A Short Summary

It seems like there's one of these kinds of statements being shared far too often in the games industry. Every time I see one pop up, I can't help but feel a sort of weary disappointment, always thinking to myself with frustrating regularity, "Another one?" Dishearteningly, the answer is always the same: yes, another one. Immediately my mind will wonder: who in the industry am I about to lose respect for and who’s the unfortunate victim of the hour? Today, I find myself in the unenviable position of being that messenger. I had hoped that I’d never have to write one of these, but I do so now to help corroborate and support the victim, my friend. So for those of you invariably asking yourselves that same question that I always do too, I'm sad to say the answer is once again: yes, another.

These things are unpleasant enough as it is and I don’t want to drag out any unnecessary suspense, so I’m going to just pull this band-aid of bad news off quickly. I'll do my best to bluntly if not ungracefully summarize the crux of things right here at the outset. Bear in mind this will obviously lack substantial context and detail, which are instead included in the section after. Also, to clarify, this document is mainly a sort of companion piece to the more detailed complete statement made by the victim, Lynn. I recommend that you start by reading her statement first. Her voice is the important one here anyway, mine less so. With that preamble out of the way, I’ll now attempt to compress this years-long complicated story into the following:

I was working remotely in Los Angeles for PixelCount Studios (a UK company) on their first indie game, Kynseed. My role there was primarily in production and community management. One day I received a long and serious message from Lynn, a highly active community member (from the US). In this message I learned that Matthijs Den Daas (from the Netherlands), the game's composer otherwise known as “TiceTunes” and “Tice” in the community, had exploited the power dynamics of his position to coerce and emotionally strong-arm Lynn into a romantic online relationship that she became progressively uncomfortable with. This had been going on for some time already, during which Tice made frequently clear that she was not allowed to tell anybody about their relationship. At Tice's perpetual insistence, things became very sex-obsessed very fast. Eventually, Tice made a trip to visit in-person at Lynn's home for a week and it was during this visit that he raped her. It took Lynn months to gather the courage to report this incident to me. Once she did, she proceeded to share an overwhelming amount of organized context and evidence. I believed her. There was no doubt. I immediately went to Charlie and Neal, co-founder and CEO respectively, and reported the rape and evidence to them with no ambiguity. I emphasized to them the seriousness of the situation in no uncertain terms. I am sad to report, however, that what followed was months of complete silence and inaction by company leadership. After a couple months, I eventually cornered the CEO on a call to discuss it, only to be told that he hadn’t even gotten around to speaking to Tice about it - not once. Following that call was another couple months of silence, inaction, and willful avoidance. So with my disillusionment in the company having reached its upper limit, I unceremoniously quit.

A Long Summary

Anyone following the games industry has no doubt seen the seemingly unending flood of workplace harassment and toxicity reports that have been coming out over the years. This last year has been so bad in particular that, without my needing to even mention them, I'll bet a few company names have already come to your mind. Yet with so many huge AAA companies experiencing these problems, it can be easy to assume that the less corporate nature of smaller close-knit indie teams means they'd be less susceptible to such issues. But whether a corporate team of 3,000 or an indie team of 3, harassment issues can surely manifest in either.

This is precisely what happened during my time working for PixelCount Studios. A team member sexually assaulted a community member, it was reported to company leadership, and it was willfully ignored with absolutely no action taken during my time there. This is my account of that situation.

Allow me to start by first providing some brief backstory for how I came to work for PixelCount. As a young gamer interested in working in games, I became an early fan of Lionhead Studios. Theirs was the first game community I ever joined and became active in. Over the years I gradually made professional connections with Lionhead’s community team who in turn gave me some of my first experience opportunities in the industry.

Years later, Lionhead was sadly and unceremoniously closed and its large team were cast to the proverbial winds. Unsurprisingly, many went on to try their hand at starting indie studios. One of these was PixelCount Studios, founded by Charlie Edwards and Neal Whitehead, both coming from decades-long careers at Lionhead as a level designer and a programmer respectively.

I didn’t know Neal too closely other than sometimes seeing his name around Lionhead. Charlie, however, I knew from my many years in the Lionhead community. Charlie was fairly active there and so when I first showed up as a brand-new young member, it was the first time I’d even seen a “real game dev”. Because of this he took on a slight celebrity-like status to me and, over the years, I came to look up to the fellow. Our paths would go on to occasionally cross, but in later years we weren’t as in touch. So when Charlie reached out to me with an offer to come help as he and Neal started a new studio, I leaped at the chance. This had all the markings of the kind of dream gig I’d been looking for and, to top it off, I got to work with a developer I’d always looked up to.

