Sonic Speed Simulator Gamefam Settles with National Labor Relations Board Over Pay Discussion

[DaBigJ]

This week, Sonic Speed Simulator developer Gamefam has reached a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board regarding an early 2023 complaint.

GamesIndustry.biz reports Gamefam put developer Joshua DeBoer on leave, after DeBoer discussed the studio’s salaries with other employees - to identify if Gamefam paid below industry expectations for the duties involved.

DeBoer claims that CEO Joe Ferencz reacted strongly to his asking others about salaries and insinuated that he was not being a team player. Polygon quotes DeBoer, “He was like, ‘Do you think it’s good to go among your colleagues and spread disaffection? You need to be seen as a leader if you want to stay here long.’”

The NLRB settlement compensates DeBoer $5,000 for previously unpaid bonuses, and Gamefam was required to post employees' notification of their rights to discuss pay with each other.

Gamefam lists a broad stable of games, brand integration partnerships, and special events across Roblox, Minecraft, and Fortnite. Gamefam's website even touts Sonic Speed Simulator, an officially licensed Sonic game, as "the biggest standalone branded game launch in Roblox history"; however, the studio previously faced accusations in December from two former employees for poor communication, lower-than-average pay, overloading responsibilities, and encouraging a crunch culture among developers.

This pattern of behaviour has drawn ire from fans, who previously pushed the tag "#SonicSweatshopSimulator" on Twitter, and now the Sonic the Hedgehog Subreddit has placed a permanent ban on Speed Simulator content.

While some have grouped Gamefam's issues with the broader child labor and low compensation issues associated with the Roblox platform as a whole, it's worth highlighting that Gamefam is a professional development studio outside of the Roblox Corporation. The company partners with license holders to create branded experiences, and job listings expect significant education and experience in game development.

One would expect (or hope) a developer presenting itself as Gamefam does understands industry standards of pay, and the legal rights of employees.

Sonic News Tips Credit:
DaBigJ

Original Post Content:

View full story

[Ellipsis-Ultima]

The employee in question has talked more about this:

The things said here track with the experiences said back in December last year. Hoping for the best for those employees.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

A lesson in how not to run a business, I presume?

[Shiny Gems]

Here is a possible update here.

 

[GX -The Spindash-]

1 minute ago, ShinyGems said:

Here is a possible update here.

XD Or here.

 

[Shiny Gems]

Just now, GX -The Spindash- said:

XD Or here.

Well, looks like I was too fast. Not going to say you were too slow; I don’t want to say that, anyway, but yeah; it is good you covered and posted that.

[LegoFedora]

You know in hindsight, considering this was a roblox game we probably should've seen this coming. It's amazing how much shady stuff goes down when developing roblox games.

[GX -The Spindash-]

8 minutes ago, LegoFedora said:

You know in hindsight, considering this was a roblox game we probably should've seen this coming. It's amazing how much shady stuff goes down when developing roblox games.

Even still, "This was a roblox game" is used too often to lump this kind of behavior in with other issues associated with the platform (which it absolutely does have, let's not ignore that).

In this specific instance, it's not a Roblox issue and I'm not inclined to think it should be considered among the other issues surrounding the platform. This is a game studio, employee rights, and actual legal issue. Gamefam does not present themselves as a small dev making small projects. They team up with major brands for branding collaborations across multiple platforms. If you're a professional studio, you aught to know the legal rights of your employees, and how utterly cynical it makes them look if their reaction is "You're not a team player if you're scrutinizing our pay policies."

[DaBigJ]

51 minutes ago, LegoFedora said:

You know in hindsight, considering this was a roblox game we probably should've seen this coming. It's amazing how much shady stuff goes down when developing roblox games.

Maybe it's the fault of the people instead of Roblox itself

[Blacklightning]

9 hours ago, DaBigJ said:

Maybe it's the fault of the people instead of Roblox itself

When it's a case of a handful of bad apples, one could indeed fault the community alone.

When it's a systemic issue plaguing huge swaths of your service and games that use it, the perception is that not only is the service flagrantly ignoring it, they're also practically enabling it because in all likelihood they also directly profit from it. And right now, Roblox is FIRMLY more in the latter camp than the former. I'm not going to say individual developers don't have any blame, but Roblox has a responsibility to monitor and moderate the conduct of people who use their platform and should absolutely not encourage this.

Of course they won't do that, because again, they directly profit from it.

 

[DaBigJ]

Okay, very true, I didn't think of that. My bad