I think people are Review bombing the game because they don't pay volunteers.

[Fangsgalaxy5]

It's not good. Just stop review bombing the game for people who were just doing VOLUNTEER WORK. Volunteer work is WORK WITHOUT PAY. Seriously how do people not know the meaning of volunteer or do they just think volunteering means actually getting hired.

[MortVent]

Naii Elyuex님이 먼저 게시:

So much scandal, false allegations, and drama in the video game world, especially in the AAA community these days. From this, to the MeToos that show up to drag people through the muck, true or not... I don't know what to believe, what to dismiss, and even what to be angry at anymore. When did video games become politics?

When people realized outrage mobs can pay the bills, just as Zoe and the rest that mobilize them to line their pockets.

[Erisss]

You not right. There is law that regulate voluntary work. Chucklefish violated it.

From the comments section on pcgamer:

An important difference is that it is actually illegal for a for-profit business to accept volunteer work under the Fair Labor Standards Act (in the US). An unpaid internship is *slightly* different in that the compensation is supposed to come from mentorship and education benefits - mere 'contacts in the industry' do not count, and an unpaid intern doing work that would replaces that done by a paid professional is likewise illegal. An unpaid internship is *only* legal if it provides significant education benefits to the intern *and* the intern doesn't actually do work that would normally be performed by a paid professional (ie, they can only complement paid professionals, they can't replace them).

An unpaid internship is a very, very big indicator that you *should not* take the position, even if you have no experience, even if you're only 16 years old. If it's worthwhile for you to do something, it's worthwhile for the company you do it for to pay you.

The only time it's really acceptable to do an unpaid internship is if you're going to get significant mentoring *and* it's associated with an education program you're undertaking. Otherwise, your internship isn't really worth anything - an internship by itself doesn't really mean much from an employer's perspective.

It doesn't sound like the Chucklefish 'volunteer' work had anything to do with an education program, nor does it sound like there was any mentorship involved. As such, it wouldn't qualify as an unpaid internship even with the explicit contract stating that it's unpaid volunteer work - which basically makes it so the company legally has to pay the workers at least minimum wage since for-profit enterprises legally can't accept volunteer work.

[serker31]

No idea about legal side, but I find it questionable from moral side. Lure some guys in with carrot, make them work for hundreds of hours, make millions, toss them out unpaid. That's just not cool.

[MortVent]

Erisss님이 먼저 게시:

You not right. There is law that regulate voluntary work. Chucklefish violated it.

From the comments section on pcgamer:

An important difference is that it is actually illegal for a for-profit business to accept volunteer work under the Fair Labor Standards Act (in the US). An unpaid internship is *slightly* different in that the compensation is supposed to come from mentorship and education benefits - mere 'contacts in the industry' do not count, and an unpaid intern doing work that would replaces that done by a paid professional is likewise illegal. An unpaid internship is *only* legal if it provides significant education benefits to the intern *and* the intern doesn't actually do work that would normally be performed by a paid professional (ie, they can only complement paid professionals, they can't replace them).

An unpaid internship is a very, very big indicator that you *should not* take the position, even if you have no experience, even if you're only 16 years old. If it's worthwhile for you to do something, it's worthwhile for the company you do it for to pay you.

The only time it's really acceptable to do an unpaid internship is if you're going to get significant mentoring *and* it's associated with an education program you're undertaking. Otherwise, your internship isn't really worth anything - an internship by itself doesn't really mean much from an employer's perspective.

It doesn't sound like the Chucklefish 'volunteer' work had anything to do with an education program, nor does it sound like there was any mentorship involved. As such, it wouldn't qualify as an unpaid internship even with the explicit contract stating that it's unpaid volunteer work - which basically makes it so the company legally has to pay the workers at least minimum wage since for-profit enterprises legally can't accept volunteer work.

The other issue would be if they worked as modders with developer input, there are loopholes. That people forget. As any mods done for the game are done with the developers getting full rights to use them (check the terms)

Not to mention a lot of legal issues regarding proof, jurisdiction, evidence of hours, evidence of lack of actual compensation (you might be surprised what can pass as trade in kind for value of services, etc)

But those that want something would have to go to court, and not just the court of public opinion... and I would say they already went to lawyers and got shut down on the grounds that their claims are shaky legally.