I then began helping out over the next year or so while the initial company setup and game plans were formed. Eventually we launched a successful Kickstarter for a unique RPG called Kynseed. From there, we set to work developing the game for the next handful of years. As a small team we all wore multiple hats, with mine primarily being production (graphic design, video editing, writing news/updates, making websites, social/PR, etc.) as well as a heavy focus on community management. The latter of which I became particularly proud of, having started from scratch a community that eventually grew into one of the loveliest bunch of people I’ve had the pleasure of spending time with online. Working alongside them over the years, our amazing members helped cultivate a cozy and welcoming vibe to our community that felt uniquely ours.

Which makes for a nice segue for me to share some context about Lynn and her time in our community. Lynn joined our community during one of the very first waves of supporters that Kynseed received. For all intents and purposes, she'd been in the community for as long as there even was a community. She became one of our most enthusiastic supporters of the game and took little time in becoming a regular fixture around the community. Practically every day she was helping out by answering member's questions, offering development feedback, cheering on the team’s progress, and generally just helping to establish and set the tone for the friendly welcoming vibe that our community had. If you were to look at Lynn's community account analytics, what you would find is that by a large margin she spent more time and had more messages than any other member in the community. Which is why it is not at all hyperbolic when I tell you she was PixelCount Studio’s #1 fan. As a seasoned community manager, I knew that we had lucked out having that kind of member join our community so early.

I suppose the final piece of context to share is to explain how I knew Tice and how he came to join the game's development. Tice and I originally met each other while doing community work at a prior game company. He was one of the moderators there at the time and since I was on the community team we'd regularly interact. As I got to know him, I learned that Tice's chief goal in life was to eventually become a game composer. I departed that job about a year later and from there he and I became internet acquaintances. Years later, during the Kickstarter for Kynseed, I thought back to Tice's musical aspirations and felt it might be fun to have him make a short track or two for the Kynseed prototype which, up to that point, was devoid of any music whatsoever. I reached out to him and in short time he had a couple of tracks made. Charlie and Neal were particularly pleased with how they turned out and asked if I might be able to get him to make more tracks, which he did. Eventually it became clear that Charlie and Neal wanted to see if he could continue doing this full time for the game’s entire soundtrack. I went to Tice with the good news, happy that I was able to help give him precisely the kind of break into games that he'd been looking for.

Let's now hop in our proverbial time machine and set the dial for early September 2018. Also, now that we’re apparently time traveling, a quick reminder that reading Lynn's account of things will help fill any details that I end up skipping over for either clarity or brevity. I’m diving in at this specific point in the timeline because it’s a critical moment of Tice’s actions which nearly every bad chain of events that gets set off can be traced back to.

So I’d just received a message from Lynn. It’s worth bearing in mind here that Lynn has always valued being characteristically open in expressing thoughts and feelings honestly with others. Obviously never in a problematic or awkward way, but simply in a friendly and open way. Also, by this point in the community’s lifespan, I’d established a nice dynamic of being accessible at all times where members knew that my DMs were always open if ever there was anything in the community, good or bad, that they wanted to discuss with me. All of which to say that it wasn't particularly left field in any way when Lynn messaged me that day to say that she’d become progressively fond of Tice from talking with him in recent months, that there were some feelings which had begun to grow, and that in the interest of just being open and transparent she was letting me know.

I then caught up with Tice to talk to him about this, who was already aware of Lynn's feelings. Tice tells me how they’d been casually talking as friends somewhat regularly for the last few months. That said, while I did appreciate everyone being open and honest about this, I went on to tell Tice that engaging in anything even remotely romantic with a community member was simply not an option. He was welcome to pursue romance anywhere in the whole wide world that he wants, I told him, except here in our community. I also went on to explain how we have a responsibility to be professional, especially because of the inherent power imbalance that comes with being a developer (particularly when that developer is also a very active and prominent figure in all our community channels). We concluded the conversation and I then followed back up with Lynn shortly after, essentially recounting the same thing to her that I said to Tice. Lynn was more than gracious and understanding about it, apologized for any potential awkwardness caused, and said that she totally understood.

It’s now September 6th, which I specifically call attention to as this date becomes relevant much later in the story. I exchange a few follow-up DMs with Tice to ensure we were still good with our understanding of what we’d last chatted about and to give Tice an opportunity to ask questions about anything he was unclear on regarding the matter. Tice tells me that all’s good and that he more than understood the situation. So not wanting to belabor the point any further, I conclude the conversation with a quick last message (which I quote here directly): "And, not to put too fine a point on it, that will require some mutual trust from each other. I'll need to trust in you that nothing further will develop, with or without my knowledge. I don't mean to be too much a hard ass about this all, but community drama/rumors is a poison that can take years to take effect. Always best to nip things in the bud when possible."

