Since I did the Gamestar interview in English, here's the original English text:
- If you could give any advice to yourself back when you were thinking about joining Obsidian as a co-founder, what would it be?
A company is its people, and you should be loyal to the people and do right by them, especially if you’re an owner. I’d like to say again that with all of the events that took place, I have no issues with the developers or the games – only upper management.
On a personal note, I’d tell myself to get expectations and goals for your position so there’s no miscommunication or false expectations. To be fair, I did ask for these repeatedly during my time there, but they weren’t given, so it was sometimes unclear what I was supposed to do. (This is why I took on specific roles on teams at Obsidian so I could [ed: get] clarity as to what I was supposed to do.)
- It's very unusual to see a developer speaking out about a former employer this harshly and this publicly. What made you decide to go public with this story?
I had mentioned it before (on Reddit, but not in the conversations about this currently on there) – I did it as a response to someone else mentioning that I was part of upper management, I had signed an NDA, and that I had received a severance/payout.
None of this was true, so I corrected it – I didn’t have management authority, I hadn’t signed an NDA, and I received nothing when I left Obsidian. While it’s good business for a company to do this, I did feel it was unethical based on my family situation at the time, which Obsidian was aware of (I had hesitated telling them because I didn’t like sharing personal or family issues with the other owners since they didn’t often keep these things to themselves).
The same response for the same reasons became noticed when I repeated it again on RPG Codex (someone made a similar comment to the Reddit one in response to an interview I did), but again, that was correcting information that I realized people weren’t aware of. It wasn’t intended as a press release, it was intended to correct the record so people didn’t have the wrong information about how I left the company and what I had signed and what I hadn’t signed.
- Several of the allegations you have brought against Obsidian sound like the company might have been breaking the law (not upholding contracts with you, paying family members who don't really work there, putting resources Paradox intended for Tyranny towards Pillars instead). Did you ever consider taking the company to court? You wrote you'd welcome any legal fight they brought against you.
It's up to the companies and publishers who were wronged. I will say as a developer working in that environment on two projects at once made it very difficult to get work done (I was split between Eternity and Tyranny) – and the time invested wasn’t paid back, so even if you love the project you’re working on, if you don’t get the support you need, it weakens the title – and it undermines a lot of the effort you put into it. No developer likes seeing a game they care about and worked on hurt this way.
Note that I did allow Obsidian more time to address the issues. After the departure, I asked Obsidian about the finances, the market evaluation, and more, but never received an answer to the actual questions.
- Can you give any more details on how the deownering process worked? It sounds like it was surprisingly easy for Obsidian to strip an owner and co-founder of his rights without compensation, didn't you have any sort of protection or leverage in your initial contract?
There was no leverage – there were five owners, and I was among the two who had the least shares. The other owners never spoke to me about the issue, it was all done through Feargus, and championed by Feargus.
- How long would the separation agreement have prevented you from working on RPGs or discussing Obsidian? Would it have lasted indefinitely?
For that, you’d need to get the contract from Obsidian – the separation agreement I was given told me I had ten days to sign it or forfeit any remaining rights I had.
Since my primary source of income I need to live involves writing for RPGs (although the non-compete was broader than that), it would have removed my ability to work which made my family situation even worse. The agreement did have a very broad (universal-wording) NDA that applied to most everything Obsidian and the owners had ever been involved in, even companies I didn’t have any insight into (Dark Rock Industries, Fig, Zero Radius, all of which Feargus was involved with) – and I was worried that if anything happened or came to light about Obsidian or any of these companies (harassment, tax issues, illegal documentation), that I would not be allowed to speak up about it, which did concern me a great deal.
Also, on a personal note, while the separation agreement was pretty brutal in its terms, the wording of the NDA was worse. I did realize that even if the other issues were sorted out (doubtful), that the NDA would mean I would technically be silenced and beholden to Feargus and the owners for the rest of my life. I didn’t want them to have a hold over me any longer - I wanted to be free from them and out from under their control.
- You have stated that you're still corresponding with developers working at Obsidian. Have any of them been in touch with you about this story? Are they supporting you, or are they angry you're attacking their studio?
Yes. It’s up to them to say something if they want, I wouldn’t want to speak for them, and I also wouldn’t ever ask them to say something – if they want to, they will. And if they do, they have my support, just as they always have.
- Has Obsidian contacted you officially? If not, what kind of response or reaction are you expecting from them going forward?
Not at all. If they do respond, I’ll answer it. There’s many issues they can’t refute, and even more so, they even have evidence of all these things having taken place (and if they tried to hide or delete that, they would be in even more trouble). The refusal to pay back employees, especially, involved many threads with all the owners.
- Do you fear you may be damaging not just Obsidian's management, but also the regular employees by creating negative publicity right when the studio is about to release its next major game?
I have no issues with the developers at Obsidian or their games. Good games speak for themselves.
There was no good time to bring it up, and being silent about the upper management has never helped the employees at Obsidian – Obsidian’s financial success does not translate into employee financial success nor does it translate into job security for even the hardest workers.
I had to personally let go several of the best employees we had after difficulties with publishers that resulted in layoffs that could have been prevented (and owner family members slated to be let go were often retained instead of these other employees).
It’s these practices that continually jeopardize the studio and its standing, and they should be fixed.
- There seems to be a lot of bad blood between you and Feargus, but you still worked together for a very long time. You already knew him when you co-founded Obsidian together - did you anticipate any of these problems then? If so, what made you go ahead with Obsidian anyway?
I had thought Feargus had helped me (defending me in his role as manager) when I worked back at Interplay, and that kind of loyalty I thought should be repaid – so I did what I could to have his back, and I was happy to join him at Obsidian.
However, I later learned (from Feargus) that what I had thought was true for so many years was not true at all (I got confirmation on this), and at that point, it was increasingly harder to defend his actions or support him. The refusal to pay back employees just made the situation even worse.
- In your 12 years at Obsidian, you worked on a whole bunch of stellar RPGs - were things behind the scenes always as bad as you described near the end? If yes, what made you stick with it for so long? If not, when did things start to turn sour for you?
Yes, sometimes worse, usually around periods where the company had layoffs. Our continual problems with publishers and project management created periods of financial desperation that translated into a difficult work environment, problems with other projects, and a lot of scrambling to keep the studio afloat.
As for why I stuck with it for so long, it’s because if you’re an owner, you should go down with the ship. Ideally, you don’t want the ship to go down at all, but you can’t simply leave the studio if it’s struggling.
- Are you worried about burning bridges by speaking out publicly against your former employer and possibly alienating future potential employers?
No.
- Do you think Paradox will take Obsidian to court for 'gutting' the Tyranny team, as you described it?
That’s up to them. If they or any other company does, I’ll support them. It was tough enough to work on those projects without proper resources, and I definitely felt that it hurt those titles when it happened.
- What would be your ideal outcome from all this? Do you think you and Feargus could ever mend fences?
The ideal outcome’s happened: awareness. There’s nothing to be gained by silence except by Obsidian’s management. Leaving these practices hidden is what allows them to persist.
I firmly believe shedding some light on the issue vs. blindly ignoring it wouldn’t benefit those still working at Obsidian, upper management and developers alike.
As for mending fences - the issues I raised were all raised while I was at Obsidian, and fixing them or reaching some sort of reconciliation could have taken place before I departed – but there was no attempt by any of the owners to do so. Even the one issue that was addressed – paying back the employees – was damaged by the difficulty in getting the employee’s paychecks returned to the people who had sacrificed for us. The mere fact we had to fight to have it done showed poor character and poor ethics. And as much as I miss working with the developers, I don’t need or want to work for a company that has guiding principles like that.
