If accidents can happen, as in the case of Jessica Mao, who helped edit, arrange and implement the music in two action sequences of God of War Ragnarok and whose name was quickly added in the credits by Santa Monica Studio, the case of The Callisto Protocol seems to be more complex since there are no less than twenty people missing in the game’s credits, including people with significant contributions from different departments. The Games Industry site spoke with five of these former employees of Striking Distance Studios who confirmed their absence in the credits. To date, neither the management of the studio nor its parent company Krafton have explained the situation.
Doubtful and unjustified omissions
While it’s not uncommon for developers not to appear in a game’s credits due to leaving before development is complete, Striking Distance Studios has never communicated such a policy to its employees. All unanimously believe that their absence from the game’s credits is unjustified given their significant contribution to the studio’s first game. Some even worked at Striking Distance for over a year, while others had previously worked with CEO Glen Schofield at his previous studio, Sledgehammer Games. According to a source, some absent from the credits include “really essential people who built the studio.“
“I understand that we can leave out a contractor author of a small work for a few months, but we are talking about full-time employees who have invested more than a year in the title, and have had their hands on parts important to the product. This is where the surprise for many of us came from“, testifies a former employee. In general, the management of the end credits seems to have been at best clumsy, at worst dishonest.
A punishment for deserters?
Besides the forgotten names, some former employees were (wrongly) included in the credits as “extra” help in their department while others were grouped (still wrongly) into a “miscellaneous” category at the very end of this credits lasting not far from 20 minutes. The contacts of Games Industry do not hesitate to suspect a very bad cronyism. “There was definitely a bit of favoritism with the people who were credited. I feel like they picked people they liked or had some sort of relationship with, and those were credited and the others weren’t.“, said a source.
The other recurring theme in this story is that Striking Distance Studios management, annoyed by the massive staff turnover that took place in the last quarter of 2021, wanted to punish those who left before the battle was over. “I think the Sledgehammer guys like loyalty. And they can be punitive otherwise. Someone wanted to send a message, and the message was: Next time, be a little more loyal to us.“, believes a source. Despite this misadventure and the crunch Although real, it should be noted that the employees interviewed say they have a generally positive feeling about their time at Striking Distance Studios and their professional experience with Glen Schofield.
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