A Spanish game publisher has closed its doors, leaving employees without pay cheques or answers
A company that was on track to become Spain’s version of Devolver Digital has closed its doors and its directors have left the country, leaving behind them unpaid debts, heartbroken employees, and a lot of unanswered questions.
Sindiecate was an independent games publisher which had worked with a studio called Brainwash Gang to produce Nongünz, a “nihilistic action platformer” that came out in 2017. The two directors of Sindiecate, Fernando Ortega and Claudia Ancajima, had formed a relationship with Nongünz creator Edu Verz, and were working on his next game, a gritty open-world action game called Damnview.
But according to reporting by Teknautas, the environment at Sindiecate broke down into toxicity, and in late 2018, the publisher resembled a “telenovella episode,” as one employee, Juan de Torre, put it.
The details of the breakdown have been collected and translated into English by Madrid-based developer Rosa Carbo-Mascarell, who created a Twitter thread based on Jaume Esteve’s Teknautas story.
The article details an atmosphere of distrust, tension, and backbiting at Sindiecate, before it eventually closed its doors one day in December 2018, emailing employees to tell them they had suddenly been given a Monday off. When the workers met up that day at a nearby cafe, they learned that many had been working without contracts for years, some as illegal freelancers.
"This is what has kept me awake the last months," tweeted Carlos Gurpegui, a narrative designer for Brainwash Gang, as he shared a link to Esteve's story.
from PCGamesN http://bit.ly/2PEVC9e
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