According to an extensive report from Gamesindustry.biz, Scavengers Studio Simon Darveau has been accused of a series of toxic and abusive behaviors by employees of Scavenger Studio, producers of The Darwin Project and the future game Season.
In the Rebekah Valentine report, nine current and former employees of the Montreal game development studio described a toxic work environment, favored by the studio’s creative director Simon Darveau and activated by CEO Amelie Lamarche. (Lamarche was Darveau’s romantic partner when the couple founded the studio.)
The pattern described by the employees is as follows: Simon Davreau and other high-level male employees allegedly regularly engaged in degrading behavior, especially towards women in the team.
This behavior ranged from sexist remarks or physical grumbling. On one occasion, a developer reportedly said “it was unrealistic.” season the protagonist (a woman named Abby) should not be able to play the guitar because “the guitar was too complicated for a woman.”
The behavior specifically attributed to Davreau is all the more frightening. A story sent to GI.biz says that Darveau had an affair with an employee, who simply stopped looking at work after Lamarche found out. Another was that Darveau explained his staff’s behavior “compared to a dog in the heat – unable to control himself.”
Apparently, Darveau would become drunk at the company’s parties. At a party in 2019, several sources claimed that he touched and grabbed women who worked for the company.
All this behavior was apparently allowed by Lamarche, about whom several employees pointed out that they cannot be impartial at many moments in the company’s history, because she was romantically involved with Darveau.
Stories of Darveau’s alleged behavior only continue and apparently include him in a series of outrageous matches with employees and even an Xbox representative.
It is worth noting that Simon Darveau’s former company was Ubisoft Montreal, where he was design director. Assassin’s Creed III. Reports of an alleged mysoginistic work environment at Ubisoft were a huge story that went public last year.
In response to Valentine’s questions, Scavengers Studio set out the policies it will continue to adopt, with changes to its company code of conduct and the process of reporting sexual harassment. He told GI.Biz that “certain elements of [their] the assessments are false, somewhat disproportionately blown or devoid of important pieces. “
The company did not specify what “evaluations”.
For more details on the allegations related to Scavengers Studio and how these developments influence their next game, be sure to read Valentine’s full report.