As for morals, depends on the individual person you ask.. so find a universal standard.

[Erisss]

MortVent님이 먼저 게시:

Erisss님이 먼저 게시:

You not right. There is law that regulate voluntary work. Chucklefish violated it.

From the comments section on pcgamer:

An important difference is that it is actually illegal for a for-profit business to accept volunteer work under the Fair Labor Standards Act (in the US). An unpaid internship is *slightly* different in that the compensation is supposed to come from mentorship and education benefits - mere 'contacts in the industry' do not count, and an unpaid intern doing work that would replaces that done by a paid professional is likewise illegal. An unpaid internship is *only* legal if it provides significant education benefits to the intern *and* the intern doesn't actually do work that would normally be performed by a paid professional (ie, they can only complement paid professionals, they can't replace them).

An unpaid internship is a very, very big indicator that you *should not* take the position, even if you have no experience, even if you're only 16 years old. If it's worthwhile for you to do something, it's worthwhile for the company you do it for to pay you.

The only time it's really acceptable to do an unpaid internship is if you're going to get significant mentoring *and* it's associated with an education program you're undertaking. Otherwise, your internship isn't really worth anything - an internship by itself doesn't really mean much from an employer's perspective.

It doesn't sound like the Chucklefish 'volunteer' work had anything to do with an education program, nor does it sound like there was any mentorship involved. As such, it wouldn't qualify as an unpaid internship even with the explicit contract stating that it's unpaid volunteer work - which basically makes it so the company legally has to pay the workers at least minimum wage since for-profit enterprises legally can't accept volunteer work.

The other issue would be if they worked as modders with developer input, there are loopholes. That people forget. As any mods done for the game are done with the developers getting full rights to use them (check the terms)

Not to mention a lot of legal issues regarding proof, jurisdiction, evidence of hours, evidence of lack of actual compensation (you might be surprised what can pass as trade in kind for value of services, etc)

But those that want something would have to go to court, and not just the court of public opinion... and I would say they already went to lawyers and got shut down on the grounds that their claims are shaky legally.

As for morals, depends on the individual person you ask.. so find a universal standard.

To say for sure that they are modders or volunteers we need to see contracts which they signed, but I personally not remember that modders have any deadlines or any other "employee responsibilities" before game studio.
Also about "full rights for mods" you not exactly correct - yes, they can copy, reproduce, distribute, etc. but to implement mod in their game they need permission from mod author, basically they need to make a contract between game studio and mod developer, like with that guy who made combinable guns mod (or something like that).

[MortVent]

Erisss님이 먼저 게시:

MortVent님이 먼저 게시:

The other issue would be if they worked as modders with developer input, there are loopholes. That people forget. As any mods done for the game are done with the developers getting full rights to use them (check the terms)

Not to mention a lot of legal issues regarding proof, jurisdiction, evidence of hours, evidence of lack of actual compensation (you might be surprised what can pass as trade in kind for value of services, etc)

But those that want something would have to go to court, and not just the court of public opinion... and I would say they already went to lawyers and got shut down on the grounds that their claims are shaky legally.

As for morals, depends on the individual person you ask.. so find a universal standard.

To say for sure that they are modders or volunteers we need to see contracts which they signed, but I personally not remember that modders have any deadlines or any other "employee responsibilities" before game studio.
Also about "full rights for mods" you not exactly correct - yes, they can copy, reproduce, distribute, etc. but to implement mod in their game they need permission from mod author, basically they need to make a contract between game studio and mod developer, like with that guy who made combinable guns mod (or something like that).

Actually read the terms included in the EULA by releasing the mods onto the network/workshop they give Chucklefish the right to modify, incorporate, etc the mods as they see fit

You might want to read what you agree to. The modding quidelines are quite clear and explicit in regards to the rights granted to the company by releasing your mods into the wild.

Same as most companies really, as they all have clauses that either give them full ownership or full use of the content created. All of which are legally binding.