(Note that for much of what follows next are details that I became aware of only after Lynn later came to me with her full account of events along with overwhelming amounts of organized documentation and other such context that she provided.)

September the sodding 15th. A whole 9 days since my message above. That's how long it took Tice to completely disregard everything that I’d said and decide that it'd be totally fine to start sending flirtatious messages to Lynn. Lynn is understandably a bit confused by how she should be interpreting this, given the conversations we'd all just had a mere one week ago.

Flip the calendar page one month forward and now we’re in October. Interactions between Lynn and Tice have begun to escalate further behind the scenes. Tice becomes progressively flirty and begins to make his romantic and even sexual intentions more and more apparent. Lynn continues to feel ill at ease with this position she’s finding herself being placed in by him. (This, Lynn would come to tell me in a later conversation, was precisely when boundary issues between the two of them began to seriously arise. At the time though, she remained unsure of how best to navigate the situation, concerned that she might get Tice in trouble, put his job at risk, or even jeopardize the game’s reputation itself. So in the meantime she stayed quiet, hoping to not rock any boats. Around this time, Tice also begins insisting that they keep all their interactions strictly secret.)

Happy New Year, and welcome to early 2019. Growing progressively uncomfortable with having their conversations on Discord and in such close proximity to the community’s Discord server, they decide to take all their conversations over to Skype instead. Lynn tries to pull away from the situation several times, but each time Tice would employ various emotional manipulations such that it became near impossible for Lynn to have any agency at all with what was happening. It's also during this time that Tice begins to exhibit perpetually obsessive tendencies and begins monitoring Lynn's activity in every place and platform that she has an internet presence. He also starts requiring an unhealthy amount of validation from Lynn and starts asking that she “check in” with him frequently (sometimes multiple times a day) so that he doesn't have to worry about not hearing from her.

A quick heads up that some of the events occurring from this point forward include topics and themes regarding suicide. If you are thinking about suicide, please call:
        •  US National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 800-273-TALK (8255)
        •  UK National Suicide Helpline: 0800 689 5652

As a result of the mounting stress of this escalating situation, Lynn (who has struggled with mental health her entire life) begins to experience suicidal thoughts. In response, Tice attempts to give her psychological advice and mental health guidance. (It is also worth noting here that during his time in the community, Tice frequently cited that he had professional experience with mental health and suicide prevention specifically. It was a factoid about himself he would constantly bring up and offer to community members. I see now though that this was merely a tactic he would employ to bait vulnerable individuals into having private and ultimately very personal conversations with him.)

Lynn, however, who was beginning to feel frustrated with him constantly trying to give her mental health advice, eventually pressed Tice about the issue only to discover that he has absolutely no formal training or even the most basic of education regarding mental health. Lynn explains to him how utterly dangerous and risky it is for him to constantly imply that he's qualified to help with suicide prevention when, in fact, he is not. Lynn thus makes it clear to Tice that she doesn't want him involved in her mental health whatsoever from that point forward.

(Another friendly reminder that, particularly around this area of the timeline, I’m skimming over details. For some things it’s not really my place to speak on Lynn’s behalf, both as a courtesy and also because of the graphic nature of it. Anything I’ve excluded is better explained by Lynn herself in her own statement here.)

It's around the middle of 2019 now and Tice has begun to pressure Lynn into sexual interactions with alarming frequency. Lynn repeatedly expresses how this all makes her uncomfortable, but then Tice would always try to make her feel like she was shaming his sexual interests. So as an attempt to compromise, Lynn tells him that he's allowed to ask her to do certain things only if she's allowed to tell him no. Sadly this does very little to curb Tice repeatedly begging for Lynn to engage online in various sexual activities for him.

It’s also around this time that Tice began to regularly insinuate to Lynn that I personally found her annoying and that I was frustrated by her in various ways. As far as I knew on my end, things were their typical friendly and amicable demeanor between Lynn and me. But Tice so consistently tries to convince Lynn otherwise that she starts to worry that what he’s saying is actually true. This causes Lynn to begin distancing herself from the PixelCount community, which eventually escalates to her leaving the community entirely. Which is so incredibly sad that because of Tice’s emotional manipulation, we lost out on having one of our most active and helpful community members around. Someone who was a good friend of so many of our community regulars as well. All of this, however, became clear in hindsight as nothing more than one of the most classic tactics that a controlling abuser will often employ. The abuser seeks to isolate the victim, quite frequently by trying to convince them that others dislike them or have nefarious intentions. Combine this with Tice constantly telling Lynn that “for the good of the game” things must stay strictly secret, and it becomes easy to see an obvious pattern of isolating behavior.

