Official Rebuttal to “DANGEN Entertainment Warning”
Note: The following was written in parts by different members of Dangen in response to this post written by an acquaintance whom we will refer to as THE WRITER to preserve their anonymity. While the post has been taken down, it can be viewed as an archive. As THE WRITER and their accomplices have attacked so many of us, directly and indirectly — not only Dangen but (as we’ll show) also our clients and their games — it only felt right to respond as a group. We’re also posting this as soon as possible for obvious reasons, and honestly don’t have much experience with this kind of thing, so please excuse the occasional awkward phrasing or typo. While THE WRITER carelessly revealed the identities of many third parties who were unrelated to direct accusations, Dangen is firmly against online harassment and public shaming, and has taken thorough steps to preserve everyone’s anonymity.
It’s hard to express how horrible a feeling it is to have someone trying to spread lies about you, posting intentionally misleading snippets of emails and private conversations, twisting them, cutting key facts out or even sometimes inventing new ones in a clear attempt to discredit and embarrass, and all in order to hurt you and your business, especially when, as we will show, THE WRITER themselves is set to directly benefit from it both professionally and financially. THE WRITER not only omitted this fact from their piece, but claimed that there was no financial interest attached to their story. We have proof that THE WRITER has much to gain from destroying our reputation. We have seen tweets with misinformation suggesting we did inappropriate things back in 2013 when most of us weren’t in the industry and Dangen wasn’t a company yet. We’ve seen mistranslations about the original article and people with ulterior motives use this to their benefit.
We created the following in order to deliver the truth with hard evidence, and in order to demonstrate a very clear pattern of THE WRITER working in bad faith, making misleading and demonstrably false accusations, all for the sake of personal benefit. Thank you in advance for your time and consideration in reading it and helping to promote the truth. We know it can be hard to figure out what is right and what is wrong here but we hope that the discussions can be less reactionary and more level-headed. It’s very easy to spread rumors without fact-checking them in the current social media sphere. We do hope all the facts are taken into account.
Summary
Evidence will be used to disprove THE WRITER’s false accusations. Dangen asserts that THE WRITER has ulterior motives, a gross misunderstanding of how Japanese money transfers work, and collaborated with others to not only damage Dangen but also to harm other developers that did not obey them. Dangen abjectly refutes THE WRITER’s sensationalist titles that suggest Dangen has A) robbed developers and that any Dangen member is B) a sexual predator. There is no evidence to support either of these claims. Many of THE WRITER’s other claims are 100% false, and will be proved as false below. Developer and publisher relationships are stressful at times, but Dangen has always professionally striven to provide the best publishing services they can for their developer partners.
There are two distinct categories of false accusations: Professional and personal. We will first address the professional accusations.
Motive
THE WRITER initially begins their disclaimer by saying they are not trying to profit, yet the following conversation shows that they in fact have an ulterior motive to become a publisher and fully intend to profit from their Medium article as evidenced by the threats made below.
The Developer-Publisher Relationship
Game development and publishing are complex, as are the relationships between developer and publisher. Both parties must work in good faith to coordinate a great deal of information and activities. As with any business, occasionally mistakes and human errors are made. They can be anything from a missed approval to delayed game development. We strive to have strong, friendly and successful relationships with our developer partners, in the hopes of finding real success for their games. When a challenge presents itself, Dangen’s goal is always to find a mutually agreeable solution and a better way forward.
Revenue Share Misunderstandings
THE WRITER claims that Dan Stern told a lie in this interview, but THE WRITER misunderstands the quote.
To explain what Dan Stern’s quote means: At Dangen, services like localization, porting, and dev support are recouped first. We recoup this money first because we spend this money beforehand in order to prepare it for release. In other words, Dangen pays their back-end percentage worth of revenue to cover the localizing, porting, and dev support BEFORE any money is recouped. The developer is NOT invoiced or financially obligated to repay this money themselves. Here is a quick example to illustrate:
Dangen invests $10,000 to localize and port a game that is in development. The game releases and the sales generate $50,000 in revenue after taxes and platform fees. The recoupable expenses are deducted first and NOT from the developer’s share. $10,000 is deducted from total net revenue, leaving $40,000 to be shared. The amount of revenue Dangen will earn has been reduced in proportion to the revenue share because it affects both parties.
Many other publishers understand this to be industry standard whether you are an indie or a AAA publisher. Some publishers even recoup their salaries or travel expenses on top of taking a back-end percentage. Dangen does not.
Dangen’s Track Record
Mike Rose at No More Robots tweeted his analysis of average Steam sales for the month of August. He found that generally, Steam games sell an average of 1500 units over their first year of release.
