RUMOR: Heavy Gear Assault in Trouble, Devs Unpaid Since July -

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RUMOR: Heavy Gear Assault in Trouble, Devs Unpaid Since July -

We have been getting reports from (former) employees of Heavy Gear Assault developer MekTek and Stompy Bot Coporation that not only has development of the mech-based action MMO slowed to a crawl, but the former and current employees of the company haven't been paid since leaving for Gamescom in 2015. Read on for direct quotes from two former employees, as well as CEO of MekTek, Vince McMillan who refutes said claims.

Read the full story here

Razeekster

Stories like these make me sad we live in a world where money is what drives people.

SlothnChunk

Never heard of this game nor developer/publisher prior to this story, but just out of curiosity did a quick search. The parent company in all this, Stompy Bot Corporation, is a publicly traded company and therefore all their finances are revealed (figures are in Canadian dollars...I've converted to $US): They lost $840,000 in the first nine months of 2015, liabilities increased from $417,000 in December 2014 to $1.25 million by end of September 2015, with total cash on hand of $86.

Only $86 cash on hand for any company is obviously horrendous, but started 2014 with only $1,334 (which is also terrible). This means cash on hand, as long as we are shown, was a huge problem for the company.

From the official financial statement which was required by Canadian law to publicly trade: "The Company's ability to continue as a going concern is dependent upon its ability to attain profitable operations and generate funds therefrom, and to continue to obtain equity investment and borrowings sufficient to meet current and future obligations....As the Company continues to develop its core offerings, it will require additional financing to meet its working capital requirements. These conditions, cast significant doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern."

I question if these employees all along were given monthly paychecks or were compensated with stock. These guys never had the cash on hand to have much of a payroll; payment through stocks would have made sense. But, now all has been revealed as they went public with disgruntled employees realizing their 'payments' (in stock) are worth very little and continue to decline. On top of that, they are likely unable to sell the type of stock provided for a set period of time.

Sounds more like disgruntled employees realizing their payments and work put into everything could turn into nothing. They had to have known this was a possibility; posting their frustrations anonymously on the internet won't fix their problem.

http://www.cnsx.ca/cmsAssets/docs/Filings/2015/2015_11_30_15_22_11_ BOT_Interim_Financial_Statements.pdf

MektekContractor

...

Grimula

And "Another one bites the dust" !

never heard of your company OR game, But Goooood Luck in the future 

 always Very sad to hear horror stories of companies exploding into a million pieces

Hopefully it all works out and your game is Amazing  because I love New games

SlothnChunk

MektekContractor said:

SlothnChunk, I am a former employee of mektek. No one was paid in stock. Everyone got a monthly paycheck and some got bonus stock. How do you think Mektek went though almost a million dollars? We had 25-30 people on staff making about 3-5 thousand a month.

Not sure when you worked for them, but the disclosed data shows from start of 2014 to October 1st, 2015, they never spent close to anything a million dollars on payroll.  Stompy Bot certainly spent a lot of money during that time, but most of that during the reverse takeover of their parent company in terms of stock purchases.

And you just confirmed my suspension that stock was included as part of compensation.  I'm also making an educated guess that you can't sell your stock until a certain date.  That's just assuming, for sake of argument, you are telling the truth as another 'anonymous former employee'.

martinmillan

Razeekster said:
Stories like these make me sad we live in a world where money is what drives people.


Maybe because living - cost money.

SlothnChunk

I should also point out the inconsistencies from the two quoted anonymous 'employees': "The developers (of Heavy Gear Assault) haven't been paid since July. As such, there is only one person working on the game....The fact that the company is saying it's bringing in money, but has yet to actually pay anyone. We were all told that the round of investing was done, and we just needed to get the check. That was back in November, which goes to the other other straw breaking the back...Management haven't spoken to the dev team in months. "

So above person states they haven't been 'paid' since July, but also stated they stopped working on it.  So what exactly are they supposed to be 'paid' for?

Quote from second anonymous 'former employee': "Our last official communication/update from our leader Vince was in November...the very limited patch updates done by one particular developer who is doing all he can by volunteering his time to keep the game afloat"...the workers at Stompybot/Mektek are in the dark and haven't been paid in over 6 months."

Above person claims they've been working without direction nor even basic contact from team head since November (while also contradicting this by saying only one person is developing and doing so as a volunteer)?

Both quotes include contradictions and logical inconsistencies while posters hide under anonymity.

(full disclosure...I've never even heard of this game, developer, publisher, nor IP prior to today).

Nanfoodle

Razeekster said:

Stories like these make me sad we live in a world where money is what drives people.

Well money = food and shelter and when extra shows up toys. Not sure I get what you are saying.