Moving forward we now find ourselves in June and, to be clear, at this point I am still unaware that any of the above had been going on. And this is coming from someone who works in communities and likes to consider themselves fairly perceptive about sussing out potential issues well before they occur. But such was the depths with which I feel Tice had effectively isolated Lynn and silenced any voice or agency she’d had.

It's at this time that Tice visits me here in LA for a full week to attend E3 with me. During his visit I often felt that he seemed oddly sullen, though as to why I couldn't place. Unsurprisingly, he made no mention or hint that things had been secretly transpiring with Lynn. However, I found out afterwards that Tice was constantly messaging Lynn throughout this visit, chiefly to complain to her about how miserable he felt during the trip or to find some perceived slight to be upset with me about at the moment. He was clearly determined to have a miserable time while he was here and, by all accounts, he seemed to be succeeding marvelously.

Also, let the record show that I covered almost all of Tice's costs for him while he was here in LA, including: numerous meals, transportation, a full week at a nice Airbnb he had to himself (a special one I found specifically set up for musicians visiting LA!), his admission to E3 (PixelCount didn’t qualify for free passes, so I had to pay out of pocket), numerous related events, and a great many other things I won't bother listing.

Hell, I even had a special surprise concert event that I took him to on his last day in town, simply as a fun gift for a friend and coworker. With it he got to listen to a world-renowned pianist at LA’s most famous concert hall (the same one that’s home to the Philharmonic) with front row center seats and a special meet and greet with the artist after the show. It had not been easy arranging all of this. At every turn, in every conceivable way, I went above and beyond to make sure he felt welcome and had a good time while here. Not to mention all while getting to go to E3! But apparently things were just dreadfully awful and miserable during his visit, such was the account Lynn was getting all week during his incessant reporting.

Something that didn’t help either was that he required constant coddling and wanted you to plan out every aspect of his day and schedule for him. For example, occasionally during the week there would be times where I was busy with something or otherwise engaged somewhere because, as you may recall, it was the week of E3. It’s one of the busiest weeks of the year in the games. And yet, during those incredibly brief times in which I was busy and he was left to himself, he’d have these little tantrums where he’d act like he’d been cruelly abandoned in some way. But I gave him a city bus and metro pass preloaded with money on his first day here, I showed him how to easily get around, I’d even send him Ubers remotely from my own phone whenever needed, not to mention he had his own musician-themed Airbnb to crash at any time my place was unavailable. But despite my best efforts to accommodate his visit, he was quite frankly an exhausting person to be around at all times.

Allow me to also take this opportunity to corroborate something Lynn mentioned in her own account. Which, despite at first seeming superficial for me to mention, the degree of severity is such that I simply must echo Lynn in bringing it up. There are no words that I can use to adequately convey to you the utter horror show that is Tice's hygiene. Now don’t get me wrong, supporting a friend who has a special need or disability is something I take very seriously. I will move mountains to make sure that any friend of mine feels welcome in my home and that they can rest easy in the knowledge that it’s a judgment-free place here. That said, there’s nothing about the hygiene issues in question here that can be attributed to anything other than pure unadulterated negligence and deep-seated laziness.

He showered maybe once during his entire week-long visit (during LA summer). He also, by his own free admission, hasn’t brushed his teeth in years. Years! His clothes seem like they’d been washed just a couple of times a year and smelled as such too. I am telling you dear reader, I had to find new depths of self-control within me that I didn't even know I was capable of in order for me to not violently react anytime he came too near me. Being contained in small spaces with him like an elevator or car were also profoundly unpleasant. And this is someone who’s making a special trip to visit a friend and attend a huge professional event all week. So I can only assume this is me seeing him at his best.

All the more perplexing is how he has regularly expressed to me a lifelong frustration with his lack of success with women. (I mean, for starters, maybe stop manipulating and assaulting them?) But tell him he could improve his chances by just, you know, brushing his teeth? And he considers it a preposterous length for him to go to.

To be clear, I never once in the entire time that I knew him and worked with him mentioned these things to anyone. It was something I’d undergo silently and privately anytime he visited. The only reason I’m so freely mentioning it now is because A) Lynn already mentions it herself, B) it demonstrates his bizarre interpersonal behavior, and C) if you abuse and sexually assault a friend while simultaneously setting off a destructive series of events at the workplace I love, I think you’ve lost any right you had to my discretion regarding your awful smell. Which feels pretty fucking reasonable to me. Anyhow, let’s move on, yes?

At the sound of the groan, the date will now be October 3rd, 2019. Uuuugh.

