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Good luck doing that without source code access. Mike Z now has exclusive ownership over the Z Engine. No more Skullgirls for anyone.
"Bu-bu-but Sonicfox had words with Mike Z, it's all good now!"
Not a good look for Sonic (who also backed Nakkiel), and fanboys need to stop being so gullible.
A boycott is kind of unnecessary.
Lab Zero made Skullgirls, but Autumn Games apparently financed it and owns the IP.
Lab Zero next made Indivisible, but it was paid for by a combination of 505 Games and crowdfunding. Apparently 505 Games owns the IP.
Lab Zero was more than Mike Z. Mike Z was the head of Lab Zero, but he mired himself in controversy and was asked to leave, but then he didn't leave, and then people started to quit, and now he apparently flipped out and fired everyone who hadn't quit yet.
So Lab Zero is basically dead now, and irrelevant. The Captain decided to drive everyone away and go down with his ship. Everyone else will be forced to find new ships and move on.
Apparently there were some negotiations to buy him out and keep Lab Zero running without him, but he screwed around with trying to maximize the value of his buyout. Then people started quitting, and the value of Lab Zero started crashing, which wrecked his leverage. At a certain point, it probably became unlikely that Lab Zero would ever be employed to make games again, but Lab Zero apparently gets some sort of royalties on Indivisible, and might get some sort of royalties on Skullgirls, so if he fires everyone and becomes the sole owner/employee of Lab Zero, then he can drain all the remaining value from Lab Zero's lifeless husk. Whenever a royalty check comes in (however big it is), he pays himself with that money, since he's Lab Zero's only employee. As soon as the buyout option fell apart, with no future and just a past to leech, this was probably his best move. Probably coldly cynical, not a mental breakdown.
That happened like last week. Skullgirls is now being worked on by the studio that does the mobile game.
The only thing Mike owns is an empty office.
I'm sure the deal with Autumn includes them having their own fork of the Z Engine, same with Them's Fighting Herds. Besides, it would also mean he would make no money if he didn't license it out.
I hope for the best to all the people that worked at Lab Zero Games.
Even if it openly know MikeZ's riddiculous ego and I can't feel surprised by the last months developments, it's really sad that he preferred to sink the ship with him, and left a lot of people unemployed and damage the brand forever, than make a step out and try to save the face to all the allegations against him.
Also, I never liked him since I watch MikeZ's panel at EVO 2011. Even if a lot of the Skullgirls features that he talks really improved the genre, you can see how he talks about himself and how dimiss the work of the other developers.
Even if it openly know MikeZ's riddiculous ego and I can't feel surprised by the last months developments, it's really sad that he preferred to sink the ship with him, and left a lot of people unemployed and damage the brand forever, than make a step out and try to save the face to all the allegations against him.
Also, I never liked him since I watch MikeZ's panel at EVO 2011. Even if a lot of the Skullgirls features that he talks really improved the genre, you can see how he talks about himself and how dimiss the work of the other developers.
Francesca probably wrote that statement as CEO and she has quit long since then.
Very sad state of affairs, all of us who were involved with the company and their franchises are pretty sad and upset, as you can imagine.
Thats not really how it goes, lol. Skullgirls mobile is a thing, the code has been shared plenty by this point. Its not like its the most amazing engine by todays standards, it was nice how it got to run SG on a PS3 but its not a huge blocker anymore.
Autumn are a publishing team, not a development studio. The Z Engine is a Lab Zero thing - or more accurately it's Mike Z's thing which he wrote first at Reverge Labs and later extended at Lab Zero. Them's Fighting Herds licensed use of the engine from Lab Zero, not Autumn.
Autumn have sworn off of working w/ Mike Z, and he now has exclusive ownership of licensing rights. Ergo no more Z Engine, so no more Skullgirls outside of the mobile game.
I almost forget the context that the engine was built around the time where you had extremely high resolution assets at the time for platforms that have minuscule amounts of RAM by today's standards.
Autumn might own the engine as well since they own the IP or they may have rights to the use the engine in the longterm, or maybe its in MikeZ's best interest to sell it or license it longterm as Im confident its going to be his only source of sustainable income in the coming years.
The engine could also be reverse engineered by this point, once SG mobile came out, other engineers were finally able to take a deep look at the engine and how it worked.
Theres a ton of workarounds around this, its not nearly as black and white as youre making it out to be.
You're pushing Mike Z's "Mike Z -IS- SKULLGIRLS" narrative pretty hard- considering how good the mobile game is I don't believe him anymore.
So he laid everyone off knowing full well that he doesn't even own the Skullgirls IP to use it as "leverage"? Is he gonna push the idea that the series needs him? Because it doesn't, he's not the only one capable of designing a fighting game.
tl;dr Several top names in Lab Zero in solidarity with one another quit the company because Mike Z had a history of power abuse and predatory behavior. They originally wanted to oust him from the company following the "I can't breathe" incident as well as the accounts of Mike creeping on women in DMs, but they were unable to, so most of them quit. This is a followup of that story.