While there is no question that this is a sad state of affairs for budding indie developers, the majority of Dangen published titles have crossed this threshold, usually within a month of release. While these titles are all incredibly strong games, Dangen took great efforts with its marketing to make these games a success.
Dangen’s publishing responsibilities for Devil Engine and Fight Knight were numerous, and we were able to secure quite a few amazing opportunities for the developers.
Devil Engine:
- Upon release, Devil Engine received 27 articles, including Eurogamer, Rock, Paper Shotgun, Siliconera, and The Guardian.
- The Devil Engine Ignition announcement was warmly received with a large feature in famed Famitsu and articles on PC Gamer, Nintendo Life and Gematsu among others.
- Secured live stream coverage with popular shooter developer Cave.
- Showed Devil Engine at multiple consumer events, including BitSummit, Tokyo Game Show, & VGM Ghetto in Tokyo.
- Collaborated with another publisher who released a popular shooting game to co-market the titles.
- Created a collaborative segment during Samsung’s 2018 Tokyo Game Show streaming schedule to co-market Devil Engine with the above shooting game.
- Connected the Devil Engine developer to an opportunity to appear on stage at BitSummit 2018.
- Committed to paid advertising approved by the developer.
- Secured music collaborations from five different famed composers.
- Connected content creators interested in playing Devil Engine for a combined total of 1,481 hours of viewership.
Fight Knight
- Dangen showed Fight Knight at PAX East, Tokyo Game Show, BitSummit, Taipei Game Show and the Kinda Funny Games Showcase. Some of these at the full expense of Dangen without recoup and during a time when Dangen could only promote the PC version which lay outside its western publishing responsibilities.
- Included Fight Knight in press releases for every trade show attended.
- Included Fight Knight in a streaming schedule on Samsung’s massive Tokyo Game Show stage, an opportunity earned through hard work and connections, not marketing expenses.
- Provided Switch development kits at a time when they were very difficult to secure.
- Negotiated first-party marketing support on behalf of Fight Knight.
There are 3 core mistakes that the writer focuses on: Payments, a missed sales opportunity, and approvals
1. Payments
THE WRITER’s claim:
This was listed as a key point in THE WRITER’s article. Dangen refutes any implication of robbing developers. Dangen has paid over 30 different outsourcers, 15 different developers over multiple SKUs, and, as per contract, has submitted sales reports that allow for invoicing. Certain payments have yet to be completed due to non-standard payment requests, but Dangen has been in constant contact with the developers and is working to fulfill each request. Our bank records show that the Devil Engine developer who was making the false claims has, in fact, been paid. Additionally, they have been sent the latest Q3 sales report as per the standard contractually agreed to timeline.
THE WRITER makes claims of specific non-payments. We will address these individually below.
The artist sent an invoice to Dangen on May 1st. Golden Week 2019 was April 29th — May 6th, so it was received in the middle of the vacation period. Upon receiving the invoice, Dangen let the artist know that payment would come after Golden Week. The artist made mistakes on the invoice which had to be fixed by them. The poster art was sent to the Devil Engine developer following payment.
THE WRITER’s claim:
Legally, in order to file for withholding tax relief, a contract must be in place.
Dangen proposed setting up a service contract in order to reduce the costs of withholding tax (described further in article) for these musicians. As THE WRITER states, THE WRITER specifically advised not to engage in the contract, and therefore 20% was deducted per laws of withholding tax.
THE WRITER’s claim:
The musician in question was not pressured into signing a contract, but it was suggested that in order to file the paperwork to bring the withholding tax to 0%, the musician would need to sign a one time contract so we have a paper trail legally.
Note in the screenshot below even the composer themselves suggests a one-time contract as an option.
In the end Dangen decided to pay the withholding tax amount for the musician in order to expedite the payment process. In these instances, Dangen pays 20% more than they would normally, shouldering the tax on behalf of the other party.
Before we were able to finalize payment, the Devil Engine developer and THE WRITER stepped in and said that they would be paying the composer instead, and we complied.
THE WRITER’s claim:
All musicians related to the Devil Engine Ignition arrangements have been paid for their work.
THE WRITER’s claim:
Many companies require an entire month to pay outsourcers. In some cases it can take as long as a quarter. This is the industry standard, and while Dangen tries to pay freelancers as fast as possible, there are some issues such as withholding tax paperwork and certificate of residency issuance for overseas freelancers that lengthen this process. The above example is one of these many cases.
In the screenshot below, The Fight Knight German Translator clearly states that they have been unable to submit the necessary paperwork in order to be paid.
