Community contributors were under no obligation to create content, work to deadlines or put in any particular number of hours. "During this time both the core crew and community contributors were collaborating via a chat room and dedicated their time for free.
"We're aware and saddened by the current allegations against Chucklefish regarding Starbound's early development. They’re a different company these days, and have worked to do better since Starbound’s development. In a statement, Chucklefish told Screen Rant that it expressed regret at the situation. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. damon "pay your damn workers" reece August 28, 2019 I worked hundreds of hours and wasn't paid a single cent for it while the company made unbelievable amounts of money off of my labour, and that of around a dozen other unpaid workers. I started out my gamedev career working on starbound for almost two years.
Reece believes they and a number of contributors were taken advantage of by the studio, capitalising on their inexperience to access free labour. Starbound might have helped put Chucklefish on the map, but that may have come at the expense of convincing numerous starry-eyed young developers to give up their rights and pay.Īllegations kicked off when writer Damon Reece claimed Chucklefish took advantage of "hundreds of hours" of work without pay. It's easy to think of crunch as something that only bothers the big dogs - massive studios churning through their hundreds-strong workforce to get out a particularly snazzy-looking 3D rock.Ībsolutely shocking, then, that indies are far from exempt from inexcusable working conditions.