It’s unclear what’s going on at Evil Genius Games, the publishers of Everyday Heroes, and fresh off their Netflix settlement, but employees are leaving the company.
Update: Dave Scott, the CEO, has shared a public update.
The tabletop publisher was due to make the Rebel Moon TTRPG, had started and told people about it and at that point, Netflix objected. Left with having done work but not getting to publish the game, Evil Genius took legal action, which was recently settled. Evil Genius said they would do a different sci-fi, hinting it might be a name we’d recognise, but they didn’t say which.
Good will seemed to be with the company, one which arrived on the TTRPG scene with a raft of great cinematic movie licenses, but now something seems to have gone wrong.
While some people are quitting in public, they are being more cautious about saying why.
Artist and map-maker MattsMaps said he didn’t want to be sued but is leaving for the same reason as everyone else.
Faith Elisabeth Lilley, who was the Chief Product Officer, notes ethical concerns in her departure notice.
Yesterday, Mike Bramnik, who played a role in getting the new E.G.O. program, also left. He won’t publicly discuss why but won’t put his name against the place.
BJ Hensley’s comment on Mike’s departure sheds some light, suggesting Evil Genius might not be a safe place to work.
Geek Native has reached out to the company for a comment.
Update: 6th Feb
The Evil Genius boss has responded to a thread on EN World;
Hey folks, this is Dave Scott, the CEO of Evil Genius Games. First of all, I wish Michael, Faith, BJ, and Matt the best of luck. Each of them helped us forward the agenda for the company and they have my gratitude. I don’t have to tell any of you how hard it is to run a small publishing company in this industry. Truth be told, it’s much tougher than I thought it would be. There were times last year when we almost didn’t make it. We’ve gone through several unfortunate situations – we were forced to sue a corporate giant and we had to go through some difficult layoffs. But we’re still here. Luckily, we settled the case and have been given a fresh chance to do what we love. Most of our staff, including our earliest team members, are still here toiling away to create new products that I am sure you will come to love. Our business is back on track. I plan to submit a blog post discussing our road ahead. I’ll see if Morrus will allow me to post it here in EN World.
In regards to the accusations of ethics. We’ve had some open and transparent conversations about the use of a few controversial technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain. At the end of the day, we decided to create a Technical Code of Conduct where we condemn both technologies and commit not to use them. This was a group decision with all of the team involved. You can read more about Code of Ethics here. https://evilgeniusgames.com/blog/our-technology-code-of-ethics/
I’m grateful for all of the amazing people that have worked with us over the past two years. Everyone has added a little of themselves to make the most of our products. I can’t wait to see what amazing things these people create in the future.
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I would be shocked to find out the reasons for the departures are related to AI and blockchain, unless the staff supports it and the CEO is publicly saying it but privately in favor it. That’s just distracting from the real reason.