A trusted high-level employee can cause a lot of damage. There’s really no way to avoid that.
Yeah, you’re right. I’m just pointing out that the game would be a failure regardless of the validity of this lawsuit.
Not news to anyone here - I guess, but still.
Brain-chip.
How many sales would $1m translate to? Because that’s x thousand people who saved themselves $50 as a result of a disgruntled employee.
She can’t sue for wrongful termination if she quit, which the lawsuit alleges she did. If she has sued Stardock over workplace issues, I’m surprised that filing didn’t get public notice before now. If it exists, with this come to light I’d be surprised if it does exist it doesn’t surface in the next day or two.
It looks like her title was “Marketing Manager”, which even with a smaller company still doesn’t make her an executive.
Given the length of the alpha/beta testing and how vocal that group was - I doubt it. you think many gamers pick up games as an impulse buy?
I really think most people don’t go to an official forum to see the impressions of a beta test.
Here’s my guess:
New information came to light that she was not working on the project at all (was solely on her laptop) and in reality she was spending all hr work time on other jobs… and she made a good money doing her “other” jobs while she was supposed to be working for Stardock. Apparently she works for Chrysler now and makes good money there. When she quit, she not only took her laptop but stole information of their main servers as she left. Stardock doesn’t know if she actually had anything done marketing wise for the game, but now that they fully understand what was going on feel she’s in a position to pay the company back.
Honestly… nothing else makes sense. Brad isn’t that stupid and knows goodwill helps sell their games. But the one thing that doesn’t make sense and is how poorly designed the lawsuit statements are on the lawyers part. The fact more people buying would have meant more frustrated people. However, Brad can point out all the utterly broken games getting released today that are in worse shape than Elemental was and for those ther games all they get is “maybe” a fixed up game whereas original purchasers of Elemental will be a getting a new game and extra expansions for free.
Does he now.
See Constructive Dismissal as mentioned above.
…occurs when employees resign because their employer’s behaviour has become so intolerable or heinous or made life so difficult that the employee has no choice but to resign. Since the resignation was not truly voluntary, it is in effect a termination.
Obviously we don’t know if that actually has anything to do with this…
even with this crazy new thing called the internets. people still talk to one another.
Hey you getting that new stardock game coming out?
Na, John pre-ordered it and has been playing the beta. He says it sucks right now; wait and see if they can fix it up first.
Good to know, thanks I guess I’ll pass.
As an attorney, I don’t think we can assume that at all. Clients want to do all sorts of stupid things even if you tell them not to.
These concepts aren’t generally very meaningful in “at-will” states in the US. Mostly irrelevant in the State of Michigan. If it wasn’t the result of actual illegal behavior by the employer, it’s not the basis for a lawsuit. The actual nuts and bolts of what constitutes illegal workplace harassment/behavior in Michigan is an amount of research outside the scope of my caring, but is left as an exercise for the truly curious.
I’m confused. In my last 2 job here in MI (over a decade ago) it was made abundantly clear when I was hired that I was an “at-will” employee. Or is that what you’re saying?
I tried very hard to like Elemental after release and even participated since early Beta. Still I don’t think any amount of marketing would have changed the fact that game was shallow and unfinished at release. So I knew game was shallow and unfinished and still purchased it, trusting Stardock to make it whole at some point. Did they? No. On top of that they sold Stardock, distribution system to third-party, further locking away even what little they promised to preorder crowd. I don’t think I will be making any good-will purchases from Stardock in the future, and this lawsuit only reinforces this decision.
Sure, but like I said, I don’t think he’s a fool.
Well, he did release Elemental. And wrote the novel.
Both are foolish things.
— Alan
She’s currently employed doing the same thing at Chevrolet, if her Linkedin/G+ I googled up is correct.
I think some folks on here are still mad that Elemental was a bad game.
Not to mention defending the game on a certain forum to the point of ridiculousness, when he clearly should have kept his mouth shut.