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RPG Codex Interview: Chris Avellone on Pillars Cut Content, Game Development Hierarchies and More

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,656
Chris Avellone another question (although I would still be interested in the matter about the word count) -- how did the commercial failure of Alpha Protocol affect your standing at Obsidian?

There's a noticeable change of course in your gameography since then -- it's been mostly supporting work, and a lot of it outside Obsidian, even before you left. It's obvious this situation took a quite a while to fester, so I'm wondering if this had something to do with it. Did it get you permanently on Feargus's shitlist?
I don't believe Feargus would assign the blame for this on Avellone's shoulders. It was Chris Parker's project, and Avellone even went to bat for him publicly after that laid-off employee called him out (though I bet he wouldn't now :P)
 

Janslin

Novice
Joined
Mar 13, 2015
Messages
10
Jesus, I never expected Chris was going along with this IRS stuff. The situation between him and Feargus is worse than I thought. I just hope Chris treads lightly and only says and does things he can defend with evidence if all things go haywire.

If what Chris says is true, the situation is understandably about as bad as it can get. All things considered I find MCA to be 100% believable.
 

AwesomeButton

Proud owner of BG 3: Day of Swen's Tentacle
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PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
Maybe his children were responsible for writing in Tyranny. Would explain why it feels like it was written by a ten year old watching Disney XD.

Well... the gloves are definitely off. :lol:

*Chris puts on Deathclaw gauntles*
What I have not played cannot hurt me. Deadfire, however, can and will.
 

Maculo

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Strap Yourselves In Pathfinder: Wrath
I do not know how effective this will be Bester. First, is this a matter of tax fraud or accounting fraud (e.g., embezzlement)? Your main description does not allege that Obsidian is dodging taxes or paying less in taxes (if anything, paying more taxes), but rather that friends and family are holding sham positions and being paid. This could be a crime (I have further questions about it in point #2), just perhaps not one that involves the IRS. Instead, this may fall under the review of state authorities that investigate accounting fraud/embezzlement.

...

You are more than welcome to file this, it is your choice. I just do not see much coming from it. If anything, this would be a State of California matter.

I haven't read all the posts since the last time I was on, but if this ghost employee practice is indeed illegal (which wasn't mentioned whenever it actually happened), I'd be curious to know.

If so, Bester, I do appreciate what you did, plus making me aware of that as an issue. If there's a step-by-step process anyone knows on how to file these complaints, I'd love to hear them.

On a related note to this issue, this wasn't the only family members who Feargus attempted to bring on. Feargus did try and have both his young children added as employees at the studio during my last year there, but the other owners fought back and made it clear that (1) not only was it illegal b/c of the age requirements, (2) there was no way to defend against someone being able to prove his two children didn't work there (obviously, Feargus's children are far below age of employment so if it was somehow proven, there would be additional problems), but most importantly, on a higher level, it was seen an unethical and wrong thing to try and do.

The conversations about this were difficult because it was an issue related to employment + family, which made an otherwise easy decision of "no" increasingly angry and complicated, which was frustrating. It was something that shouldn't have been suggested, discussed, or brought up at all.
To add to my prior point, you may want to contact a Irvine police officer (who can hopefully point you in the right direction) or a Cali attorney a.s.a.p. If these matters occurred in 2015 or before, you may want to ensure that the statute of limitations have not run out on the alleged claim (i.e., a time limit).
 

sser

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Mar 10, 2011
Messages
1,866,662
That Stonekeep 2 cover is beautiful. That reminds me why I love rpgs.
The cover he made for BG3 is beautiful as well:
vance-kovacs-the-black-hound19.jpg

Eh... not exactly. I remeber it was quest - that's how I called then adventures, and it was in 3D maybe.
Maybe its name included word "Chapters" or something liek that. Maybe it was non-profit project and was a mod first.
I saw it definitely AFTER PS:T, but not far after - like 2000-2002 or something like that.
I'd guess it was the City of Doors Initiative (aka CODI), a NWN1 fan project that started in 2002. IIRC they did create a lot of areas and models, but never a complete module. It didn't have chapters, though. That was Planescape: The Shaper of Dreams, a NWN2 mod.

Who is the artist?
 

Tovias

Learned
Joined
Mar 19, 2018
Messages
102
I seriously hope you are consulting with some proper law fellas all this shit Avellone and not going with what people post in these forums.
 

Prime Junta

Guest
Muricans, litigious as fuck. You'd think there were more civilised ways of resolving this kind of thing. Pistols at dawn for example.
 