They can request work to be done on the mod, to ease integration but still not have them be employees working for them.

https://community.playstarbound.com/help/mod-terms/

[cutieryan]

Naii Elyuex님이 먼저 게시:

So much scandal, false allegations, and drama in the video game world, especially in the AAA community these days. From this, to the MeToos that show up to drag people through the muck, true or not... I don't know what to believe, what to dismiss, and even what to be angry at anymore. When did video games become politics?

I agree with you, it's very hard to trust ANYTHING these days without solid proof.

[cutieryan]

You know, it's kind of ironic when you think about this subject, about what's actually a threat in the Starbound universe, let me explain:

The Ruin has been set up as the Starbound universe's biggest threat, yet it truly does not actually pose a threat to the universe, (not without mods at least,) it waits eternally until you invade it's prision.

In the ancient vaults, six peices of a message could be found. The message explains the existence of the vaults, mentioning that they were made in case we, or they, failed to save the universe from something known as the "Final Plague."
It obviously meant The Ruin, the (scrapped) Agaran Menance, or even possibly something else not seen in the game yet, but what if Chucklefish accidentally wrote a prophecy about the fate of the game itself?

What if this "Final Plague" was the player's rioting about how Chucklefish should pay their volunteers? All those negative reviews about the game and Chucklefish itself? Meaning that Starbound's very own creators, are the biggest threat to the universe, and the accidental prophecy is coming true.

I just thought that was interesting to think about, that message was very vague about what the Final Plague actually is.

[MortVent]

cutieryan님이 먼저 게시:

Naii Elyuex님이 먼저 게시:

So much scandal, false allegations, and drama in the video game world, especially in the AAA community these days. From this, to the MeToos that show up to drag people through the muck, true or not... I don't know what to believe, what to dismiss, and even what to be angry at anymore. When did video games become politics?

I agree with you, it's very hard to trust ANYTHING these days without solid proof.

Especially when the victims admit they were not promised anything (no pay, no job) and people still rage over it. They knew what they were getting into..

If they were truly salty, they could easily get a lawyer to go to court if they had a real case. The lawyer and court fees would be on the company to pay as part of the settlement/decision

But none of them are pursuing that route, they come forward years later to whine about sour grapes... in order to promote themselves and failing projects.

[Dr. Raven]

MortVent님이 먼저 게시:

Dr. Raven님이 먼저 게시:

Bro before child labour laws were in place kids agreed to the terms with companies, and they were not being taken to court over it. This dude exploited people and then moved to another country to avoid the law. I wouldn't say this is a matter of the court of social justice. It's are you on team human or not. You don't need to defend ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ practices like these, so why do you?

Again this whole entire justice thing, apparently the stupid idea of taking him to court(which has so many problems such as legal fees and the fact that he probably doesn't have much proof on a legal standing even tho it's fairly obvious happened according to numerous developers who also commented on this, it's likely nothing would have happened from him being taken to court). I mean the whole reason chucklefish moved was most likely to avoid someone successfully taking this guy to court, that doesn't mean this is by any means right.


Is it a strategic plan to try and bring up this as an attempt to sell whatever game he's working on and hurt competition at the same time? Probably, but who the ♥♥♥♥ cares. No seriously. Exploitation and lying to minors to steal hundreds of hours of free work from each of them? Nah bro that's fine, they should have been more careful, stupid kids. Dude taking advantage of a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ situation where he was cheated and exploited first? God this guy is the worst, he's who we really need to watch out for, what a lowlife. Like seriously? That's your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ take away from this?

Simple fact, no where would it be illegal for them to have volunteers work for them. And any minor would have had to have adult/guardian authorization to even sign the contract if under the legal age to work.

Uhhhh, except in America where this took place?? With the Fair Labour Standards Act people or employees may not legally volunteer services to for-profit private sector employers. It is legal to do so in the public sector, And it is legal to volunteer if the company is a non profit company or organization. Chucklefish wasn't a public sector employer or non-profit, obviously. So no. Not legal. Nice try. Hence most likely why Chucklefish was moved.


