I’m gonna start a reality TV show based on crowdfunded games — I think I’ll do a Kickstarter
Former StarForge forums community manager Juno has come out with some scathing accusations against CodeHatch, developers of the Steam Early Access and successfully funded Indiegogo project StarForge. According to Juno, not only were the developers unwilling to interact with the community that funded the game, they also ended up releasing the game on Steam Early Access without even telling the community.
Juno stated that she served as community manager of the StarForge forums for six months and although assurances were made to her that her contract would be renewed, she was unceremoniously cut from that position via email on the very day her contract was to expire.
Danjvelker, another long-time member of the StarForge forums, has come forward with evidence that within the last few months CodeHatch has replaced many of their experienced staff, some of whose credits included working at BioWare on games such as Mass Effect and Dragon Age, with staff that have little to no experience.
Danjvelker and others have speculated that this, along with the now rapid race to get StarForge to version 1.0, is an indicator that CodeHatch is running out of funds. Danjvelker published this evidence on the StarForge forums and soon after he, along with Juno and others that were in support of it, were banned from the StarForge Steam hub and their accounts were deleted from the official forums. All in all around 20,000 posts were removed from the StarForge forums.
As of this moment, CodeHatch has not released any comments on the situation other than their actions of banning the above mentioned users.
StarForge: Developer Misconduct, a look back from the inside. [reddit]