2. Missed sales opportunity
Regarding “Nayan Forgets to Put DE in the Steam Golden Week Sale”
THE WRITER claims the following:
This is 100% a mistake that Dangen accepts. It was a sale that we were not prepared for, and the Devil Engine team was rightfully upset at us missing it. In response, Dangen respectfully agreed to pay the equivalent of the expected sales lost from missing the Golden Week Sale, hoping that it would show we would own our mistakes. This is absolutely not industry standard, but a display of our good faith and a desire to correct our errors.
The following is an exchange between THE WRITER and Ben Judd regarding mistakes made.
Note that THE WRITER does not focus on how Dangen dealt with this mistake in their article, but rather focuses on destroying Dangen’s reputation for their own benefit. Currently, Dangen has improved the sales planning process and any of our current developers can attest to us never missing any other sale since.
3. Approvals
Dangen’s Response to the Misuse of Music
THE WRITER’s claim:
On the day in question, Justin Pfeiffer verbally made THE WRITER, the DE representative in attendance at BitSummit 2019, aware that he had intentions to include one song from Devil Engine in his BitSummit pre-party DJ set and was granted verbal permission, “You have my approval,” from THE WRITER. Furthermore, THE WRITER expressed excitement at the idea and made Justin aware that they would be taking video of it to show the other DE developers. It was not the intention of Dangen to disrespect the composer or misuse the music of Devil Engine in any way, but rather promote the game and the music at BitSummit where it was being shown.
THE WRITER’s claim:
Dangen did in fact upload the Devil Engine soundtrack to YouTube when it became aware that a non-affiliated third party had uploaded the entire soundtrack to YouTube of their own accord. The purpose was to direct YouTube viewers to an official channel that included the Devil Engine Original Soundtrack store page at the top of the description for legitimate, promotional purposes. Dangen took this initiative to better the sales of Devil Engine Original Soundtrack and apologizes if their intentions were unclear. The Medium article was the first time Dangen was made aware of the developer’s wishes regarding this issue, and Dangen has since removed the videos.
THE WRITER’s claim:
Dangen initially received permission to use the song from Fight Knight in its company trailer in September 2018.
After receiving approval, Dangen began using the song in subsequent versions of our trailer. Currently, Dangen’s contract with the Fight Knight team has not been legally terminated, and no one on the FK team expressed that the song should not be used in the trailers. When the Medium article first made Dangen aware of the position of the FK team issue, Dangen ceased use of the song in trailers and has no intention of misusing the musical property of hardworking developers.
$400 in Legal Fees to Fight Knight
THE WRITER’s claim:
This is absolutely a mistake on Dangen’s part. We were in discussions to cover this loss when the developer went dark, preventing us from continuing this conversation.
The Kinda Funny Games Request
When preparing for Kinda Funny Games Showcase for Fight Knight, there was a last minute request from Kinda Funny that asked that we film and send in videos of the developer and ourselves to be featured in an opening montage for the event.
During the initial back and forth regarding this request, Nayan suggested not only that either team member could take on this task, but that we only ask that they do it if they can. The developer agreed, and delivered the video on time. DANGEN staff also created a video based on the guidelines.
Unfortunately, neither video was used by Kinda Funny. That is something we could not control. This is an unfortunate reality of video game marketing and promotion.
Mismanaged and Unapproved Marketing to Nintendo
THE WRITER’s claim:
This is completely inaccurate. Due to the sensitive and private nature of Nintendo of Japan’s procedures and policies we cannot discuss this in detail, but we maintain that we did pursue this opportunity to the best of our abilities. In the end, as is the case with first party processes, the timeline and final decisions were completely out of Dangen’s control. This is a standard as far as first party processes go. In these cases, it’s up to the discretion of the developer whether or not they want to spend the time to create assets for first party evaluation. There is also no guarantee that these evaluations will result in opportunities for the title in question. All of this was clearly conveyed to the developer.
Regarding Devil Engine’s troubled release
THE WRITER’s Claim:
The PC version of Devil Engine was ready for release, by virtue of the simple and quick review and release process that Steam uses. Meanwhile, other console platforms have a long and involved process that requires more time. We usually advise our developers that in order to maximize the success of a release on every platform, all versions should ship simultaneously.
This meant that the PC version would have to sit and wait while the Switch version went through the approval process heading up to release. Customarily, we designate about 3 months for this whole process to complete. Devil Engine received its product code from Nintendo on November 12th.
Upon receiving the product code, the earliest that Devil Engine could ship would be February. The DE developer and Dangen mutually agreed to release the PC and Switch versions together. The DE developer received their PS4 dev kit late in development, and as such it was mutually agreed upon not to let the PS4’s delayed development cycle hold up the release of the game on PC and Switch.
