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Eurogamer: "Lego Island studio Mindscape fired staff to avoid paying bonuses"

Dakhil

Dakhil

Member
Mar 26, 2019
4,459
Orange County, CA
www.eurogamer.net

Lego Island studio Mindscape fired staff to avoid paying bonuses

Mindscape, developer of the iconic 1997 Lego game Lego Island, laid off the project's team to avoid paying them various…
www.eurogamer.net www.eurogamer.net
Mindscape, developer of the iconic 1997 Lego game Lego Island, laid off the project's team to avoid paying them various bonuses.

The small team which built Lego Island had worked on the game for two years and had already begun work on an underwater-set follow-up. But when it became clear how successful Lego Island would be, Mindscape bosses took action to avoid paying them their contracted royalties.
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"When the game came out, we knew that it was going to be big," Lego Island senior producer Scott Anderson said. "We have a terrific program in place for bonuses, for the team. And when the game came out, rather than pay off the, uh, the people who work on it, I mean, they sold like a lot of copies in the first day. And so they owed us royalties, they owed us a lot of bonuses and they decided that they would fold the company rather than pay us. So they fired the whole team, and then they folded the company."
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Crecente added that this is an account he had heard from numerous people connected with the project that he had spoken to, while researching the Bits N' Bricks podcast series.

"They believe that the company did not want to have to pay out those bonuses," Crecente commented. "So they fired everybody before it started selling. Absolutely terrible."
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While Mindscape would continue on under new management after the company sold itself, the Lego Group did not contract the developer again for Lego Island 2, or any further project. And, sadly, without the original team on board, Lego Island's sequels never lived up to the original.
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MagnusGman

MagnusGman

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
1,042
Dallas
I can still hear the music from Lego Island in my head. I don't know who the people at the top were, but fuck them.
 
RPG_Fanatic

RPG_Fanatic

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,683
As someone who enjoyed Lego Island back in the day, it saddens me to hear that the people who made the game were treated like this.
 
Handicapped Duck

Handicapped Duck

▲ Legend ▲
Avenger
May 20, 2018
13,676
Ponds
Amazing how over the long term they could have made more money with subsequent sequels than just the small amount of short term profit by firing their own development team. Capitalism continues to show its ass.
 
Dyle

Dyle

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
30,113
Whoever decided to do that should be forced to spend the rest of their days in the scary cave from the racetrack being constantly trampled by the giant skeleton
 
Shahed

Shahed

Member
Oct 27, 2017
841
UK, Newcastle
Oh wait. This is going to make us more money than expected? And we'd have to give developers a cut of the extra money we never thought we'd get?

Can't be having that! Abandon ship, and screw over future potential money. Can't let devs get silly idea that they'll get any bonus
 
Stencil

Stencil

Member
Oct 30, 2017
10,451
USA
I played the hell out of Lego Island. Shitty move to axe everyone, an underwater sequel wouldve been amazing
 
Kresnik

Kresnik

Member
Oct 26, 2017
2,974
Recognised their name, remembered it was the logo at the start of Circuit Breakers for the PS1. What a game. Apparently they made Rat Attack too which I enjoyed.

Such a shame to hear about them taking such a dick move towards the devs.
 
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