What's happening with the company and why I shouldn't play this or sunless skies ?

[Sc0p10n]

I've been looking at this game for a few months now... wanted to play while iam at work (judge me) but the reviews are telling me to go look what the company has done

[Ragz]

I did some searching on the drama myself to find out what the deal was, and as far as I can tell it's as follows:

In 2019, former writer, creative director & co-founder of Failbetter Games Alexis Kennedy -- who left the company in 2016 -- was accused by two women in the company of sexual & predatory misconduct, both towards themselves and towards other women at the company, particularly juniors who Kennedy would (allegedly) routinely use his position of power at the company to creep on and manipulate. Failbetter Games publicly supported these claims.

As a result, Kennedy and his new small studio, Weather Factory, suffered reputation damage, lost out on some potential work, and a few of their female staff left the company.

There's also apparently a lawsuit ongoing between the two.

Afaik, that's the whole scoop. Make up your own mind from here.

[Sc0p10n]

Originally posted by Ragz:

I did some searching on the drama myself to find out what the deal was, and as far as I can tell it's as follows:

In 2019, former writer, creative director & co-founder of Failbetter Games Alexis Kennedy -- who left the company in 2016 -- was accused by two women in the company of sexual & predatory misconduct, both towards themselves and towards other women at the company, particularly juniors who Kennedy would (allegedly) routinely use his position of power at the company to creep on and manipulate. Failbetter Games publicly supported these claims.

As a result, Kennedy and his new small studio, Weather Factory, suffered reputation damage, lost out on some potential work, and a few of their female staff left the company.

There's also apparently a lawsuit ongoing between the two.

Afaik, that's the whole scoop. Make up your own mind from here.

Thx for the info
I just don't get it why people were giving a bad review for the game, 'cause faillbetter games seems to be on the right side on my view

[Elitewrecker PT]

The thing is supposedly those claims are fake and arranged by the current ceo with a grudge against Alexis. Hence the possible court.

[Wlerin]

Alexis and his new partner (formerly an employee at Failbetter under his supervision) have been writing long blog posts about what they say really happened.

Problem is there's extremely obvious bias in those posts, and even through that bias it's obvious the couple weren't as innocent as they want to paint themselves. Both sides have done ♥♥♥♥♥♥ things, but it seems like the Kennedy side is trying to do overtly now what they claim the FB side did covertly (i.e. sabotage the release of an upcoming game with negative press).

Idk there's a lot we don't and frankly don't need to know. I'll still be buying Failbetter Games, and I'll also buy Weather Factory games if any of them tickle my fancy.

[Ellixer]

I haven't seen the reviews but there are two possible things.

People are still mad about that time FBG tried to hire more black interns as writers because it is racist against white people or something. It's very dumb, but I'm not digging up that dead horse anymore.

Alexis Kennedy was a former owner of FBG who went off to start his own company and made Cultist Simulator. AK wrote much of Sunless Sea and Fallen London, including some of the most iconic stories in the latter. Some time after he left, FBG accused AK of using his position to make life difficult for his ex-girlfriends who were his employees, backed up by other women in the industry. AK denies it (kind of, I think he also just kind of talks around it and speculates on their motive a bunch without directly making any statement that can be contradicted much of the time), FBG provides receipts, and then from that point on it's just a repeated pattern of long period of silence, followed by AK making a post, followed by long period of silence.

Why people are getting angry at FBG is that they believe AK when he said they were lying and they did it because they were jealous of Cultist Simulator's success and wanted revenge and aimed to hurt his family. His wife backs him up. FBG had gone silence on the matter. For the record, FBG if I recall correctly never had any intention of taking it to court because they didn't think he did anything illegal, just very unethical practices for an employer. AK on the other hand said he might take it to court, a year or two ago. He had not taken it to court. His primary objective is to get FBG to recant their accusation, which they had not. The legal complication about ownership of the company, far as I know, had gone nowhere since he first brought it up. It had nothing to do with the accusations and he doesn't even want the company back, and just implied it's a tool he can use to get them to stop being silent on the matter, but that just never happened.

Personally, I'm on FBG's side here because I read AK's post and they were a lot of "sounding like he's denying it without verbally denying it", and FBG's first response included text messages that directly contradicted AK's initial claims, and there were women outside of FBG backing them up, but that's my personal take.

[TheDongsmasher]

So something happened, someone got canceled, and now all of the sudden you're looking for reasons not to play a game that has been released back in 2015 because of that? That's the stupidest thing I've read today. Maybe look for actual reasons why this game isn't gonna be for you, rather than some drama\allegations\crime that hardly concerns you or relates to this game.