Wizardry

Yes this is the sad state of the human race,screw over your neighbor,your friend your fellow employee for your own greed.
What i don't understand is why after a couple missing pay cheques they didn't go to the government?Usually the government will move right in because it is missing /owed tax dollars.

mektekemployee

The managers decided to stop the bleed on the company back in July and begin regressing the game with a drastically slimmed down team after a very poor performance for Gamescom which was led by some recent hires that claimed to be AAA developers. It was disappointing and largely because the "AAA" guys blew through some much time and money. One of them is your friend William and this is shameful journalism at its worst. Your friend is a giant sized man child that convinced the Producers to hire him after he was fired from an AAA developer. He missed half the meetings and moved half way across the country during a very critical development cycle for the game. We also had another guy that claimed to be working for Insurgency and also demanded a massive pay check. Just between these two dead weights the Producers had to do something and they made the right move.

They stopped production in July. Restructured everything and restarted things leaner with more qualified people. I am currently happily working away. Stock was given to people that earned it. If the Producer stops production and says stop working - go find something else to do. You should take the hint rather than sitting around and crying about it. Stompy Bot made the decision which was the right one. They are now working on some pretty amazing properties which I am happily involved with.

I was moved to a different division in the company working on new R&D.

I have stock. I am happy. And I think these guys are some of the best people to work for in the industry.

mektekemployee

Wizardry said:
Yes this is the sad state of the human race,screw over your neighbor,your friend your fellow employee for your own greed.

What i don't understand is why after a couple missing pay cheques they didn't go to the government?Usually the government will move right in because it is missing /owed tax dollars.


The Producer stopped production and restructured.

BillMurphy

mektekemployee said:

Wizardry said:
Yes this is the sad state of the human race,screw over your neighbor,your friend your fellow employee for your own greed.

What i don't understand is why after a couple missing pay cheques they didn't go to the government?Usually the government will move right in because it is missing /owed tax dollars.


The Producer stopped production and restructured.

I'm reporting what I'm presented. I'd love to get more info, one way or the other, presumably from Vince. He has more ways to prove that there are current employees and people are getting paid, than the two folks who contacted me and are no longer with the company. 

What at this all sounds like is that MekTek, last year around Gamescom, didn't have money to pay those who worked, so those folks rightfully left, and they rehired a new team and never compensated folks who seem to have been wronged in the process. Either way, while MekTek was trying to keep the company afloat and the game alive, they very poorly and unethically handled their responsibility to their employees. 

bcbully

mektekemployee said:
The managers decided to stop the bleed on the company back in July and begin regressing the game with a drastically slimmed down team after a very poor performance for Gamescom which was led by some recent hires that claimed to be AAA developers. It was disappointing and largely because the "AAA" guys blew through some much time and money. One of them is your friend William and this is shameful journalism at its worst. Your friend is a giant sized man child that convinced the Producers to hire him after he was fired from an AAA developer. He missed half the meetings and moved half way across the country during a very critical development cycle for the game. We also had another guy that claimed to be working for Insurgency and also demanded a massive pay check. Just between these two dead weights the Producers had to do something and they made the right move.



They stopped production in July. Restructured everything and restarted things leaner with more qualified people. I am currently happily working away. Stock was given to people that earned it. If the Producer stops production and says stop working - go find something else to do. You should take the hint rather than sitting around and crying about it. Stompy Bot made the decision which was the right one. They are now working on some pretty amazing properties which I am happily involved with.



I was moved to a different division in the company working on new R&D.



I have stock. I am happy. And I think these guys are some of the best people to work for in the industry.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ashy321

Razeekster said:
Stories like these make me sad we live in a world where money is what drives people.


I think you are missing the fact that people have families to support and what not, you try working without pay for months while paying the bills.

Seelinnikoi

You know a game is or will be in trouble, when most of us at MMORPG.COM never heard of their titles.

Its to show their popularity, or lack thereof, is their demise.

tekadept

The communications blackout, lack of information, and lack of updates, and now combined with this information being reported on (IF True) does not bode well for the future of HGA.
Sounds like another reread of the story of the little developer that couldn't.

tekadept

@mektekemployee are you a employee of mektek or stompybot? you mentioned moving onto other projects?? Stompybot as the publisher has a few other titles on the burner, does that mean mektek is going to stretch itself more as a developer and be developing the other stompybot titles too? if thats the case they are seperated in name only, and not good from a publisher point of view spreading the risk.

From what I can gather stompybot and Mektek are one and the same with the same CEO/President.