More info here:
Ex-Lab Zero Games employee claims Mike Z repeatedly abused power [UP1: Multiple Employees Resign] (UP2: Mike Z allegedly lays off remaining employees)
Twitter user's page features NSFW art, be advised before clicking "I'm leaving Lab Zero Games. Short version: Mike Z creates an unsafe work environment for everyone. He is the sole owner of Lab Zero Games, and removing him is difficult. He originally agreed to leave, but is unwilling to make a...
www.resetera.com
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How's the team holding up financially? Not to expect this from a fraud, but any severance?
That's good.
Make Skull Girls 2 and abandon all that Mike Z shit. Heck, if possible, make a new version of the game.
People didn't know about his history at Lab Zero back then. They kept it under wraps until recently. Even SonicFox told him to fuck off once all the deets came out.
There can be more content for the mobile game, or some entirely new game, but I'd be very surprised if it would be legal for Autumn to do further work on the current PC/PS4/Switch etc Skullgirls game without interacting w/ Mike Z for source code access. Given the engine was also used for Indivisible, which was published by 505, I don't think Autumn have legal control over it.
If Autumn have the ability to yoink the Z Engine out from Lab Zero at any time, that'd be one hell of a bad deal for Lab Zero as it existed prior to these shenanigans.
Mike Z isn't Skullgirls - if anything that would be Ahad, who has also been dropkicked from the project (last year) for apparently being rubbish. But the people that brought that to life, all the animators, Kinuko etc, should be able to get Annie of the Stars finished for the mobile game.
Kinuko is gonna get them money for a reason, lol
I mean, back in the Reverge Labs days, the leads were making like 15k a year. Idnie life in the CA area fucking sucks, thats why most of the artists work the convention circuit and had to become independently noteworthy artists. I freelanced for them on my free time but thats why I always stuck to more "corporate" game jobs, youre giving up entirely too much in order to live out your indie game dreams.
Kotaku Update
Kotaku article regarding this mess
Mostly stuff we already knew about, with a couple of VERY important nuggets of new information:
Followed by a statement from MikeZ himself:
So... any insiders willing to corroborate his version? I'm absolutely certain he's just trying to cover his ass and everything about this just screams hypocrisy to me, but it would be interesting to get some confirmation from someone who witnessed how everything went down.
Mostly stuff we already knew about, with a couple of VERY important nuggets of new information:
Followed by a statement from MikeZ himself:
So... any insiders willing to corroborate his version? I'm absolutely certain he's just trying to cover his ass and everything about this just screams hypocrisy to me, but it would be interesting to get some confirmation from someone who witnessed how everything went down.
Are we expecting a statement from 505 Games at any point since they published Indivisible?
Edit: According to the official Discord they don'tyet as a number of factors are being taken into consideration. I see...
Edit: According to the official Discord they don'tyet as a number of factors are being taken into consideration. I see...
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Ah royalties, I hadn't thought about that. That would explain it, while also being the dickest possible move. Tracks though.
So what happens with the Z Engine? As even though Mike Z doesn't own the IP, I am guessing he owns the engine?
Actually, Indivisible was pretty notably owned by Lab Zero because according to Mike Z, Autumn Games withheld royalties from Lab Zero, which was their reason for why Skullgirls didn't get anything new. (However, Robo-Fortune existed after that statement if I remember correctly, and for some reason I don't see anyone like EU04 saying anything about that sort of thing when referring to Autumn games)
Did they lose a publishing deal or something? Suddenly finding yourself without the funds to meet payroll is tough to believe, particularly when half your payroll obligations walked out the door.
They could have lost a deal of some kind because of this - many of the team members who left were art directors and lead animators who defined Lab Zero's style. If they had a new project on the go, the loss of those people likely killed it due to the studio's inability to deliver what was pitched and lost any potential deal that may have been on the table. All speculation and hypotheticals though.
Check the Fanbyte article
It has an extract from his shitty letter in there too
Lab Zero Workers, Skullgirls Players Detail Studio Owner's Toxic Behavior
Folks formerly at and close to Lab Zero, the studio behind Skullgirls, have come forward to describe the awful behavior of the company owner.
www.fanbyte.com
It has an extract from his shitty letter in there too
What a combination of the most disgusting emotional manipulation and straight desperation. This guy never for one second intended to put his ego aside and leave.Check the Fanbyte article
Lab Zero Workers, Skullgirls Players Detail Studio Owner's Toxic Behavior
Folks formerly at and close to Lab Zero, the studio behind Skullgirls, have come forward to describe the awful behavior of the company owner.www.fanbyte.com
It has an extract from his shitty letter in there too
Check the Fanbyte article
Lab Zero Workers, Skullgirls Players Detail Studio Owner's Toxic Behavior
Folks formerly at and close to Lab Zero, the studio behind Skullgirls, have come forward to describe the awful behavior of the company owner.www.fanbyte.com
It has an extract from his shitty letter in there too
Good god, this is moronic.
Check the Fanbyte article
Lab Zero Workers, Skullgirls Players Detail Studio Owner's Toxic Behavior
Folks formerly at and close to Lab Zero, the studio behind Skullgirls, have come forward to describe the awful behavior of the company owner.www.fanbyte.com
It has an extract from his shitty letter in there too
jesus
To be fair, SkullGirls is very close to be an adult game, so it wouldnt be an extreme idea