Eventually Tice, apparently having not had his fill of travel, decides to visit Lynn for a special week-long stay at her place. To explain his absence, he lies to both the team and the community, saying that he's going to be away helping out at some music festival.

Tice wastes no time in trying to pressure Lynn into sex, the details of which I have no desire to mention or describe here, other than to plainly say that Tice raped her. There is no better word for it.

This understandably crosses an irrevocable line for Lynn in the immediate aftermath of this trip. And so it’s from this point she begins making it clear to Tice that she’s calling the whole thing off. She also tries to discuss concepts like consent with him, but he remains relatively unphased by these conversations and carries on contacting Lynn as though they’re still in an active relationship. Tice also insists that she shouldn’t block him, because doing so might get noticed by the community and would thus jeopardize the whole relationship being found out. Lynn agreed to this at first and instead resigned herself to no longer messaging or interacting with him either publicly or privately so as to create distance between herself and him. He continues messaging her like normal though and any attempts Lynn makes at telling him that he needs to back off is always met with big arguments about how he feels they should still be together.

After repeated confrontations, Tice seems to finally accept that maybe the relationship is indeed ending. Lynn tells him that ultimately she just needs space at this time. In the weeks that follow she doesn't talk to him at all anymore, however he keeps sending her messages daily. She continues to ignore him.

Happy New Year once again, it is now January 2020. (I'm sure this year will go totally fine...) Tice keeps finding reason after reason to message Lynn, oftentimes bothering her while at her job. So it’s not surprising that Lynn eventually mutes his Discord messages entirely. At this time, Lynn makes a general non-specific tweet about her experiences with sexual trauma in her life. Tice uses this as an opportunity to message her on Twitter. Lynn firmly states that her tweet was not an invitation for him to start a conversation with her. She considers blocking Tice on Twitter but, once again, decides not to out of allegiance to keeping their situation a secret so as to not risk causing problems for the community or the game.

It is now June. Tice continues to personally reply to most of Lynn's messages in the public community server, apparently oblivious (or unphased) by the fact that it’s super obvious that he’s blatantly going out of his way to engage with Lynn more than any other member in the community. So, unsurprisingly, Lynn decides to just block him on Discord altogether. After only a day or two of Tice directly replying to Lynn in the server and getting no answer, he decides to message one of Lynn’s close real-life friends as a go-between. This friend then messages Lynn while she’s at work letting her know that Tice sent a message wanting to talk. Lynn is understandably infuriated at this point and messages Tice to confront him about it. Tice asks if she has time to talk. Lynn immediately says no. Tice continues regardless and says that he's worried that I or other team members might notice that she blocked him on the server. Lynn says she's free to block who she wants. Tice then says, "I guess you have more of a disregard for Matt than I thought.”

Suffice it to say, that does not go down well and the argument that follows eventually escalates to Lynn reaching a tipping point, because the very next thing she decides to do is message me and bring this whole sordid situation to my attention - beginning to end.

I received a very long and thorough message from her detailing her entire experience with Tice, recounting to me everything that had happened as well as the circumstances which had kept her from saying anything until now. Her account of the events was not only thoroughly written but also included well organized evidence of actions and events as well as chronologically ordered documentation, numerous images, and screenshots of multiple conversations. The combination of all this made the situation depressingly unambiguous to me that Tice was a sexual predator, an emotionally controlling abuser, and sadly even a rapist. His behavior also fit so many of the classic hallmarks of an abuser, such as isolating victims from family and friends, gaslighting, blame shifting, minimizing the victim's self-worth, and the list goes on. Tice also seemed to be a fan of frequently using what is known as the narcissist's prayer: “That didn't happen. And if it did, it wasn't that bad. And if it was, that's not a big deal. And if it is, that's not my fault. And if it was, I didn't mean it. And if I did, you deserved it.”

Upon receiving and digesting all this from Lynn, I immediately set to work on next steps. I made it clear to Lynn in no uncertain terms that what Tice had done was not okay. I thanked her for coming to me about it and for trusting me with it. I told her that I'd be taking action right away and talked with her about what action to expect from me short-term. During these conversations, Lynn also mentioned numerous times that she wanted nothing but the best for the game and the company and repeatedly expressed that she didn't want to jeopardize the game or all the hard work from the rest of the team.

I began putting some logistics in motion, detailed below. I also confronted Tice directly on a voice call. I was absolutely appalled and horrified by the entire thing and felt deeply that this was a betrayal of not just my trust but the community's trust and said as much when speaking to him. He didn’t so much as attempt to deny anything and, in fact, corroborated the whole situation as presented to him. Frustratingly, he also didn’t seem to convey any sense of remorse or shame or…anything really. His overall reaction was eerily flat. To me, his demeanor communicated that he didn't ‘get’ why this would be upsetting. He truly didn't seem to fathom the seriousness of what was happening. In fact, after I ended that voice chat, Tice went back to hanging out and joking around with members on our community server. Literal minutes after my talk with him. One would think that after such a conversation he would have decided to keep his head down and nervously wait for whatever might happen next. But so unphased was he that he immediately jumped into our community voice channel to hang out and chat with community members.

