The “oppression” within Moon Studios may have played a part in the studio’s eventual parting of ways with Microsoft after Ori and the Blind Forest and Ori and the Will of the Wisps.

Both Ori games were standout titles and were published by Microsoft (except for Nintendo Switch, where iam8bit took over the baton), so Phil Spencer and his team had a decent indie IP on their hands. However, Moon Studios eventually parted ways with Redmond and continued with Take-Two’s Private Division, its indie arm; the team is now making a multiplatform action RPG, so it won’t just be the Xbox/PC pair that the studio is targeting.

According to Dean Takahashi writing for VentureBeat, Moon Studios might talk about its openness, but behind the scenes, it’s all about repression. Their situation is unique in that everyone is working remotely as a contractor and the two founders, Thomas Mahler and Gennadiy Korol, have a no-nonsense, flat structure. Several ex-employees say that the flat structure does not apply to Mahler and Korol because they had power over everything and used the principle of ‘no bullsh_t’ to push down anyone who they thought was not doing their job.

Employees who were called out were called ‘f__king idiots’ and ‘failed abortions’ in team meetings and often had their work called sh_t. Offensive, racist and sexist jokes were common at the meetings, and the Mahler-Korol duo often escalated into shouting matches. The two perfectionists often failed to provide helpful feedback, leading to a loss of efficiency and the need to resort to crunch. Some called the crunch the worst point in their careers, as they had to work seven days a week for months on end. As a result, there was a frequent staff turnover, but since then, Moon Studios’ new project has grown to around 80 people.

And his colleague Jeff Grubb said during the GamesBeat Decides podcast: “It’s not like this culture is like something that is… contained. Microsoft is well aware of what this company is like, and when they got done with Ori 2, there is a reason that Private Division is publishing their next game and not Microsoft. I was told this morning that Microsoft was aware, and everyone understood that… that’s what this company is like. And so, it’s not the kind of thing where it’s like, “Oh, this is just a couple of jokes happening on Discord.”

So not all is gold that glitters…

Source: WCCFTech