I'm just thinking out loud here; I haven't researched regulations that actually exist and I'm not a publisher myself. I just get the feeling that the platform is becoming increasingly anti-consumer.

While that would not have helped in this particular case. It would be fantastic if KS required financial information about the product to be disclosed at launch.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

This has been mentioned already, but I think it bears repeating that the scale at which Kickstarter operates makes it completely impossible for them to chase down individual campaign creators for refunds, or more likely to sue all of them. To do so would kill any profits on their part, choke the courts in countries all over the world, and make it extremely unappealing for campaign creators, since that kind of enforcement mechanism would lure ungodly amounts of bad faith complaints.

So really if you're looking for Kickstarter to be somehow forced to become a global litigation machine in order to avoid the occasional loss of your $50 to some unsavory character, you're basically just saying KS shouldn't exist. And whatever issues there are with KS, I think the hobby is immensely better for it existing.

 

[Staffan]

While that would not have helped in this particular case. It would be fantastic if KS required financial information about the product to be disclosed at launch.

If nothing else, that would require creators to actually think about these things beforehand instead of going "What do you mean I have to pay taxes?"

 

[Morrus]

While that would not have helped in this particular case. It would be fantastic if KS required financial information about the product to be disclosed at launch.

What financial information? I don’t understand this comment.

 

[Malmuria]

This has been mentioned already, but I think it bears repeating that the scale at which Kickstarter operates makes it completely impossible for them to chase down individual campaign creators for refunds, or more likely to sue all of them. To do so would kill any profits on their part, choke the courts in countries all over the world, and make it extremely unappealing for campaign creators, since that kind of enforcement mechanism would lure ungodly amounts of bad faith complaints.

So really if you're looking for Kickstarter to be somehow forced to become a global litigation machine in order to avoid the occasional loss of your $50 to some unsavory character, you're basically just saying KS shouldn't exist. And whatever issues there are with KS, I think the hobby is immensely better for it existing.

I'm not sure; what you are saying here bears a family resemblance to the argument that regulation kills business. I don't think that's the case, and I think there are regulations that can be imposed on investment transactions, crowdfunding included, that would make business more secure (and more ethical) without making it impossible. Simple things can include enumerating a more robust set of information requirements for projects, and displaying them more prominently on the page. These requirements could even be tiered on the front end or back end: projects that are asking for more money, and/or involve more stretch goals, and/or raise more money get more scrutiny (i.e., the $2500 kickstarter for a zine is less of a concern than the $1M for miniatures). Governments regulate commerce at this level all the time, but are just slow to adapt to new technologies. Like I said, maybe there are regulations in place, I haven't researched the issue fully

 

[Malmuria]

What financial information? I don’t understand this comment.

Perhaps something like what the Blacklist Miniature project recently offered, but as a projection. This way, potential backers could know what the plan for expenditures was going to be

Blacklist Miniatures Fantasy Set 1 - Failed $1M Kickstarter

I thought this might be relevant to post here, not to slam on the company or to complain about my experience. It's more of a lesson learned for me, and I know some of you on this board like talking about the hobby industry. I love collecting and painting miniatures - even if I don't get to have...

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