To reiterate, the victim is from the US, the abuser is from the Netherlands, and the company is from the UK. This would be a messy situation to untangle, no doubt, and so informing company leadership to let them handle this how they felt best was going to be crucial.

So from there, I quickly reached out to Charlie and Neal. I took them through the entire situation, and with Lynn's blessing told them that I could pass on any manner of documentation or evidence that they could possibly want. Lastly, I gave them my recommendation of what immediate action I felt we should take as a bare minimum during the first 24 hours.

I stated that first and foremost, we needed to remove Tice from any community facing spaces until a more thorough plan could be made. Furthermore, we needed to get on a voice chat with him and have some serious talks between the four of us. So I then got straight to work on removing his public facing team member accounts and limiting his access to all community areas. This left just our internal company Discord server as the only place he still had access. With these preliminary logistics done, we then began a voice chat with him.

In that voice chat, Charlie and Neal were practically silent during the entirety of the call which essentially left me to carry the whole thing and do all the heavy lifting of the discussion. I told Tice that Charlie and Neal had been fully updated on the situation and that the three of us agreed on some preliminary actions to take until further notice. I told him that he had been removed from all community spaces. I also stated that he was not to DM Lynn under any circumstances on any platform. If Lynn should happen to DM him, he was to ignore it outright and not reply. I also stated that until we decided on things further, he was not to directly interact with any community members and that if any community members interacted with him on his own social accounts (such as his personal Twitter account, which I obviously have no control over) that he's expected to exercise judgment and be polite and professional where needed but to otherwise not engage further. Lastly, we told him that for now his one and only priority was to keep his head down and focus on his work until further notice.

With these first series of steps finished, my intention was that in the days to follow Charlie, Neal, and myself would further discuss the matter and then proceed with a set of agreed upon next steps accordingly.

I'm sad to report, however, that it’s at this juncture that this trainwreck manages to find a way to derail itself even further. Because from this point onward, my coworkers not only never took any action but they also never talked about it with me, or acted like it even happened, or ever brought it up again. At all.

With Charlie as a co-founder and Neal as the CEO, the responsibility of addressing and resolving this matter fell squarely on their shoulders. I had no authority when it came to investigating these issues or terminating employees or making company-impacting decisions. All I could do was bring the situation to their attention, to provide all info and evidence I had, and if asked to give my professional recommendation on what actions to take.

Yet frustratingly, neither Charlie nor Neal ever brought this matter up again. Rather, it quite seemed like they were actively avoiding the topic with me. At first, I merely assumed that Charlie and Neal must have been processing this dreadful turn of events in the first day or two that followed but that worst case I’m sure we’d discuss things at our next weekly meeting that the three of us always did.

That meeting came and went with nary a word about it. Not a single word. It was like it was just another regular day with just another regular meeting, business as usual. The longer that meeting went on the more I began to feel perpetually awkward about bringing it up myself even. So once the meeting ended, I thought to myself that maybe Charlie and Neal were discussing this highly sensitive issue in private between the two of them. They are the co-founders after all and while I did feel that my decades-plus of experience in game communities would make me a helpful participant in such discussions, I tried to not overthink it and figured they'd discuss things with me when they were ready.

A few days later another meeting between the three of us went by with not a single mention, yet again. By the time our third meeting rolled around it had been nearly two weeks and so at this point I began struggling with trying to figure out whether or not I should bring it up myself. However, I couldn't help feeling that maybe they were somehow upset with me or that they somehow resented me for bringing such a huge crisis to them or that perhaps there was some unknown element at play that I was ignorant of which they were not at liberty to discuss. But if I was the messenger, I was beginning to feel shot. I figured this was probably all just anxiety or paranoia on my part, yet the feeling was strong enough to keep me from ever feeling comfortable bringing the subject up.

