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The unwillingness of the people from Failbetter to agree to an externally driven investigation certainly speaks poorly of them.
The accusations are fairly consistent, and come from Meg Jayanth, a writer on Sunless Sea; Olivia Wood, writer and editor for Sunless Skies and Fallen London; Emily Short, CPO at Spirit AI; Lottie Bevan, mentioned in the podcast above...
That's four people who all worked for Kennedy, all making similar accusations, all without any ostensible alternative motive to make the accusations.
You're free to doubt or disbelieve them, but give an accurate account, y'know?
I would like to point out that Lottie, present in this podcast, didn't seem to accuse AK of any of that, other than "there was an unprofessional period with this one woman before me", which AK fully acknowledged even in his original response. She doesn't acknowledge any abuse from AK, she's not among the accusers. She is present in the podcast and supports his version. The CEO didn't accuse AK before two employees spoke, and from what I know, never said to have personally witnessed anything of the sort or been abused herself. So in fact, I would say that it is mainly two accusers. AK and Lottie respond to all that in the blog posts and this podcast, among other places.
Also, according to AK (also said in this podcast), some of the accusations could be easily proved or refuted by conducting an independant investigation of the internal communications, as they were all saved, but Failbetter refused to do that. When the accuser refuses to conduct a proper investigation of what actually happened, I tend to think that the debate ends there. Without proper investigation, it's just a bunch of people throwing shade at someone, especially when a lot of the subject could actually be checked (which is rarely the case).
I have to preface this by saying that my knowledge of this only goes as far as 2019. Something important about Bevan is that she was (is?) Kennedy's romantic partner, and began a relationship with him while he was her boss and this relationship continued while he was her boss (something that Kennedy says was not the case, and Failbetter says was, citing documentation to prove it).
Lottie Bevan is also a co-founder of Weather Factory, which means that, on the one hand, she clearly does not feel wrong-done-by Kennedy at least enough to be an intimate business partner with him but, on the other, his reputation is intimately tied to her financial success. Both facts are worth considering.
As far as accusations go, there's three women who make the same kinds of accusations against Kennedy regarding professional behaviour and boundaries and abuse of position, and Bevan's own relationship with him, by her own admission, includes the same kind of behaviour.
As far as a proper investigation goes, I suppose the question arises as to what you think constitutes a "proper investigation"? And, more bluntly, what it would reveal or not reveal. Kennedy's actions weren't criminal, as far as I'm aware, just... Generally kind of skeezy. He's no longer an employee at Failbetter either, and such an investigation would cost the company time and person-hours and a good deal of money, and be unlikely to reveal terribly much. Kennedy left the company three years before it all became public, so on whose shoulders does the burden of investigation fall? And what, if anything, can be the consequences or the decision rendered beyond "Yeah, that was kind of creepy/abusive"?
Take the accusations as offered, the statements given, and weigh them as you will, and then let that inform your actions. Myself, I'm a huge fan of Kennedy's writing, but I also don't see a particular reason for three women to independently accuse him of being a bit of a creep if he wasn't a bit of a creep. What that translates into in terms of the right reaction, I genuinely do not know. It's not like he should be denied the opportunity to work but he seems not entirely trustworthy with having power over others who work for him.
Bad behaviour needs to be held to account. If Kennedy's behaviour was innocent, he deserves to be vindicated. However, if it's not, he hurt people, and he should not be in a position to hurt vulnerable people.
You kinda prove the point of the podcast - you're confidently relaying the information which is partly wrong, partly incomplete. You don't sound like an angry mob, but following the same line of action from which the problem stems.
Only two women made direct accusations - Meg Jayanth and Olivia Wood; only Olivia Wood said anything factual about the situation, while Meg Jayanth just kept saying that Alexis is a "well-known in the game industry sexual predator". Emily Short said that she "heard" about this (which kinda makes sense, considering she's worked at Failbetter together with aforementioned two, yes?), and gave a bunch of very tangential evidence about Alexis acting "uncomfortably". Lottie, obviously, never made any accusations and while, of course, her situation is relevant and proves again that Alexis Kennedy indeed dated an employee, equating her to the accusers is a complete misdirection. Gives a bit different feeling than saying "there are consistent accusations coming from the four women", right?
As I see it, the big mess here comes from people trying really hard to not distinguish the things that are pretty darn different. Anonymous account says "Alexis Kennedy is a sexual predator" and then you come to the general discussion about it and you're basicaly saying "well, yeah, that seem to be true, because it's confirmed that he dated employees". The same thing happened when Alexis posted an answer to the initial accusations and one of the FB hotshots replied with a statement that was substantially "well, yeah, but Alexis is kinda jerk anyway" - and so the legend continues.
This is what inconsistency is - acting like "cheating", "dating an employee", "saying a rude word" and "being a serial predator" is one and the same. And this is you contributing to it - give it a thought, maybe.
Lastly, about the lack of "any ostensible alternative motive to make the accusations". Honestly, I fail to understand what's so problematic for so many people here (if it isn't said with the malicious intent, or to win an argument). So, first, there's a woman who is very explicitly mad at Alexis Kennedy (Olivia Wood). And there are her several co-workers who are likely her friend. Do you really tell me that you never heard, and never heard of, people being mad at their exes and smearing their exes, and friends of those people repeating that stuff in support? Do you really not seeing any possible motive just here?
But there's also second, which is that Failbetter Games and Weather Factory are very clearly a competitors. There's much more on the topic of their competition in the podcast itself, but what nails it for me is that the accusations dropped just a few days before the announced Book of Hours Kickstarter campaign. So, all the questions about the truthfulness aside, this looks like very direct and very planned attack on Weather Factory.
I may be wrong here. That can be a very weird coincidence. Maybe it's not. Maybe the timing is a concidence, but there's still an ill-will on the Failbetter side. Olivia Wood may be in the right, and Alexis Kennedy may be accountable. But. Both these lines of thought appear equally "ostensible" to me, and, again, I really don't understand why they aren't for so many people.
I didn't say he was accused in regard to incest, I gave an example of something people are accused of and I never specified rape. He did not prevent one of the women (I think it was Olivia Wood but I don't remember) from attaining a promotion even after a bitter breakup. Emily Short heard only a rumor of bad behavior so she never offered a consistent accusation, just an echo. Even if Alexis were at fault it sounds like, at most, a serial workplace chauvinist who had an uneven power dynamic with women he dated. There was no mention of coercion as far as I'm aware.