Maculo

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Messages
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Strap Yourselves In Pathfinder: Wrath
I seriously hope you are consulting with some proper law fellas all this shit Avellone and not going with what people post in these forums.
Can't agree with this post enough. General posts on the topic are just that. If Chris Avellone wants to pursue the issue, he needs local law enforcement or an attorney to review the matter since this pertains to California law. Anything outside of that is borderline conjecture.
 

conan_edw

Arbiter
Patron
Joined
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Messages
846
Grab the Codex by the pussy Pathfinder: Wrath
HEY GUYS FOR FUCK SAKE WAIT I WANT MY CAINARSKY PROJECT FIRST AND THEN YOU CAN DO WHATEVER THE HELL YOU WANT
Who cares? They would replace stats for figures anyway. Let Obsidian close its doors so they can make a new studio with Avellone, Stygian Software, Iron Tower, and Whalenought Studios. It will be glorious!
But muh Bloodlines got them figures anyway :negative:
 

toro

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 14, 2009
Messages
14,031
... snip ...

My impression: Avellone has a hard on for Feargus (for good reasons) and 3 days before PoE2's release Feargus cannot do shit about this.

I never imagined Obsidian's reputation will sink so fast (at least the upper management's reputation) while I bet most people working in the industry will find out about this sooner or later ... which means that the studio is done. I think Avellone just killed it.

Every publisher or developer will consider twice working or joining Obsidian. Maybe they will have a couple of more releases but Fergus will not be able to fuck around for much longer. The genie is out of the bottle and it cannot go back.

Chris Avellone : I hope you know what you are doing cause Feargus has only two options: to sue you after the PoE2's release or to make you an offer you cannot refuse.

Also please tell us what you feel when you gaze into this:

:whatisfun:
 
Last edited:

Prime Junta

Guest
If he does want to take this to court, shitposting here is probably not the best strategy.

I would rather he shitposts here.
 

Mustawd

Guest
I do not know how effective this will be Bester. First, is this a matter of tax fraud or accounting fraud (e.g., embezzlement)? Your main description does not allege that Obsidian is dodging taxes or paying less in taxes (if anything, paying more taxes), but rather that friends and family are holding sham positions and being paid. This could be a crime (I have further questions about it in point #2), just perhaps not one that involves the IRS. Instead, this may fall under the review of state authorities that investigate accounting fraud/embezzlement.

...

You are more than welcome to file this, it is your choice. I just do not see much coming from it. If anything, this would be a State of California matter.

I haven't read all the posts since the last time I was on, but if this ghost employee practice is indeed illegal (which wasn't mentioned whenever it actually happened), I'd be curious to know.

If so, Bester, I do appreciate what you did, plus making me aware of that as an issue. If there's a step-by-step process anyone knows on how to file these complaints, I'd love to hear them.

On a related note to this issue, this wasn't the only family members who Feargus attempted to bring on. Feargus did try and have both his young children added as employees at the studio during my last year there, but the other owners fought back and made it clear that (1) not only was it illegal b/c of the age requirements, (2) there was no way to defend against someone being able to prove his two children didn't work there (obviously, Feargus's children are far below age of employment so if it was somehow proven, there would be additional problems), but most importantly, on a higher level, it was seen an unethical and wrong thing to try and do.

The conversations about this were difficult because it was an issue related to employment + family, which made an otherwise easy decision of "no" increasingly angry and complicated, which was frustrating. It was something that shouldn't have been suggested, discussed, or brought up at all.

Having a ghost employee is indeed illegal. The question, however, is whom to submit the allegations to. In this case, I do not believe this is a matter the IRS would handled outright, because it seems to pertain to an owner/employee collecting paychecks from sham employees, as opposed to an owner/business avoiding taxes. Hence, I would make the distinction between tax fraud and accounting fraud (e.g., embezzlement). In my mind, the better resource is the local district attorney's office for Orange County (where Irvine sits).

Next, you have to distinguish between a ghost employee and just a badly run business. This is where your testimony would come into play, because the authorities would need specific allegations.

My understanding is that having true ghost employees can be considered tax fraud as the tax forms filled out are fraudulent. In addition, the tax returns which would include these tax payments would also be considered fraudulent.

Now I do agree with you that the IRS is likely not the best organization to report this to for a variety of reasons. However, I also would not discount it as MCA providing more details to a professional might open up possibilities we’re not aware of because we’re not tax lawyers.

I seem to remember an issue with closely held companies when it comes to salaries of owners and family members. Basically the IRS might consider a 100k salary for an owner’s wife as a disguided dividend. This is because dividends get taxed twice: Once as a dividend and again as part of that person’s income. So the fraud includes finding a way to disguise this dividend as something else. Aka a family member’s salary. The term is referred to as constructive dividends.


Payments to family members of shareholders: Amounts paid to a family member that were in excess of the value of services the family member provided constituted a constructive dividend (Snyder, T.C. Memo. 1983-692). Also, payments to a family member made on a lease that did not have a business purpose were constructive dividends (58th Street Plaza Theatre, 16 T.C. 469 (1951)).

I’m not saying this is necessarily fraud, as I’m not a lawyer and my work only deals with taxes very peripherally. But I wouldn’t necessarily discount the fact that there are tax implications with what MCA describes that the IRS would be interested in. This is just a random example I remembered from a tax class years ago.

Imagine if someone from the IRS had ALL the facts.
 

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