Regarding Devil Engine third party legal troubles
THE WRITER’s claim:
THE WRITER lists third party legal troubles, but important facts have been left out of the text. Initially, we asked the developer not to sign this particular third party agreement without allowing us to look it over. Dangen offered to take care of the interaction with the third party and sign the paperwork to protect the developer from any legal ramifications. Shortly after, Dangen received a sample contract from the third party, and felt like many of the terms were unfair to the developer. Dangen asked the developer to hold off on signing until Dangen suggested possible amendments of the contract to the third party. During this time, the developer signed the agreement with the third party without giving Dangen notice. Dangen only found out about this through THE WRITER — the Devil Engine developer never notified Dangen of this development. As a result, the Devil Engine developer ended up signing a contract that caused them several problems.
Eventually, this third party created music for the game that the Devil Engine team did not endorse. Due to contractual obligations, this became a major roadblock eventually requiring legal advice. Later, the developer noted that the third party created assets without permission, and the developer was angry that it was being used. Dangen suggested that we could have legal counsel look into the issues, as we wanted to protect our developer. Dangen ended up spending 350,000 yen on legal advice, but agreed to cover 150,000 yen. The developer recognized this and seemed to appreciate the gesture, as evidenced by the following screenshot.
In the end, because we wanted to be a supportive publisher we ended up covering the entire legal costs on our own, and did not recoup them. This can be confirmed by the developer, as it was not listed in the recoup report that was sent to them.
Regarding the Fight Knight Timeline
The originally proposed timeline for Fight Knight’s simultaneous release on all platforms was 2018, with a Q2 2019 release likely.
This eventually came and went. Dangen planned PR, marketing, and events, all of which were scrapped due to multiple delays.
Dangen understands that developer delays are a common challenge with indie development and that it can mean delayed salaries and time for the developer. But as an indie publisher, that is one of the financial risks we take on with signing a title. If any of our developers announce a delay or say they need more time to polish the game, we honor that. We also do not increase the percentage of recoup based on developer delays. Please note that Fight Knight still has not been released even though the original timeline that we planned for was a 2018 release.
With each new delay, timelines and plans must be reset. This is a situation in which the constant delays of FK’s development created great problems on the publisher side.
Devil Engine DLC
We knew that the Devil Engine developer was frustrated and wanted to find the best path forward, so we began to put forth extra effort to secure a wide variety of musical talent for the Devil Ignition DLC. It should be noted that we were told to plan for a DLC separate from Devil Engine Ignition. THE WRITER was supposed to work on this other DLC.
Dangen planned for the marketing and spent time preparing a press release only to be told that it was canceled suddenly.
Dangen did not point fingers or blame the developer. Just like with the Fight Knight timeline delay, Dangen honored the adjustments without blaming, and proceeded to focus on the Ignition release.
Regarding Dangen’s Focus on Self Promotion
THE WRITER’s claim:
This assumption is completely false. Dangen encourages all its creators to appear at events, as well as on streams and on video interviews. During major game events in Japan, our developers have multiple opportunities to personally present their games on stage and live on Twitch. You can see our developers here, here, here, here, here, and here. The only time a Dangen member would go to represent the game was when the developer themselves requested us to do so because of their absence from the event.
Dangen believes it doesn’t make sense to feature other people when someone who did work on the game is available. That being said, some developers chose not to be on camera, in which case we sent someone from the publisher side instead.
Omission of missed sales opportunity compensation
THE WRITER’s claim:
As stated above in the Medium article, we agreed to pay the developer for the missed Golden Week sale. Do notice how THE WRITER of the Medium article admits this fact here, yet neglects to include it in the Golden Week Sale section, which is much further up the page. We also of course planned to cover any other errors that may have caused the developer any lost money.
Furthermore, we offered to pay THE WRITER for part-time work because we hoped it would help mend the relationship and solve the frustrations between publisher and developer while also providing minor financial assistance. Despite this, THE WRITER constantly mentioned they were doing “everyone’s jobs” and deserved more money, even suggesting that they should get a direct revenue share to cover the work they were doing.
Regarding FK’s Contract Termination
THE WRITER‘s claim:
Dangen asserts that it has never sent any threats, nor received any official contact from the FK developer that could be considered a legal separation as per the contract. There was a one-sided slack message that came from the developer on July 23rd. This does not constitute a legal separation as per the contract. Furthermore, Dangen did make an approach to the developer via their counsel to go over some of the misunderstandings that the developer was under. Context was provided and explanations were made, but the developer never sent any response.