Gyrus

@SlothnChunk Excellent research!  Yes, it does look like the employees were paid in shares from the financial statements.
I was also interested to see employees are paid by "check".
Is this still done in Canada?  Why aren't employees paid by EFT (electronic bank transfer)?  And doesn't Canada still use Oxford English? (Cheque)

@mektekemployee
Something you said here really concerns me:
The managers decided to stop the bleed on the company back in July and begin regressing the game with a drastically slimmed down team after a very poor performance for Gamescom which was led by some recent hires that claimed to be AAA developers. It was disappointing and largely because the "AAA" guys blew through some much time and money. One of them is your friend William and this is shameful journalism at its worst. Your friend is a giant sized man child that convinced the Producers to hire him after he was fired from an AAA developer. He missed half the meetings and moved half way across the country during a very critical development cycle for the game.

Are you referring to William (Bill) Murphy who wrote the article and is the Managing Editor here?

MMORPG.com? 

bcbully

Gyrus said:

@SlothnChunk Excellent research!  Yes, it does look like the employees were paid in shares from the financial statements.
I was also interested to see employees are paid by "check".
Is this still done in Canada?  Why aren't employees paid by EFT (electronic bank transfer)?  And doesn't Canada still use Oxford English? (Cheque)

@mektekemployee
Something you said here really concerns me:
The managers decided to stop the bleed on the company back in July and begin regressing the game with a drastically slimmed down team after a very poor performance for Gamescom which was led by some recent hires that claimed to be AAA developers. It was disappointing and largely because the "AAA" guys blew through some much time and money. One of them is your friend William and this is shameful journalism at its worst. Your friend is a giant sized man child that convinced the Producers to hire him after he was fired from an AAA developer. He missed half the meetings and moved half way across the country during a very critical development cycle for the game.

 O.o 

Gyrus

A bump for this:

MMORPG.com - because mektekemployee hasn't cleared this up - you should.

The accusation has been made that Bill Murphy has some involvement with Stompy Bot?

Considering the context - that's pretty serious.

Bill Murphy, have you and / or any of the staff or writers at MMORPG.com ever had any financial / commercial / business relationship with Stompy Bot Corporation?
Have you ever worked for , under contract to and / or as a consultant / promoter for Stompy Bot or this game (Heavy Gear Assault) in any capacity?

Gyrus

Another bump.

Representatives of MMORPG.com have declined to comment.  ???

Solar_Prophet

Gyrus said:
A bump for this:

MMORPG.com - because mektekemployee hasn't cleared this up - you should.

The accusation has been made that Bill Murphy has some involvement with Stompy Bot?

Considering the context - that's pretty serious.

Bill Murphy, have you and / or any of the staff or writers at MMORPG.com ever had any financial / commercial / business relationship with Stompy Bot Corporation?
Have you ever worked for , under contract to and / or as a consultant / promoter for Stompy Bot or this game (Heavy Gear Assault) in any capacity?




I thought the same as well. I hope that it's just a misunderstanding.

Aside from that, I never knew there was a Heavy Gear MMO in development. The original game was pretty good, and it's a shame I've just now been informed of its existence as its future comes into question.

Roin

Wait is this based off that old game back in the day when 3DFX Voodoo was the video card to have, and passthru cables were a thing?

reeereee

Gyrus said:

@SlothnChunk Excellent research!  Yes, it does look like the employees were paid in shares from the financial statements.
I was also interested to see employees are paid by "check".
Is this still done in Canada?  Why aren't employees paid by EFT (electronic bank transfer)?  And doesn't Canada still use Oxford English? (Cheque)

@mektekemployee
Something you said here really concerns me:
The managers decided to stop the bleed on the company back in July and begin regressing the game with a drastically slimmed down team after a very poor performance for Gamescom which was led by some recent hires that claimed to be AAA developers. It was disappointing and largely because the "AAA" guys blew through some much time and money. One of them is your friend William and this is shameful journalism at its worst. Your friend is a giant sized man child that convinced the Producers to hire him after he was fired from an AAA developer. He missed half the meetings and moved half way across the country during a very critical development cycle for the game.

Are you referring to William (Bill) Murphy who wrote the article and is the Managing Editor here?

MMORPG.com? 

Reread the quote.  It's pretty clearly implying the person who was fired/let go/not paid was a friend of Bill, not Bill himself.

Gyrus

reeereee said:

Gyrus said:

...

@mektekemployee
... One of them is your friend William and this is shameful journalism at its worst. ...

Are you referring to William (Bill) Murphy who wrote the article and is the Managing Editor here?

MMORPG.com? 

Reread the quote.  It's pretty clearly implying the person who was fired/let go/not paid was a friend of Bill, not Bill himself.

You do know that "Bill" (As in BillMurphy) is short for William?

And no, it's not clear, which is why Bill Murphy and MMORPG.com should clear up exactly how (or if) they are involved here.