Yogventures Artist Paid $35k For Two Weeks "Work"

[Nurb]

I've only ever interned in the industry and even I know you never give an up-front sum like that and to always write out a proper contract about what is expected of them.

Also a lesson for kickstarter backers. You're not 'paying up front' for a game, you're giving strangers money with hopes you'll ever see the game finished years down the line.

Why are they leaving the artist unnamed? Why wouldn't they publicly shame him/her and report their actions to their new employers? Preferably the latter first so they aren't blamed for a media crapstorm of "Lucasarts Hires Conartist" and damaging the company's image.

The artist that took the money didn't "con" them, he just took advantage of bad contracts and bad decisions another business made. It's one of those "You're not wrong, you're just an asshole" things. Lucasarts aren't going to care because they have their own lawyers looking out for their best interests and are paid to write up binding contracts.

 

[Mr Companion]

It turns out that two random bandwagon youtubers are not great at running a company to create a bizarre vanity project game about themselves.

 

[AntiChri5]

Why are they leaving the artist unnamed? Why wouldn't they publicly shame him/her and report their actions to their new employers? Preferably the latter first so they aren't blamed for a media crapstorm of "Lucasarts Hires Conartist" and damaging the company's image.

Because the artist is legally in the clear. If they weren't, they would be getting dragged into court.

They signed a contract where they pay a year of an employees salary up front in a lump sum but didn't add any conditions for what would happen if that employee quit. Who DOES that? They drew up a really fucking stupid contract and now have to live with it.

 

[Roofstone]

I actually feel really sorry for the yogscast here. They were very naive when they were just two dorks playing minecraft (instead of the entire business they have now) and put their faith where it should not have been put..

Has to be a shitty feeling.

 

[walrusaurus]

I'm still baffled by just how popular the yogscast are. I don't dislike their content necessarily, but I follow youtubers with a few hundred subs that I find much more entertaining.

Maybe I just really hate the sound of the word "yog".

I enjoyed their podcast back in the day. It was real irregular but it was downright hilarious. Then Minecraft came out, they hit it big on that, and its been all downhill from there comicedicly imo.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

I'm still baffled by just how popular the yogscast are. I don't dislike their content necessarily, but I follow youtubers with a few hundred subs that I find much more entertaining.

Maybe I just really hate the sound of the word "yog".

I enjoyed their podcast back in the day. It was real irregular but it was downright hilarious. Then Minecraft came out, they hit it big on that, and its been all downhill from there comicedicly imo.

Lewis and Simon are still pretty funny. I find that the rest of their crew has followed a loose pattern: random support staff member gets a chance to play game with them, generates a few laughs which become in-jokes which are endlessly parroted by their audience, said-staff member gets their own channel because they mistake the internet feedback loop for wit.

I wish they'd do more podcasts.

 

[GloatingSwine]

At this point it'll be more like news if a high profile kickstarted videogame doesn't run over time and budget....

 

[Braedan]

I purport that we should wait a little more than four days for the Yogscast to actually sort it all out, rather than just start flinging allegations of fraud and theft. There's absolutely a chance there's shenanigans going on, but it takes a major multinational weeks or months to even admit that problems have even happened. Give a small team like the Yogscast at least a little bit of time to get their shit together before marching on their offices.

 

[Amaror]

Wait a second. This artist screw them over big time, why aren't they mentioning his name. If i were them i would at least want to burn his reputation down for being such a scumback and just running with the money.

 

[mistwolf]

I'm still baffled by just how popular the yogscast are. I don't dislike their content necessarily, but I follow youtubers with a few hundred subs that I find much more entertaining.

Maybe I just really hate the sound of the word "yog".

My 10 year old daughter absolutely loves them. We didn't do the KS, thankfully, since I don't follow them enough to notice such things or I likely would have. And being in Australia, I often go for the digital-only tiers of things so would certainly have been in the most screwed demographic.

That said, I've done a bunch of Kickstarters, mostly on webcomic compilations and such, and have had really good luck with them. The few softwares I've done have been mixed (Girl Genius' game notably failed to impress me) but I take them with a HUGE grain of salt and understanding that if nothing comes of it, I'm out of luck.

 

[Fasckira]

Wait a second. This artist screw them over big time, why aren't they mentioning his name. If i were them i would at least want to burn his reputation down for being such a scumback and just running with the money.

Because then that artist could take them to the cleaners for defamation of character, or whatever the legal terminology should be.

Legally, the artist has done nothing wrong. Hell, he may not have realised he was going to get offered the LucasArts contract till after he signed up at which point as soon as he accepted the Lucas contract he then had to legally stop working on the Yogventures.

At this point, hes don nothing wrong. Sure, if he was a good guy he'd return at least a percentage of the money but he doesnt have to. If he were to return the money, it'd then be sitting with the Yog guys, then becomes a case of what do they do with the cash...

 

[BrotherRool]

This breakdown is going to be fantastic, I hope he doesn't get sued for doing it.

It will be so helpful to everyone running a development studio to find some of the traps involved in making them. The artist thing is big and it's important to realise how thorough contracts need to be, sometimes even with people you trust.