Proxy
It’s important to note that by the time the above issue arose, THE WRITER had already become a proxy for the three teams they worked with. Since this was what the developers wanted, we were happy to help make this work. But in the following screenshots, THE WRITER makes requests, stressing that they are necessary in order to continue the working relationship. Most of these requests involve THE WRITER gaining more control and revenue beyond the previously discussed amount for part-time work. It was around this time that THE WRITER and Dangen’s relationship started to deteriorate and Dangen began having concerns that THE WRITER may have plans to start their own publisher with our developers.
Note: THE WRITER begins by requesting that the developers’ revenue be paid directly to them. This became a trigger to withholding tax issues that delayed payment to the Devil Engine developers and further damaged the relationship. This was 100% a request from THE WRITER, not from Dangen.
The important thing to note here is that at this point, a majority of communication was funneled through THE WRITER to the Devil Engine and Fight Knight developers. Dangen had to believe that everything THE WRITER said was true. They assured us that doing it this way was the best way to solve communication problems. Dangen believed them, but unfortunately this later caused even bigger problems. In the case of Fight Knight, there was no direct communication for a period of nearly six weeks before they suddenly posted a message listing their frustrations, left Slack and closed down communications. As we were 100% reliant on THE WRITER for team visibility, this came as a surprising revelation.
Note: Dangen attempted to reach out to the developer, but received no replies. It was impossible to have any sort of discussion.
Regarding Contract for the Writer
THE WRITER’s Claim:
As you can see, in the Medium article the writer uses hyperbole and completely misinterprets the terms of the contract. Despite the contract clearly pertaining only to the work that THE WRITER does for the project at hand (“Work Product”), THE WRITER misconstrues this to be “everything I had ever done and everything I would ever do.” The contract does not allow for that, and Dangen has no interest in retaining such rights. The most important part here, however, is that THE WRITER makes no mention of the standard Dangen contract process.
In a standard contract process, two parties start with a template and send it back and forth, making comments and requests as necessary in order to find a comfortable balance. Through multiple legal interactions that Dangen had with THE WRITER, it was our full expectation that they would negotiate the terms they felt were fair for them. We always state that we will allow the other party to adjust the contract or write it in their own way, which is the exact opposite of what THE WRITER tries to convince readers of in the Medium article.
Dangen’s goal with contracts is to create a contract that gives the signee the ultimate freedom and flexibility to enter into a business relationship with Dangen.
In THE WRITER’s own words:
THE WRITER contradicts their own points in the article. At one point, THE WRITER states that Dangen uses predatory contracts, yet in the screenshot above, THE WRITER correctly states that they were free to create their own contract.
Regarding reporting periods
THE WRITER’s claim:
Above is another clear example of THE WRITER admitting that they do not know if something is true or not, yet still trying to use it as ammo to further ruin Dangen’s reputation.
In the case of reporting periods, first parties such as Nintendo close their books at different times. This can totally be fact-checked and should be. Because the reports from these first parties are sent to publishers at different times, many publishers choose to pay one quarter out from the release. THE WRITER asked to be paid up until the end of June, so we obeyed their wish.
It should also be noted that prior to the Devil Engine developer’s message (and one of their many insults to Dangen), THE WRITER requested to personally handle tax paperwork for the Devil Engine developer, as well as “see, handle, and receive any and all revenue share from Devil Engine and related products.” This document legally confirms THE WRITER as the proxy.
Withholding Tax
Withholding tax is an incredibly complicated, highly enforced tax that differs depending on tax-treaty location, business/individual, and pass-through costs. If the time-consuming paperwork is not finished, this results in 20.42% withholding tax. Properly finishing the paperwork can result in a reduced amount of withholding tax depending on country and business type.
Unfortunately the WRITER constantly misunderstood Japanese laws regarding withholding tax. For example, THE WRITER made the incorrect assertion that they would not need to pay withholding tax as a resident in Japan, illustrated in the screenshot below.
In the above image, THE WRITER provides links to websites. In fact, these websites confirm that the withholding tax is necessary.
As highlighted in the above image, this particular transaction between Dangen and THE WRITER (as a proxy) is one where the withholding tax applies. After confirming that the information on the above websites did not apply in the way that THE WRITER argued, Dangen’s Japanese accountant asked us to wait until we could proceed with the proper method. This proved to be the proper course of action. If we had listened to THE WRITER and made a mistake with the withholding tax, a severe tax penalty could be lobbied against Dangen as a company. We decided to listen to our Japanese accountant instead of THE WRITER.