Sure you can cite a random exception except it doesn't really fit here. As Chucklefish can't rely on the defense of being a licensed school and there's no law where students have to take training in order to get a license in programming for video games. Nearly all the exceptions that made that case don't apply here. They had no leg to stand on here. None.

MortVent님이 먼저 게시:

Dr. Raven님이 먼저 게시:

Bro before child labour laws were in place kids agreed to the terms with companies, and they were not being taken to court over it. This dude exploited people and then moved to another country to avoid the law. I wouldn't say this is a matter of the court of social justice. It's are you on team human or not. You don't need to defend ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ practices like these, so why do you?

Again this whole entire justice thing, apparently the stupid idea of taking him to court(which has so many problems such as legal fees and the fact that he probably doesn't have much proof on a legal standing even tho it's fairly obvious happened according to numerous developers who also commented on this, it's likely nothing would have happened from him being taken to court). I mean the whole reason chucklefish moved was most likely to avoid someone successfully taking this guy to court, that doesn't mean this is by any means right.


Is it a strategic plan to try and bring up this as an attempt to sell whatever game he's working on and hurt competition at the same time? Probably, but who the ♥♥♥♥ cares. No seriously. Exploitation and lying to minors to steal hundreds of hours of free work from each of them? Nah bro that's fine, they should have been more careful, stupid kids. Dude taking advantage of a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ situation where he was cheated and exploited first? God this guy is the worst, he's who we really need to watch out for, what a lowlife. Like seriously? That's your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ take away from this?

Simple fact, no where would it be illegal for them to have volunteers work for them. And any minor would have had to have adult/guardian authorization to even sign the contract if under the legal age to work.

Those same contracts are applied to adults too working for free, as most rational adults understand internships, apprenticeships and volunteering. And most kids would as well (just ask the kids in the neighborhood to cut your grass.. the first thing out of their mouth is always "how much ya going to pay me")

The problem with taking them to court is... they don't have any legal legs to stand on. They would lose in any court of law. But build up a hate mob over something that they knew full well what they were getting into (and could have walked away from at any time... as several of them did, or even refused to do any work ) in order to self promote and mobilize the easily offended into a moral outrage mob over nothing.

Every one of them knew what the deal was going in, they were not stupid. Or are you implying they were complete idiots that don't understand they would be working for free and with no actual job waiting for them when the contracts spelled it out for them.

I judge them as intelligent individuals who knew what they were getting into, chose to do it when they could easily walk away from it... Then waited years later to profit off that decision by playing victim.

IF you want to play moral and ethics. Well then whose morals and ethics shall we use? As they are subjective to each individual. So shall we use Genghis Khan's, Mao's, Sun Tzu's , Rockefeller's, Nixon's, Hitler's, Ghandi's, etc..

Uhhhh, except in America where this took place?? With the Fair Labour Standards Act people or employees may not legally volunteer services to for-profit private sector employers. It is legal to do so in the public sector, And it is legal to volunteer if the company is a non profit company or organization. Chucklefish wasn't a public sector employer or non-profit, Guessing I should move onto your exception case you posted.


Sure you can cite a random exception except it doesn't really fit here. As Chucklefish can't rely on the defense of being a licensed school providing training that is required by law in order for people to get a license to work in that industry. There's no law where students have to take training in order to get a license in programming for video games and clearly this wasn't a case of chucklefish providing education or training, the contract they had was for "exposure" from what I understand. Chucklefish essentially textbook broke the FLSA with little room to view it otherwise.


They could most likely win in the court of law. If the law system wasn't so broken as to favour the more powerful. Naturally lawyers matter. 95% of cases get settled or thrown out I hear, so this likely could have ended with them merely getting their legal fees paid at best. Problem is money. Good lawyers who are actually likely to win cases cost money, assuming they wouldn't settle too even with a good lawyer. And Chucklefish definitely has no shortage of money to afford a top tier lawyer, the people who they were exploiting likely don't. Court cases like this can also get dragged out if one side wants too. But the reason they don't have any leg to stand on is because Chucklefish most likely moved out of country because they knew full well they broke the the FLSA. This complicates things. There's a lot of reasons why taking them to court would likely cause more problems than it would solve. This is excluding all the death threats they'd receive from fans for taking the offensive on Chucklefish. It's just simply not an option for most people.

