Gamasutra has received a letter from the spouse of a former 38 Studios employee who paints the picture of a company that exhibited some troubling signs in its final days and weeks.
The author’s husband moved his family, which included three children of varying ages, across the country to Rhode Island last December — after being ” told he had to start work as quickly as possible.” Once he’d arrived at his new job, however, things were less than smooth:
The first week he worked at 38 Studios he was concerned about the different teams and their ability to work together. He went to more than one executive during the weeks that followed encouraging them to make changes or deal with the release date issue. The company was not ready for him to do the job he was hired to do, therefore he was placed on other projects to wait it out.
Despite these initial misgivings, things ran more or less smoothly until May 15, when the company missed payroll. After being led on for over a week about pay, the company finally laid off all its workers on May 24.
But that wasn’t the end of the problems for the letter-writer and her family:
At least we stuck it out and won’t have to pay back our relocation costs according to the Chief Operating Officer. Wrong! On June 1st, we get a letter from Atlas Van Lines with 10 days to pay our overdue moving bill of a sizeable amount. Six months has gone by since our move. There was no notice at any point that this had not been paid and now we get a bill with 10 days to pay.
She doesn’t blame Curt Schilling directly, saying that he likely “trusted the wrong people,” though he “should have done better.” Instead, she directs her venom at the executives in the company who let things get to the point they did:
I blame a company named 38 Studios and all of their executives for moving so many families while knowing they weren’t paying bills, weren’t going to hit their dates, and were running out of money.
With a massive investigation into 38 Studios — involving the FBI and the Rhode Island U.S. Attorney’s Office — underway, we might soon find out just who was responsible for what.
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