Gradually time went on, until eventually...it had been two months. Two whole months of absolutely nothing from them. It was at this point that I felt that I had no choice but to confront Charlie and Neal about it. So during the next meeting (which Charlie was sadly absent for), I decided to broach the subject with Neal. I explained how I was a bit baffled as to why I hadn't heard any follow-up regarding what had happened and that I had become worried that they were upset with me or would become upset with me if I had pressed the issue. I also went on to explain how over the past two months, Tice was unsurprisingly pushing boundaries slowly but surely by joining other servers that our community members also frequented and that I knew for a fact that he was secretly DMing many community members still. Lastly, I mentioned how difficult it was for me to have to continue sharing our internal company server with Tice whereby necessity I was forced to message and interact with him daily to conduct work. Plus, on top of it all, I was also dealing with the ongoing pandemic while living here in LA which at this point in time was the most infected city in the most infected state in the most infected country in the world. So I told him that between everything this was wreaking havoc on my mental health and had also begun negatively impacting my work as well.

Having finally said and shared all that with Neal, he shares with me in return how he had been very distraught the days following the news I'd brought him. Even to the point that he thought it would surely be the end of the company. This, of course, seemed to me a very normal sane reaction to that sort of news. However, he went on to say how in the weeks that followed he felt himself feeling better about it, especially once “the initial emotions” of the situation wore off.

I suppose some of what he was trying to say was all good and well. No doubt emotions were indeed running high during those first few days. It was a shock to us all. Though feeling “better” about it after a few weeks? I certainly didn’t feel better. How about we go ask Lynn if she felt better. None of it made sense to me. Neal processing this horrible situation in his own way is not mutually exclusive to taking swift appropriate action. Sure, process all you want, but you still have to take action. You still have to DO something.

Even more baffling is that Neal said he hadn't even talked to Tice at any point over these last two months. All whilst Tice continued to work alongside the team in our company server during those many weeks. Business as usual, like nothing had happened. So over the course of that conversation, it became clear to me that Neal had no further plans to share and, as far as I could tell, his intention was to continue doing nothing.

In fact, come to find out they didn't even have any agreements or contracts drawn up with Tice regarding his position on the team or who even legally owned the music he made. I found this out when Neal and I first talked about the situation during that very first day I brought it to him. In that talk, Neal lamented about how they didn't have any contract or formal arrangement with Tice or the ownership of his work. So here we were, two months later, and apparently this wasn't something they thought was worth quickly jumping on and rectifying? Or even…looking into?

The word “literally” is bandied about with reckless abandon these days, yet I use it here as earnestly as one can. When I say they did nothing, I mean exactly that. Literally nothing.

I also tried to sympathize with the fact that Neal was first and foremost a programmer during his career and that being CEO of a company was a more recent development (albeit one which he’d been doing for over 5 years at this point). Yet Neal was the one who so often insisted to us on team meetings that, despite being the game’s programmer, he was also the company’s CEO and that he would be making strict managerial decisions as such. Still, it doesn’t require being a CEO to know that you don’t ignore something like this. Even programmers know “rape=bad”.

By the way, ask me if I was surprised when I found out they had no contracts or formal agreements with Tice. Go ahead, ask me. No…no I was not. Why? Because I didn’t even have a contract or formal agreement. At no point during the many years that I worked at PixelCount Studios did they ever take it upon themselves to draft up even the most basic of contracts or NDA’s or salary agreements or anything. The handful of times that I brought these matters up, both as a means of protecting myself as an employee and protecting PixelCount as a company, nothing would ever come of it.

Anyhow, let’s get back to that voice chat I was having with Neal. About the only thing that he did offer me during that entire call was a brief suggestion. When I described how I was becoming progressively uncomfortable having to work and interact with Tice every single day, he responded by suggesting whether I had considered reaching out to Tice so we could talk things over. As though he and I were just having a little spat and simply needed to talk through it together. So I explained to Neal how I did talk to him, back on September 6th in 2018 when I very plainly and clearly told him not to pursue community members as an employee and that it'd require mutual trust between us both that he wouldn't.

Tice had more than demonstrated that talking with him is ineffective and that no matter what the outcome of any discussion might be he's shown that he'll still just end up doing what he wants anyway. Besides, if seeing all those conversations between him and Lynn over the last year-plus was any indication, words don’t seem to work on him.

This concluded that unsatisfying conversation. The next day I got back to work like normal, and like usual I had to go work with Tice on an ongoing task throughout the day. Then another day passed, followed by another, until the days turned to weeks, and the weeks to months.

I suddenly found myself in October. Yet another two whole months had gone by, during which I heard nothing further from anyone about anything. At this point we were at 4 months in total. This means that for the entire duration of those 4 months, only two conversations were ever had about what happened. Both of those conversations I had to initiate myself.

It became clear to me that our CEO simply did not consider this matter a priority or even a concern. In fact, I began to feel quite strongly that there were some key reasons as to why they decided to blatantly ignore what happened. Firstly, the music that Tice made for the game was often cited by players and reviewers as one of their favorite aspects of the game. Secondly, Tice was not being paid. At all. Instead, the company had him work on the promise of exposure in addition to a very faint implication that he might get royalties on any future soundtrack sales. Thirdly, not only was he working for free, but he worked at a very high rate of output. At this time in the game's development, the soundtrack was already over 3 hours long. Which is insane for a game soundtrack, particularly for a small game of Kynseed’s class.

