Game-fire Gamefam
Studios on Roblox and their friends celebrate their wins whilst their former employees burn up on stories of mistreatment
Previously praised for its network of partnerships spanning oodles of Roblox games and their original content produced for IP such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Gamefam is now facing allegations of employment misconduct.
The first tweet that should be drawn upon should be Voleraii’s, a 3D artist who was dismissed from Gamefam in early December. Whilst this tweet was widely circulated within the Roblox developer community at the time (with even current Gamefam employees engaging with the tweet), the reach of the tweet would be expanded with the following events, given a series of curious coincidences.
But what was the reactant transpired to this series of reactions that you see in the media today? It was Friday Night Funkin and its Roblox fan recreation, Funky Friday, which was engaged in a partnership agreement with Gamefam (i.e. purchased from the original developers but with the same people at the helm, with the lure of potential marketing opportunities).
As part of the release promotion for Sonic Prime, Gamefam’s network of partnerships was used to create 3 Roblox game integrations, one of them being Funky Friday. This caught the eye of one of the developers of Friday Night Funkin, who tweeted that they would be contacting their lawyers.
Was the hysteria of a lawsuit substantiated though? Friday Night Funkin is licensed under Apache 2.0, a common license used in open-source software allowing commercial use and distribution by other people, which the developers of Funky Friday were engaging in by creating their Roblox game. Given this, even though the license which Friday Night Funkin will be modified to prevent other games from utilising assets from Friday Night Funkin in their own game, there is little legal basis for a lawsuit to be filed against Gamefam in this regard, unlike the hysteria for one which was previously precipitated.
Then the TwitLongers came.
DigitalPurgatory, one of the 3D artists behind Sonic Speed Simulator released a TwitLonger on the same day regarding his mistreatment at Gamefam, including allegations of crunch and not being able to communicate with the Human Resources department regarding several employment issues. A day later, GunsBullets, an Associate Producer who hired DigitalPurgatory, released her own TwitLonger, with several additional allegations.
These allegations include preparations for developer outsourcing by training a team of foreign workers in a country with a lower cost of living, encouraging crunch and false accusations of violating non-disclosure agreements, leading her to work a week for free for week with the lure of a new contract, which never eventuated.
Mind you, these allegations are only the ones which are made public, with other claims being less publicised, such as recruiters stalking Roblox developers to beg for partnerships with their games with some merely murmured between Roblox developers in a bid to warn others from joining the company.
As a result of the increased spotlight on Gamefam from Funky Friday, these allegations, as well as Voleraii’s tweet from earlier garnered some attention. This resulted in Gamefam publishing a response of Twitter, interestingly circumventing the allegations entirely by rejecting the premise of people being let go from the company, instead extolling the benefits of the company utilising “Gen Z native Roblox creators” and the supposed benefits that they provide these “Gen Z native Roblox creators”.
The response from traditional media outlets has been astoundingly poor, preferring instead to cover the Build a Bear game that Gamefam released a few days later, with the only coverage coming from low-reputation news site TheGamer.
Similarly, YouTubers known for engaging in sensationalism have been constantly pumping out content relating to Gamefam, ignoring their history with endorsing similarly untrustworthy companies, such as greenlegocats123 (known for endorsing Roblox limited item gambling and “free Robux” sites) and KreekCraft, who later promoted Sonic Prime on his Twitter account.
In KreekCraft’s case, he also partnered with Wonder Works Studio, which is also known for similar actions that Gamefam is currently facing heat for such as crunch, bullying insufficient pay and unexpected layoffs, in addition to allegations of sexual discrimination.
This doesn’t diminish the severity of the TwitLongers or the tweets against Gamefam. If anything, there needs to be better employment information about the companies which developers work at, not misinformation from players in media who have a vested interest to have the masses aligned to their cause. The people who ultimately benefit, and the only people who can make this a reality are the humble employee like Voleraii, DigitalPurgatory and GunsBullets, speaking up about their experiences publically.
UPDATE (12/04/2023): Gamefam settled with former employee ArtemisTheDeer (Joshua DeBoer) with regards to allegations of prohibiting salary discussion and other labour law violations. You may read the full story on Polygon.