We can attest, however, that since our tax attorney was Japanese, it did cause for slower withholding tax communication as far as international accounts were concerned. This has now been rectified with our new international tax attorney. As with all companies, Dangen’s goal is to continually improve the process over time.
Regarding the Proof of Payment
THE WRITER’s claim:
This was largely a miscommunication based around unusual wording. The WRITER initially asked for a 源泉徴収票. (certificate of withholding tax)
The WRITER later mentions they need a “proof of withholding.”
Once it became clear that THE WRITER wanted a proof of payment (支払調書) and not a proof of withholding, Dangen did send one to THE WRITER.
THE WRITER mentions they have asked for the proof of payment multiple times, but the difference in wording created serious confusion. In fact, they are two totally different documents, and 源泉徴収票 (certificates of withholding tax) are only provided to salaried employees. This clearly illustrates that point that withholding tax can be quite confusing. Despite the complicated process, Dangen did its best to continue forward.
The WRITER makes many other mistaken claims about taxes in the Medium article. For example:
This is false. According to Japanese law, withholding tax must be deducted from each payment made to an external party. The withholding tax is NOT paid separately by the company.
This can be fact-checked at the following website:
https://www.nta.go.jp/taxes/shiraberu/taxanswer/gensen/2502.htm
Much of the vitriol from the Devil Engine developer and THE WRITER stem from not being paid, but many of these delays stem from the mistaken assumptions of THE WRITER, who was properly paid. Once the money had left our bank account, we were not responsible for the delivery of the money from THE WRITER (proxy) to the developer, especially since the developer insisted that a proxy was the only payment method they would accept.
In the end, due to the unusual proxy payment, the withholding tax fit in a unique category. Dangen ended up overpaying. After Dangen requested that THE WRITER pay the overage back so that accounting records could be corrected, THE WRITER ceased contact. This was the last official communication Dangen had from THE WRITER until they wrote their article.
Toxicity
Regarding the Golden Week Holiday
THE WRITER’s claim:
Dangen strives to maintain a sustainable work-life balance as a publisher, and therefore wholly respects national holidays. The WRITER claims that Dangen staff were completely unavailable in the month leading into BitSummit. That is false. Below is visual proof of a Dangen staffer working despite it being a national holiday.
As you can see in the above screenshot, THE WRITER’s claim of Dangen staff being “completely unavailable in the month leading into Bitsummit” is utterly false. On a case-by-case basis, Dangen staff members sometimes work outside of normal work hours, on weekends, in the middle of the night, or when necessary to deal with the task at hand. We also, of course, give our staff members time off so they can rest. In other cases, Dangen is forced to wait for a third party response.
Stream Insults
THE WRITER’s claim:
Pre-recorded scenes for the Anniversary Stream were filmed much earlier than the Golden Week vacation. For example, one of the scenes takes place at hanami, which was filmed on April 6.
The 2nd year anniversary stream was meant to be a unique PR method to promote games, using Osaka as a background, which not many publishers can do. At many points in the THE WRITER’s article Dangen is belittled for not doing proper marketing, yet Dangen is also insulted for trying new and unique methods to stand out from the crowd.
All content creators who are popular icons now will unanimously agree on having rough beginnings for their channel. Many popular content creators did not become widely known until years after their work finally paid off and built a community to support them. To correct THE WRITER’s comment, the amount of views for the 2nd anniversary stream was a total of 200+ concurrent viewers on Twitch with an additional 3,673 views on Dangen’s Periscope via our Twitter. VODs are always put up on Dangen’s official YouTube channel for those who would like to watch it at their own leisure.
At the beginning of 2019 Dangen decided to take streaming and content creation into their own hands and help push all published titles as much as possible in the streaming world.
Through multiple platforms Dangen continues to do so today reaching a wide variety of viewers on Twitch, Mixer, YouTube, Facebook and Periscope. Our goal is and always has been to showcase the titles that our developers work so hard on.
THE WRITER’s claim:
THE WRITER insults Dangen’s stream in multiple ways in order to push their agenda. We believe a publisher should try many different things in order to strengthen PR and marketing. Streaming is an important way to build contacts with other streamers, and has helped us develop new contest ideas. THE WRITER also ridicules Dangen’s streaming producer in their article, specifically focusing on videos that he created years before he joined Dangen. This is completely unfair, and Dangen maintains that he currently works extremely hard and performs a wide variety of tasks. Streaming is merely one of the ways Dangen attempts to boost PR and marketing, and some developers have enjoyed taking part in Dangen’s streams. This can be fact checked on Dangen’s YouTube.