So do I think that management had a great deal of motivation to keep this employee around and to continue getting hours and hours of well-loved music entirely for free with absolutely no formal contract or agreement in place? Yeah, I do. I do suspect that in the months after I left they probably did finally get around to more formal arrangements of some kind, but it’s clear that for a very long time they were in no big rush about it.

It’s around this time that I began to feel myself reaching a conclusion. That under no circumstances did I want to be associated with a company that is more interested in obtaining free music than it is in protecting its players from a sexual predator known for abusing their position’s power imbalance to sexually pursue community members along with a history of preying specifically on community members who struggle with mental health who, as such, are particularly vulnerable to this abuser’s patterns of manipulation and control.

Finally on one fateful evening, Neal and I found ourselves having a disagreement and, clearly acting as the company’s CEO, he began to criticize me for being unprofessional. To which I replied, and I quote, “You wanna talk unprofessional? Maybe do something about the sexual predator on your team. It’s been nearly 4 months.” This conversation concludes unsatisfyingly though, with Neal saying we’ll have a very serious chat the next morning about “what is important”. That morning never comes though, because while they slept that night I stayed up late and quietly sorted out all the logistics for my own departure. So before the sun had even risen, I was already gone. I had unceremoniously quit.

Charlie and Neal failed to do not just the right thing, but anything. Yet more than that, they failed me when I needed them. They failed Lynn. They failed this community.

You know how they say never meet your heroes? Never work for them either.

A Non-Ending

I said no goodbyes and made no big fuss when I left. Everyone else had already logged off for the day anyway. So I finished my remaining tasks, took care of my own departure related logistics as a final courtesy, and then logged off. I spent the next many months almost exclusively offline, welcoming the break and using it as an opportunity to reset and recalibrate. In the time that’s passed I’ve certainly not been idle, by any means, but I have been quietly keeping to myself and for now I’m content to keep it that way.

In fact, the only reason I surfaced today was to share this. So, now that I have, one might be tempted to say, “And now what?” Who knows, probably nothing honestly, but it’s not anything I’ll be troubling myself to think about. I only came here to corroborate a friend, to shed light on an abuser, and I’m content enough having done that.

That’s the thing about these situations. There’s usually no clear ending or tangible resolution. Which ironically very much parallels the kind of amorphous non-ending that assault victims may be familiar with when navigating the healing process. I’m certainly no expert on the healing process of course, but I know enough to at least try to put it into words as I’ve come to understand it which, if you’ll indulge me, I’ll attempt to do below.

Healing is more a process than a finish line. It can be rather frustrating to see both people and the media almost exclusively phrase these things as ‘surviving’ assault. It implies that there's some sort of mental health finish line in sight. Something that 'survivors' can work hard to achieve and then everyone all pats them on the back for being so brave. Everyone likes things to have tidy happy endings. These sorts of happy ending advocates usually mean well, but it’s actually a myth. It does not reflect the real experience that is surviving assault.

Working through the grief of assault isn't some mountain to climb, where with enough steps the survivor ascends ever upwards, eventually overcoming the terrible thing that happened. The kind of grief that comes from assault is a twisted ball of knots, the emotions going this way and then that without warning, intersecting both through and around, until eventually it becomes hard to even make out the mangled shape of tattered threads. Many people can be incredibly empathetic and supportive at the beginning, sure. But after time, everyone will start to expect there to be some sort of final resolute triumph. All stories have to end eventually, people think. It’s this wholehearted belief in the narrative that, given time and support, eventually all victims ‘get better’.

Yet in reality, the truth around assault does not suggest the existence of some straightforward journey from trauma to triumph. The entire essence of PTSD is that the body is perpetually locked in a prolonged state of fight-or-flight, the trauma forever playing out in waves that come crashing. That so commonly used word ‘survivor’ is inaccurate because it suggests that the individual who experienced trauma experienced it in the past and survived. Not that they are currently surviving, sometimes daily, an experience that is still happening in the present, regardless of when the actual abuse occurred.

My message to anyone who’s experienced some form of abuse, know this: your healing process is yours alone. It won't fit neatly into people's expectations of the 'survivor hero journey'. Fuck the storyboards. Fuck the mountain climb. Fuck the idea of some trophy you have to win to prove you're ‘all better’.

So no, oftentimes these things don’t ever have a proper ending, but sometimes realizing that can be a good enough one for now.