But it was only $35,000, it must have been the inexperience as a lead developer and lack of main programmer (along with the overambition) that sunk it. Making games is expensive yo!

At this point it'll be more like news if a high profile kickstarted videogame doesn't run over time and budget....

The time one is going to basically always happen. Kickstarter asks for the release date before people start backing the project. If you were making a game and you receive twice as much money, well it's basically going to take twice as long to make the game. You could hire more people but the quality of the game would begin to fall. Hiring the same people but for longer is the best way to make use of that money.

Also it's almost impossible to work out how long it takes to make a particular game before you make it =D That's why AAA development studios are always falling behind schedule too. My biggest surprise of Kickstarter so far is that Obsidian are still insisting that Pillars of Eternity is going to be ready for winter, which is the date they gave after the kickstarter was over.

 

[Riotguards]

maybe they should have used that $500k for a lawyer to make some contracts but alas internet contracts aren't as solid as they appear

 

[CriticalMiss]

Wow, that is one massive contract fail right there. It's odd that they had the sense to write a contract, but not enough to have someone check it through for gaping and soon-to-be expensive loopholes. Which is kind of one of the big problems with indie developers, they might have the game development sorted but they also need someone to cover the business side to prevent fuck up-ery like this.

 

[Amaror]

Because then that artist could take them to the cleaners for defamation of character, or whatever the legal terminology should be.

Legally, the artist has done nothing wrong. Hell, he may not have realised he was going to get offered the LucasArts contract till after he signed up at which point as soon as he accepted the Lucas contract he then had to legally stop working on the Yogventures.

At this point, hes don nothing wrong. Sure, if he was a good guy he'd return at least a percentage of the money but he doesnt have to. If he were to return the money, it'd then be sitting with the Yog guys, then becomes a case of what do they do with the cash...

Yeah but legally not done anything wrong and not done anything wrong are not the same thing.
He took money for work he didn't do.
That is doing something wrong.

 

[Tiamat666]

Wow, this is either an epic case of incompetence or just plain old fashioned greed & corruption.

I for one wouldn't trust the Yogscast guys with 500.000$, for both of the above reasons.

 

[Lono Shrugged]

Because then that artist could take them to the cleaners for defamation of character, or whatever the legal terminology should be.

Legally, the artist has done nothing wrong. Hell, he may not have realised he was going to get offered the LucasArts contract till after he signed up at which point as soon as he accepted the Lucas contract he then had to legally stop working on the Yogventures.

At this point, hes don nothing wrong. Sure, if he was a good guy he'd return at least a percentage of the money but he doesnt have to. If he were to return the money, it'd then be sitting with the Yog guys, then becomes a case of what do they do with the cash...

Yeah but legally not done anything wrong and not done anything wrong are not the same thing.
He took money for work he didn't do.
That is doing something wrong.

The blame here really lies with the people who drew up the contract. This artist did very well out of this deal. But as someone who works as a free lance artist in a creative field. I find it hard to be against the artist in this case. He has no obligation to the KS backers. The KS backers essentially "hired" people to make this game and they hired very, very badly. The artist was subcontracted and after getting the job at Lucasarts. Who could blame them? I mean who is there to "return" the money to. And it's not like the game was going to get made anyway. Lucky person in my opinion. There are so many stories of artists not getting paid for work done (myself included) I don't mind seeing it go the other way. This is not unusual in the creative industry.

EDIT: Consider also that this would not just apply to the artists. Everyone who worked on this would have gotten paid for very little work.

 

[ron1n]

I'm still baffled by just how popular the yogscast are. I don't dislike their content necessarily, but I follow youtubers with a few hundred subs that I find much more entertaining.

Maybe I just really hate the sound of the word "yog".

They're essentially the same as Pewdiepie.
They found a routine/shtick that reels in the coveted kid/pre-teen demographic and have pandered to it ever since.

Kind of a shame as I feel they could have been legit funny if they could have let themselves go and make their channel more varied and less PG13.

 

[Tiamat666]

The blame here really lies with the people who drew up the contract. This artist did very well out of this deal. But as someone who works as a free lance artist in a creative field. I find it hard to be against the artist in this case. He has no obligation to the KS backers. The KS backers essentially "hired" people to make this game and they hired very, very badly. The artist was subcontracted and after getting the job at Lucasarts. Who could blame them? I mean who is there to "return" the money to. And it's not like the game was going to get made anyway. Lucky person in my opinion. There are so many stories of artists not getting paid for work done (myself included) I don't mind seeing it go the other way. This is not unusual in the creative industry.

EDIT: Consider also that this would not just apply to the artists. Everyone who worked on this would have gotten paid for very little work.

What a sad world we live in, when many people defend the artist for taking advantage of a shitty contract. Or even aplaud him for that.
It's a dick move if you take money for a job, and ignore it, just because you can. Whatever happened to professionalism, common decency or self respect?
Actually, I doubt the story with the artist is even true. Unless the Yogspeople release any source code and assets that have been produced, I will assume they are lazy thieves that just pocketed the money.
But if the artist story is true, than that guy is an asshole and they should definitively release his name, which is not illegal, as they are just stating facts of who they hired.
The fact that they are not releasing a name just makes this whole story more shady.