Ulterior Motives
As listed in the beginning of this post, several months ago, Dangen realized that THE WRITER had ulterior motives and wanted to become a publisher themselves. THE WRITER sent Dangen an email detailing how they wished to ‘acquire’ titles from Dangen, casually threatening that catastrophic public damage might ensue.
Making good on their threats, THE WRITER eventually posted a Medium article that begins with a group shot of Dangen and text that falsely accuses every member of Dangen of being “predators of indie developers and young women”. This blanket statement is strategically placed at the top, maliciously incriminating every member of Dangen.
Toxicity from Devil Engine Developer
At times, the Devil Engine developer used extremely hurtful and abusive language directed at Dangen. We understand the developers were unhappy about certain mistakes made, but as mentioned earlier, the publisher-developer relationship has a wide variety of challenges. Dangen continued to make its best efforts while enduring the intense vitriol. As explained above, we also covered costs that publishers traditionally would not in the hope of mending the relationships, to no avail.
The following are examples of the harmful language used by the Devil Engine developer towards Dangen. Similar language is absolutely not used from Dangen to the developer, as Dangen always respects its partners.
Devil Engine Developer Insults Other Dangen Developers
Through Dangen’s Discord, Slack, and gatherings, Dangen encouraged developers to interact so they could freely exchange ideas, information, and develop stronger connections. The Devil Engine developer claimed that the attack on Dangen was in the name of helping other developers, but that same developer also publicly insults other hard-working developers that are partnered to Dangen. It is always unfortunate to see this kind of behavior from developers, and Dangen hopes that there will be stronger collaboration between developers in the future.
In order to protect the developers from abusive language, Dangen has protected their identities below.
The Devil Engine developer’s claims are false and extremely hurtful to the developers.
Devil Engine Developer Sabotages Other Dangen Developer’s Release
After the FK developer abruptly left the Slack channel, there was still a third developer who had been using THE WRITER as proxy. One day, the third developer cited an end of contract with THE WRITER, therefore THE WRITER was removed from the Slack channel. THE WRITER had attempted to pull this developer over to their label as well, but this third developer decided to stay and continue to release with us. We feel this has been a successful release. It’s important to note that shortly after this third developer’s game was released, the Devil Engine developer went on a tweet tirade. Multiple posts popped up on Twitter, Steam, Reddit, 4chan and Resetera claiming that they themselves had not been paid and none of the profit from the sales would go to this third developer. As proven earlier in this article, that is false. Dangen pays its developers.
After these attacks, the Medium article was created.
Throughout the attack on both Dangen and the new release, the Devil Engine developer continued to plan further attacks on a separate Discord. They also reached out to other Dangen-associated developers in order to try and pull them away from Dangen.
Do note that by this point, we had provided these developers with the following: dev-kits, event support, ratings, localization, collaborator support, submissions, porting, among other things. Each of these contributions have cost us money, and we worked on it all with the expectation that the developers would cooperate on releasing the game with us. Most of all, Dangen hoped developers would be willing to discuss any problems with us and cooperate on finding the best path forward.
The developer encouraged people to not buy the game and worked with other people to spread defamatory information about Dangen and pirate Dangen games in order to sabotage the company and the release. The following is visual proof.
Devil Engine Developer Promotes Piracy
In addition to defaming, trying to bankrupt and smear Dangen, and insulting other developers, the Devil Engine developer suggested that people pirate the game because the developer will not receive any money from it, which we have confirmed is absolutely false. Dangen will never condone any manner of piracy, no matter the situation. It’s particularly disappointing because the developer’s claims are based on payment issues, yet they are trying to destroy the possibility of future sales for both their game and other developers’ games. The Devil Engine developer even goes as far as publicly admitting that they are seeding torrents of their game.
This paints a picture of a very vindictive group of people who, when unable to get their way, will be toxic, attack, insult other developers, try to outright destroy people, and even destroy their own revenue. This is not rational.
Rebuttal to Personal Accusations on Ben Judd
Ben Judd has nothing but a professional relationship with the writer, and any accusation otherwise is false. THE WRITER begins the Medium article by linking a tweet that accuses Ben of being a predator. This tweet was made by an ex-partner of Judd’s whom he dated in a mutually consenting relationship 6 years ago. It has nothing to do with the relationship between Ben Judd and THE WRITER, yet THE WRITER pastes it at the beginning of the article in order to try and color the reader’s image of Ben Judd from the start.
There are more misleading examples. One header is titled “Ben Judd at a Night Club.” Once again, a specific wording is used to try and negatively color a meeting at a game music-related event that took place at a DJ venue. Below is the original message that Ben received from THE WRITER in regards to attending to the event.