[MortVent]

Or it could be they don't have a legal legs to stand on, due to how the work was done. If they created mods and then got a contract detailing transfer of rights from their creations to Chucklefish then it gets even more complicated as the work they did was on a product they were giving away for free.

The inclusion of the novakids would be such a thing, as transfers of artwork and IP wouldn't fall under labor laws but a transfer of a product's ownership. With them simply making the product suit the receiver.

And again it's a question on jurisdiction and appropriate laws, something that people like you ignore.

1 - was it a work contract, or transfer of ownership? An artist that does free art for a company is not considered a worker or employee of the company, as they are merely giving away a free product. And art does include written works (just ask those that produce news/opinion pieces for websites which can not file under the FSLA terms...as they merely transferred the rights to the publisher for the creative work they wrote)
2 - Which country's laws apply? Not all were in the US and they were working on the products for a UK company. It didn't move it was always a UK company that simply moved to offices in London. As the company was incorporated there, so international laws would apply making it a mess anyway.
3 - was it an independent contractor agreement (again something that makes FSLA immaterial)
https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs13.htm IF they are not required by the contract to work set hours and various other things, they can be classified as contractors (and creative works do fall into the grey area). And they were not told to work set hours, but on projects.

But the biggest hurdle is burden of proof and value of reward given. As some of them might find out that they got plenty of reward above the value of trade, as some things they received can be considered trade in kind (if you work for someone and they pay you value in non-cash rewards)

And some things you might not consider can be valued, you might be surprised to learn that crediting/promotion of work has a dollar value. Then there is the issue of taxes on those payments.. as they will have to pay income tax on them

As for child labor, 14+ is the US federal minimum age to work (with 14-15 having some limits, 16+ practically having none) You would be surprised to know that in some cases 13 year olds can still work, but there are more stringent limits.

[Lowest Form Of Wit]

I was a very early adopter who bought into Starbound's hype train like many others (with Starbound striking when the iron was hot when Terraria was in a development lull and the demand for this type of game was growing), and I'm a modder who was working on mods before the game even became available for early access. I was also very active in early Starbound's IRC and forum communities.

I'm not at all surprised by the news, having spoken to many of the developers and team in question during that time period. Looking back with 20/20 hindsight, I infer the objective of Starbound was to get seed money to make a publishing company, Chukclefish, not to make a game. Starbound was an in-house kickstarter-style funded venture that was pieced together as they went along. It was game development played by ear.

Many of the team were brought in under unpaid contractual agreements, and those who did eventually get offered a full time position (or the idea of a full time position) on the team were offered so at the cost of uprooting their lives and relocating to the UK where they eventually founded their office.

I regret buying into Starbound and doing any of the mods work I did for it, and my thoughts go out to those developers and bright-eyed team members who were exploited by Chucklefish and its upper management.

Let it be a lesson to everyone in this industry, and another reason the cliche "If you're good at something, don't do it for free." exists.

[TheDoctor]

My problem with this game is "they had the most succefull kickstarter EVER" and "they had people working for free to them" AND STILL they delivered this game, this terrible excuse of game the alphas and betas were 10x better than this LOL

[Dr. Raven]

TheDoctor님이 먼저 게시:

My problem with this game is "they had the most succefull kickstarter EVER" and "they had people working for free to them" AND STILL they delivered this game, this terrible excuse of game the alphas and betas were 10x better than this LOL

I disagree. Starbound has gone through a lot of improvement. The whole randomly generated monsters were possibly one of the worst things for the game period. And alpha/beta(I can't remember which, where it took ores to make boss summon items) played pretty much like a far inferior Terraria. Although I don't think highly of Starbound without the frackin universe mod, it's a far cry better than what it was back then.

[Fangsgalaxy5]

Jeez, this is the first thing you see on the all page of starbound. Like wow. This is the first time I've had something blow up like this lol. I do understand that people are trying to get attention but there are probably other ways of doing it to.