Obsidian has produced some legendary role-playing games such as Fallout, in which Chris Avellone, game designer and co-founder of the studio, was also involved. But now he is calling for his ex-studio to be sued.
What kind of developer is this? Chris Avellone founded the developer studio Obsidian with a few colleagues in 2003, where he was responsible for Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II and Fallout, among other things. His last project at Obsidian was the RPG Pillars of Eternity before leaving the studio in 2015. In 2018, Obsidian was purchased by Microsoft and is now part of Xbox Game Studios.
Now, in a post, Avellone called for people to sue his former studio for possible discrimination in their hiring practices.
Avowed is supposed to be the next big role-playing game.
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The developer indirectly accuses his former studio of discrimination
What is the lawsuit about? On November 27, 2024, in a post on You should get a lawyer. Avellone believes:
Avellone refers to his post as “breaking news.” This presumably refers to the discussion surrounding a post from 2020 in which Matt Hansen, the art director of the upcoming Obsidian RPG Avowed, offered portfolio reviews and job advice to Black artists . He wants to help them replace him one day; there are too many “crusty white guys” in the industry (via archive.today).
The accusation is now that Hansen gave preferential treatment to people based on their ethnicity and unlawfully discriminated against white people. We have asked Obsidian for a statement on this matter and will add it as soon as we have it.
The Obsidian co-founder explains in another post that an art director is certainly involved in the hiring process in a studio (via X).
Users find post after a discussion about pronouns
What’s behind it? Obsidian is currently working on Avowed, which is supposed to be the next big role-playing game. For MeinMMO author Max it could even fill the gap left by Skyrim. But at the moment there is a lot of excitement about the game.
Opinion leaders like former developer Mark Kern, who today complains about the supposedly “woke gaming industry” in the West under the name “Grummz” on X, have apparently identified Avowed as their next target.
Kern had advocated boycotting games if they included pronouns, regardless of their quality. He also shared a screenshot from an Avowed preview, which shows that the player character has the trait “he/him” (via X).
X owner Elon Musk then declared pronouns in fantasy games “unacceptable” and announced that he wanted to found his own gaming studio.
As a result of the discussion, Avowed’s art director Matt Hansen explained that his goal was to annoy Elon Musk with his game. He couldn’t believe it actually worked.
Users then found the post from 2020. Hansen has since emptied his X account.
However, Avellone emphasizes in his post that his call to sue Obsidian has nothing to do with his personal political views. He believes that the industry should not tolerate any form of discrimination in the application process, regardless of the reason.
The gaming industry struggled with layoffs and studio closures in 2024, creating uncertainty among people who work or want to work in the field. Allegations of injustice in recruitment procedures could therefore be particularly serious. But layoffs are still a big issue, as the recent wave of layoffs at Activision Blizzard showed: Update on layoffs at Activision Blizzard until the end of 2024: 3 locations are affected