The suggestion that business was not discussed and instead this was some kind of ploy by Ben Judd to lure a young woman into a seedy night club is completely false. Plans to discuss the project were made and both THE WRITER and Ben Judd met for coffee. Due to THE WRITER being late to the meeting, there wasn’t much time to discuss business without missing the promotional event.
This was an absolutely professional business relationship and nothing more. Throughout the many months leading to this article, THE WRITER had a great number of health issues, and Ben always expressed genuine concern. This meeting was purely business-related and there is nothing to suggest anything but professionalism.
THE WRITER makes 3 other assertions using manipulative wording:
This is meant to suggest that Ben Judd was sending unwanted texts/communications/etc. There hasn’t been a single time in the several months of back and forth communication where this was ever suggested, requested, or even vaguely hinted at. This was merely normal business communication that occurred when business discussions were necessary. Conversely, every time THE WRITER asked to reschedule, was late, or mentioned they were sick, Ben Judd responded with flexibility as seen in the following screenshot.
This phrase is intentionally meant to be misleading. As you can see from the conversation below, no demands are made. Conversely, Ben offers to cover costs so that THE WRITER can attend an amazing indie event. This is the full thread on that conversation.
With the exception of possibly the word “need” no demand is made. The tone is very professional, positioning this as a great opportunity and THE WRITER clearly shows excitement at the chance. Additionally, although it’s not a contractual obligation, Ben agreed to cover travel, hotel costs, and even costs associated with missed work days.
Despite the word ‘force’ in THE WRITER’s suggestive headline, there is no actual evidence in the text.
The truth is that a face-to-face meeting with a potential contractor was suggested. In fact, Ben even suggests waiting a few days due to THE WRITER’s lost voice. Ben thought that meeting in person would be a more efficient way to hash out the basics of the discussed contract before spending legal money to create the final contract.
THE WRITER’s claim:
Here is an example of the sort of embellishments THE WRITER uses in the Medium article to push their overall narrative. The cafe in which the meeting happened was Seattle’s Best in the Sumitomo Building, which is a two-minute walk from Dangen’s Yodoyabashi office — hardly “far” by any stretch of the word.
This public location is often used for Dangen meetings so as not to interrupt other work in the Dangen office, which is an open plan office.
THE WRITER’s Collaboration with Ben Judd’s Accuser
In THE WRITER’s own words:
As evidenced above, THE WRITER went out of their way to privately contact Ben Judd’s accuser in order to gain information. THE WRITER tied a personal accusation into professional accusations in order to try and ruin the reputation of not just Ben, but Dangen as a whole.
If this correspondence between Ben and THE WRITER ever becomes a matter of official evidence, Ben is confident he can prove that his online communication was purely professional.
Twitter Accusation of Ben Judd
Note: The following is a personal statement made by Ben Judd.
As this has been a very personal situation, I’d like to address this point in first person.
Several months ago, an ex-partner whom I dated for about a year accused me of being a racist, misogynist, and sexual predator.
The people who know me, work with me, and spend time with me know those characterizations to be false.
This was a mutually consented to relationship between two adults. I am a very private person who has no twitter and largely keeps private things off of social media. The past few months have been incredibly hard for me because I don’t understand why a person I loved would do this.
They, themselves, at one point were the victim of a horrendous public shaming and online harassment campaign while I was dating them. I don’t understand how they could have gone through that kind of pain and wish it on another person.
They have made several assertions that I have networking events/parties for the goal of preying on young women. This is very far from the truth. I started a gaming meet-up for people in West Japan who are into games or work in the game industry. In the 10 years of doing this, I have only had relations with one person I met there: my ex-partner, the accuser. On the other hand, I have helped a large number of people get their foot into the game industry door, expecting no compensation.
The hardest part of these kind of accusations is feeling there is no way to have a conversation about it or tell my side of the story. This may be the hardest thing I’ve ever had to write in my life. To this point I still don’t know how to best convey my side without inviting further attacks.
I’m not a perfect person, and as with all relationships that don’t end well, I absolutely take responsibility for my actions, even those I’m not proud of. But I can’t stand by while I’m accused of being something I’m not. I also will not stand for my hardworking team members being accused of being things they are not simply by association.
There are several key individuals who spent a great deal of time with my ex-partner and I when we were dating. I’m confident they can give accurate representations of how complicated our relationship really was. Since my character has continually been attacked by multiple people, I’m willing to introduce these individuals to any developer who may have concerns or members of the press who are willing to cover both sides of this story. Due to the potentially dangerous nature of public humiliation or online harassment, these individuals have asked to remain anonymous at this time.
I sincerely hope this problem can be resolved without further invasion of my private life.
