{"id":117142,"date":"2020-08-24T21:41:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-24T21:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamasutra.com\/view\/news\/368771"},"modified":"2020-08-24T21:41:00","modified_gmt":"2020-08-24T21:41:00","slug":"devs-exit-lab-zero-games-over-owners-persistent-pattern-of-misconduct","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2020\/08\/24\/devs-exit-lab-zero-games-over-owners-persistent-pattern-of-misconduct\/","title":{"rendered":"Devs exit Lab Zero Games over owner’s persistent pattern of misconduct"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several developers have announced their departures from Skullgirls<\/em> dev Lab Zero Games over the last few days, with all calling out the behavior and lack of accountability of studio owner Mike Zaimont as the reason. <\/p>\n

\u201cMike Z creates an unsafe work environment for everyone,\u201d tweeted departing artist Brian Jun alongside a longer statement on his exit<\/a>. \u201cHe is the sole owner of Lab Zero Games, and removing him is difficult. He originally agreed to leave, but is unwilling to make a reasonable compromise, so I\u2019m taking my exit now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following Jun\u2019s announcement, Indivisible<\/em> creative director Mariel Kinuko Cartwright<\/a> and Indivisible<\/em> and Skullgirls animator Jonathan Kim<\/a> have both followed suit under similar circumstances.<\/p>\n

Zaimot was accused of making inappropriate sexual comments toward a Twitch streamer and a cosplayer earlier this year (via Kotaku<\/a>), and came under fire around that same time for making an on-stream \u201cI can\u2019t breathe\u201d joke shortly after a police officer suffocated George Floyd. Those events sparked a conversation among Lab Zero Games staff, and Jun says they collectively realized that their own uncomfortable interactions with Zaimont weren\u2019t isolated incidents, but were instead part of a larger pattern. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we realized was that there was a pattern of behavior that I don\u2019t think we had fully understood until then,\u201d writes Cartwright. \u201cA pattern of hostility, insults, threats, lying, and harassment that many of our team had not openly shared with each other before.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMike Z had sometimes made me feel unsettled at times, but I never knew how broad his actions were,\u201c writes Jun. \u201cThis was a clear pattern of systemic abuse and lack of empathy while himself refusing to accept feedback and not showing a willingness to change.\u201c<\/p>\n

According to the accounts of exiting staff members, the board of Lab Zero Games placed Zaimont on administrative leave as it worked to negotiate terms of his departure, but was met with unreasonable demands. Jun says Zaimont used his position to disband the board after negotiations fell through, then reneged his plans to depart the studio. <\/p>\n

Kim adds that Zaimont proceeded to dodge responsibility for his actions and continued to intimidate staff, then \u201cgave all employees until August 31 to leave if they\u2019re unsatisfied, and so now we\u2019re here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of leaving Lab Zero peacefully, Mike refused to listen and has decided that everyone in the company, including people he\u2019s victimized, are wrong. His actions are insulting and unacceptable,\u201d writes Kim. \u201cLab Zero has always been about the great team working together to create amazing work. But Mike has taken advantage of and hurt that team, and I can no longer stay in a company that includes him.\u201d <\/p>\n

Those departing staff members also add that Zaimont\u2019s status as studio owner wasn\u2019t intended to be permanent, and instead was originally planned as a transitional role before ownership would be transferred to the studio\u2019s employees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Several developers have announced their departures from Skullgirls dev Lab Zero Games over the last few days, with all calling out the behavior and lack of accountability of studio owner Mike Zaimont as the reason.  \u201cMike Z creates an unsafe work environment for everyone,\u201d tweeted departing artist Brian Jun alongside a longer statement on his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117143,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}