[Sc0p10n]

Originally posted by TheDongsmasher:

So something happened, someone got canceled, and now all of the sudden you're looking for reasons not to play a game that has been released back in 2015 because of that? That's the stupidest thing I've read today. Maybe look for actual reasons why this game isn't gonna be for you, rather than some drama\allegations\crime that hardly concerns you or relates to this game.

It's just curiosity, I doubt the drama has anything to do with the game being good or not.
.-.
I just did not found any conclusive resolution wanted to know what some people of the community thinks, no need to insult me jesus

[Arnie Rimsy BSc.SSc.]

Originally posted by Sc0p10n:

Originally posted by TheDongsmasher:

So something happened, someone got canceled, and now all of the sudden you're looking for reasons not to play a game that has been released back in 2015 because of that? That's the stupidest thing I've read today. Maybe look for actual reasons why this game isn't gonna be for you, rather than some drama\allegations\crime that hardly concerns you or relates to this game.

It's just curiosity, I doubt the drama has anything to do with the game being good or not.
.-.
I just did not found any conclusive resolution wanted to know what some people of the community thinks, no need to insult me jesus

It always amazes me when you get text heavy games like this that require thought and concentration, yet you still get anti-social dimwits who can't handle simple questions or conversations.

[Devilfish]

You'll find a lot of information here: https://weatherfactory.biz/failgate/

Mind you this is directly from the other affected party, so please use your judgment, but it doesn't look good.

The report: http://the-failbetter-report.com/

Again, use your judgment (and Google)

[arcusc]

Originally posted by TheDongsmasher:

So something happened, someone got canceled, and now all of the sudden you're looking for reasons not to play a game that has been released back in 2015 because of that? That's the stupidest thing I've read today. Maybe look for actual reasons why this game isn't gonna be for you, rather than some drama\allegations\crime that hardly concerns you or relates to this game.

I can understand why people would want to know who gets their money. It's good to make a stand, and it's not all just immediate "cancelling". Once a rumour or story is out, no one with even a slight interest in their games could possibly hope to remain neutral. When we don't know the full story, some of us get a bit wary, and "reserving judgement" will have a bearing on the company's bottom line either way. Even playing a game you paid for a long time ago can give it publicity and inspire others to look into it, so I think it's a legitimate query from OP.

[St3amfails]

People in 2022 always claim they want inclusion and a judgement free world for everybody, then spend all their time digging into other peoples business and making moral judgements about things they neither fully understand nor have any business worrying about anyway.

Who cares what other people do? If you arent the courts or personally involved, why would you want to waste your time acting like a gossipy 11 year old girl? If literally every person involved in that lawsuit, including people 3 steps removed disappeared from the earth tomorrow it would have 0 affect on your life, so why should some random incident between them in what, 2015? Grow up

[Arnie Rimsy BSc.SSc.]

Originally posted by St3amfails:

People in 2022 always claim they want inclusion and a judgement free world for everybody, then spend all their time digging into other peoples business and making moral judgements about things they neither fully understand nor have any business worrying about anyway.

Who cares what other people do? If you arent the courts or personally involved, why would you want to waste your time acting like a gossipy 11 year old girl? If literally every person involved in that lawsuit, including people 3 steps removed disappeared from the earth tomorrow it would have 0 affect on your life, so why should some random incident in what, 2015? Grow up

I think it's fine that people are being cautious about who they finance.

[St3amfails]

sure, except every one of them is wearing at least one article of clothing and using at least one piece of tech made by child labor in sweat shop conditions in some country well known for human rights violations.
Virtue signalling who you finance only when it causes you 0 inconvenience and is over piddling garbage while completely ignoring real issues and real problems if it requires any actual sacrifice on ones own part is the worst kind of hypocrisy.

[Arnie Rimsy BSc.SSc.]

Originally posted by St3amfails:

sure, except every one of them is wearing at least one article of clothing and using at least one piece of tech made by child labor in sweat shop conditions in some country well known for human rights violations.
Virtue signalling who you finance only when it causes you 0 inconvenience and is over piddling garbage while completely ignoring real issues and real problems if it requires any actual sacrifice on ones own part is the worst kind of hypocrisy.

It sounds like it bothers you more than anyone else tbh. Life's too short for that kind of ranting.

[Hanuman]

as long as no animals were hurt in the making of Sunless Sea, besides that I could care less. Often those who claim sexual misconduct only do so when the misconduct no longer benefits them. This is often immediately called; "blaming the victim", but we all saw what happened to poor Johnny Depp. Often the "victims" aren't innocent themselves.