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

 

[billd91]

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

Complex issue. All business regulations are, in some way, burdensome - they're supposed to be in the sense that they require the business to undertake efforts that they otherwise would ignore as too costly. We just accept them based on how important they are to us as customers or members of society. For example, most of us consider product safety regulations an important bulwark for safe food and drugs rather than being stuck buying milk laced with formaldehyde or seeing more soldiers killed by their tainted food than by enemy bullets.

It's when the stakes are relatively small compared to the burden that I think the argument that regulations may not be the answer can be strong. And, in this case, the stakes are pretty small, all things considered. That doesn't mean Kickstarter couldn't take on the burden of some kind of greater scrutiny of campaigns on their platform, particularly when certain thresholds are reached, complaints reach a certain level, the fulfillment goes on and on and on... With enough high-profile failures or controversy, it might be in Kickstarter's best interest as a consumer protection move. But I think it would be really hard for a government to well-tailor a decent set of regulations for any possible configuration of crowdfunding platform.

 

[Morrus]

That doesn't mean Kickstarter couldn't take on the burden of some kind of greater scrutiny of campaigns on their platform, particularly when certain thresholds are reached, complaints reach a certain level, the fulfillment goes on and on and on...

Kickstarter process pledges funds in 2 weeks. After that, what could they possibly do? Sue creators on backers' behalf using international courts to claim back funds? That turns them into an entirely different business.

They could refuse to work with certain creators again. That's pretty much all they can do once they've paid out the funds after two weeks.

 

[billd91]

They could refuse to work with certain creators again. That's pretty much all they can do once they've paid out the funds after two weeks.

Doing so might have kept people from being victims of Ken Whitman's Kickstarter campaign shenanigans. So, yeah, I'm for that and for having some guidelines for when they start considering putting people on that blacklist and evaluating problematic campaigns with that in mind.

 

[Morrus]

Doing so might have kept people from being victims of Ken Whitman's Kickstarter campaign shenanigans. So, yeah, I'm for that and for having some guidelines for when they start considering putting people on that blacklist and evaluating problematic campaigns with that in mind.

They have some strict rules about approving new campaigns based on past fufillment. Even I've had trouble sometimes, and I'm Mr Instant Fulfillment. If you don't fulfill campaigns they won't approve new ones. I don't see what else they could really do.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

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

I'm certainly not against regulating businesses. But there are such immensely more damaging and rapacious industries and companies out there in need of regulations, ones actively destroying lives and our climate, that by the time Kickstarter would make sense to target we'll all be fighting for water outside the Thunderdome. I don't support lumping this discussion in with a general regulation debate. The stakes are so incredibly low here, by comparison. Just not even in the same conversation, imo.

So if we can agree not to talk in generalities, then let's get into specifics. How do you go about determining if the government should spend resources regulating KS? And not just one government, but essentially all of them, since creators can hail from just about anywhere? Given that, as @Umbran pointed out, KS heaps on the disclaimers about the site not being a store and projects not being guaranteed—including making you click a box saying you understand that specific point—by what authority can any federal agency act? And what sort of damages to the public would warrant that? And if a worldwide task force were to be formed, what sort of legislation would be required?

But really, I think the main question is, is any of that colossal effort and use of resources worth it? What is the scale of the damages being incurred by non-delivery of KS rewards? You don't buy cars on KS, or boats. RPG Kickstarters have backer counts in the thousands. Meanwhile, agencies are struggling to regulate businesses with customers in the millions.

Seemingly fraudulent (though good luck proving that in court) TTRPG Kickstarters suck, but it doesn't get more small-fries. It's a teensy tiny industry. Regulators will, or should, always have bigger things to worry about.

 

[Malmuria]

Looking into it a little bit, it seems like there have been a few instances of the FTC prosecuting crowdfunded projects, though mostly sticking to cases where they can prove fraud:

Federal regulators go after crowdfunding scams on Kickstarter and GoFundMe

WASHINGTON — Federal regulators are going after people who raise money online through crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and GoFundMe but don't follow through on their promises.

www.pbs.org

Perpetrators of Crowdfunding Fraud Can't Hide From The Law Forever

For years, crowdfunding has been a bit like the Wild West of finance. But as the industry continues to grow, state and federal authorities are catching up to abusers of the system.

www.entrepreneur.com

The government says this backpack is a fraud, but the creator says he’s just a failure

This smart backpack was Doug Monahan’s dumbest idea.

www.theverge.com

From that Verge article:

As much as aggrieved backers don’t like the reality that they might never receive a product, the FTC has mostly avoided interfering with crowdfunding. The agency only once previously investigated a creator, Erik Chevalier, who raised more than $122,000 for a board game and later sold backers’ data to outside firms. The game never shipped. The FTC settled with Chevalier for close to $112,000 and ordered him to stop disclosing or benefitting from customers’ personal information.

Critically, the FTC said at the time that it accepted the core idea of crowdfunding and the risks involved, but it wanted to ensure backers’ money actually went toward a product — and that creators didn’t run off with it.

 

[Sacrosanct]

From that Verge article:

Ah, that crook moved here to Portland. We don't want you, dude lol. Seriously, though, that is a clear violation of KS to share any information of backers to anyone else. In fact, before you can even launch a project, you have to explicitly agree that the backer report will only be used to fulfill rewards. After a year, you can't even get access to the backer report any longer from KS.

*also, they settled for $112K, but he never had to pay it. It was "indefinitely suspended due to lack of ability to pay."

 

[Retreater]

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

So that was the one I got burned on. On paper, before the project began, Blacklist should've been ok to deliver. It was the stretch goals, mismanagement, and unexpected expenses related to the pandemic (though I think the first two reasons had the largest effect.) That's stuff that can't be put in an investor prospectus - which seems to be what you're wanting on Kickstarter.
And on paper, Stone & Phoenix's project would've looked ok. Both were recognized names who have produced content before. A decent work ethic, good business practices, and professional behavior - and this project could've been done by now. I've seen people with far fewer resources make better products in a quicker turnaround.
For your prospectus, before investing in a project, take a look at what's been released before. Look at ENPublishing. Look at Izegrim Creations. These folks are making good products.

 

[aramis erak]

They have some strict rules about approving new campaigns based on past fufillment. Even I've had trouble sometimes, and I'm Mr Instant Fulfillment. If you don't fulfill campaigns they won't approve new ones. I don't see what else they could really do.

And yet, Kenneth "Whit" Whitman has failed 5 KS's... They might not like you, but they sure like scammers like Ken... who'd driven two companies into the ground before KS even existed. 2 video projects (both of which delivered a trailer for a movie which never materialized), 3 clear moneygrabs...

This makes your claim seem not credible.

 

[Morrus]

And yet, Kenneth "Whit" Whitman has failed 5 KS's... They might not like you, but they sure like scammers like Ken... who'd driven two companies into the ground before KS even existed. 2 video projects (both of which delivered a trailer for a movie which never materialized), 3 clear moneygrabs...

This makes your claim seem not credible.

The new rules came in a few months ago. You are welcome to not believe me. I don’t have time to make things up on the internet.