Game Workers Fight Former Studio's "Extortion"

MetroGames employees were allegedly pressured to quit and therefore forego severance pay.

While it might be fun to work at a social game studio in Argentina, it certainly isn't fun when that job disappears. Such a scenario is doubly crappy when your superiors try to convince you to quit so the company doesn't have to pay the severance that's required by Argentinan law. Top it off with the fact that Argentinan courts take a January recess, leaving these wrong employees no legal recourse until the court is back in session, and yeah, that's a pretty terrible chain of events. It's especially facepalm-worthy when MetroGames received an infusion of $5 million from Playdom two years ago and its Facebook game Coco Girl appears to be a hit.

Back in December, an anonymous worker said the Chief Operating Officer of MetroGames Julian Lisenberg, "had private meetings with us employees. In these meetings [Lisenberg] asked for our resignation in exchange for our salary for the current month. We were basically being told that if we did not take this money, we weren't going to see a penny later on," he said. "This is extortion, and their actions trample our rights. We ought to be fired properly and paid what we are owed by law."

Some 30 employees did not quit, and were therefore not paid any salary in December because they did not take Lisenberg's "generous" deal. The group of former employees have banded together to release a statement of their intent to fight for their livelihood. "The group of employees which didn't give in to the extortion perpetrated by both [studio owners Julian] Lisenberg and [Damian] Harburguer, were fired without compensation," the statement read before continuing:

Until this day, we haven't received our salary corresponding to the month of December, our bonuses and our compensation for sudden layoff. The stipulated date for them to pay this sum is long overdue, but we have to wait until February to begin legal action against MetroGames, because of the judicial recess that takes place in January here in Argentina. Many of the former MetroGames' employees have been left in a dire situation: without money, job and in debt.

The situation just seems awful. By what metrics are available to us, it appears that CocoGirl is doing well with 500,000 daily active users and 3,100,000 monthly, but MetroGames claims that it can no longer support the 80-person staff it maintained before December. Lisenberg said he has been negotiating with the Disney affiliate PlayDom to purchase the company outright, but negotiations on that front have stalled and he was forced to reduce payroll to stay in the black.

While that story just seems like an unfortunate but understandable business practice, the accusations of extortion and refusing to pay for time worked already is just wrong. The Escapist hopes that the workers are compensated fairly.

Source: Gamasutra