The studio behind the Ori games is said to be not a pleasant place to work, according to former employees. Microsoft has also since responded to the allegations.
The developer studio Moon Studios is currently facing serious accusations. In a report by (GamesBeat), several current as well as former employees have spoken about their time at the company and the atmosphere there. They describe the management style at the company as oppressive.
In the meantime, Microsoft has reacted and ended its cooperation as publisher of Moon Studios. Ori and the Blind Forest and its sequel Ori and the Will of the Wisps had been published under the label of Xbox Game Studios.
Executives at centre of allegations
Sexism, racism, bullying – basically the testimonials of those affected revolve around these issues, which is said to have led to a death [of the studio] by a thousand cuts, GamesBeat quotes.
Accordingly, the working atmosphere is described as oppressive. The external presentation as an open and honest workplace was allegedly used as an excuse for abuse. The founders of Moon Studios, Thomas Mahler and Gennadiy Korol, are said to have sharply criticised employees in public chats and generally been stingy with praise.
One ex-employee makes the following comments about his time at the studio:
” It’s an oppressive workplace. But it’s hard to single out one thing because individually, all these incidents, if they happened once, would give the impression that they were small things. But when you are confronted with it for years, you see how people’s mental health suffers. Personally, I was completely broken after we finished. I had never been depressed before that moment. I lost the passion for my job because they drove it out of me “
Antisemitic chat messages
In a chat visible to staff, Mahler had joked that he wanted to kill Jews by making them work on games until they died. In the context of the conversation, this remark was clearly recognisable as a joke, but the rough tone was said to have been normal. There were also conversations about penis sizes and other things.
GamesBeat claims to have received the chat passages in question and to have verified their authenticity. Franciska Csongrady, who was the only woman on the story team, has also been critical of her time at Moon Studios, calling it a “soul-destroying experience.” Once again, the studio heads in particular are at the centre of the criticism:
I worked at Moon Studios for two years. I was the only woman on the story team. I struggle to find the words to express what a soul-destroying experience it was to work with the heads of the studio, Thomas and Gennadiy. https://t.co/M0adjIJsxs
– Franciska Csongrady (@TigrMoth) March 19, 2022
Studio Statement
According to former employees, working in such an environment eventually left mental marks that one has to deal with after leaving the company. The decentralised company structure is also not as advantageous as it sounds at first. After all, the communication tools were also used to record and monitor the behaviour of the employees.
GamesBeat gave Thomas Mahler and Gennadiy Korol the opportunity to comment on the accusations. They did so in the form of a statement, which reads, among other things:
We do not believe these experiences are representative of the more than 80 Moon Studios team members who do great work every day, nor are they representative of the experiences of previous members of our team. We are very proud of our history of making people happy, advancing their careers and contributing to their financial success
They also indirectly comment on the allegations regarding anti-Semitic jokes:
In conclusion, we recognise the irony that we – an Austrian and Israeli Jew – started this multicultural company. We see each other as brothers. And like brothers, we often argue and tease each other. We have made jokes at our own expense about our different backgrounds – and there may have been times when our quips came across as insensitive and made other people feel uncomfortable
There is also said to have been an internal reaction: GamesBeat reports that the group’s leadership held a private meeting of around 30 minutes with the current team, in which Mahler and Korol addressed the allegations and offered the staff an anonymous feedback system
Microsoft responds and ends collaboration
The serious accusations have already had consequences for Moon Studios. Microsoft has terminated its cooperation with the developer, after having been the publisher of the two Ori games. This begs the question: Did Microsoft know about the accusations?
GamesBeat describes the relationship between Moon Studios and the Xbox company as difficult, based on its own report. In the course of the ten-year cooperation, deadlines were often missed, which led to release delays. The team was always afraid that the money tap from Redmond could be turned off at some point and the project put on ice.
According to one developer, Microsoft was also aware of the situation, but the contractual situation did not allow them to help the staff.
For the new project, codenamed Forsaken, Moon Studios entered into a partnership with Private Division, a subsidiary of Take Two.
