Statement 7/3/20 EN | Studio Klondike

STATEMENT 7/3/20

Recently we have taken notice of several statements and rumors on social media across our audiences on Weibo, Facebook, and Twitter. We have taken the time to collect them, and with full transparency, offer the facts that form our understanding of the situation.

Q: I heard you weren’t paying workers or artists properly.

As we are aware, allegations have been raised online against us about wage and payment issues surrounding the following individuals, who have each been affiliated with us for various lengths of time over the past three years. For this section we will refer to all individuals by their public pseudonyms out of respect for their privacy.

Evan (Programmer for Beek from 1/2019 to 7/2019) - We have always had a mutual resolution to the situation with this individual. As such we will not comment further due to privacy reasons. We request your understanding on this point.
Suntik (Assistant at Pawprint Press from 08/2017 to 12/2017) - Miscommunication occurred between the individual and management on the form of the payment for his last payslip which had been paid into his housing provision fund. For two years, we were unaware of any issues until it was recently brought to our attention online. We established contact with them to confirm the payment into the fund had been received, but we have not been able to determine if they wished for the payment to be delivered in another manner as they have so far not responded any further.
Panda Fang (Clerical Assistant) - This individual left Orange Juice Dog Shanghai and Pawprint Press in August 2019 without contacting us to initiate the proper employment separation procedure. His last two paychecks for the final work rendered have been put aside while we attempt to establish contact during 2019 and into 2020. The paychecks are ready for disbursement with no restrictions, but we need the individual to respond confirming his banking information and jointly authorize, with him, the release of funds from Studio Klondike on behalf of Orange Juice Dog Shanghai, his former employer.
Bobo (Assistant at Pawprint Press from 03/2018 to 09/2019) - Miscommunication occurred due to not contacting the payroll manager which has now been resolved and paid in full.
Lioniar (General manager of Pawprint Press from 11/2018 to 02/2020 [08/2019 de facto]) - There was no salary issue with this individual and we have reached a mutual agreement. As such we will not comment further due to privacy reasons. We request your understanding on this point.
Kadokawa (Graphic Designer for Pawprint Press and OJDOG Shanghai) - At his own discretion, this individual decided to part with the companies in July 2019. Upon his departure, he requested that he relinquish all shares and ties with both OJDOG Shanghai and Studio Klondike. His shares in Studio Klondike were transferred to another shareholder in the company through a document signed by all shareholders, and a third-party phone verification by our accountant as per procedure. His shares in OJDOG Shanghai are in the process of being bought by a non-employee shareholder of that company. As Studio Klondike is aware, this process has been delayed by the time required to gather the necessary documents, and processing delays caused by the Lunar New Year and COVID-19 outbreak. While the process of this share purchase is still ongoing, it represents a private purchase and not any responsibility of the company.

We kindly ask that anyone who has issues with pay, shares, or the company in general, please raise these issues with our management directly to seek a prompt resolution. We take such issues seriously; however, we cannot resolve such issues unless they engage in open, clear conversation. Our email is always open, contact@klondike.studio.

Q: I heard you revealed personal information about workers online.

As part of our initial response to allegations of staff non-payment, we published a few documents on Weibo as evidence that payment had been rendered to two of the involved parties. The documents contained personal details, including the full names of two of the parties and a banking account number for one of the parties. The disclosure of this information by us was inappropriate and should never have happened. The materials have since been removed, and we have apologized to the affected parties for the incident.

Q: I heard you are involved in a lawsuit against someone

At this time, we have begun the process of bringing a legal complaint against one of the previous company associates involved in the information posted online. While we cannot discuss many of the specifics due to the ongoing nature of the issue, we would like to make it clear that we would prefer to come to a mutually agreeable resolution on the issues without bringing the issues to court. We reiterate that we keep our means of communication open should the involved party wish to engage with us in a civil manner to come to an agreeable resolution.

Q: Who is Studio Klondike?

The core members of Team Nekojishi planned to begin Studio Klondike in mid-late 2018 during the preparation to announce an earlier version of Nekojishi: Lin & Partners, and Beek - Familiar Spirit in the coming year. There were a few key factors that led to this, most importantly that we wanted to set up the company in Singapore, a place that better serves the international nature of the team working to produce Nekojishi: Lin & Partners.

Nekojishi: Lin & Partners is produced by a talented international team who all have the same passion and love for Nekojishi. We believe that talent is not bound by geography, race, or gender and have worked hard to put together a team capable of making this game possible.

From our writer in Taiwan, our producer in Australia, concept artists and art directors from Singapore, Russia & Mainland China, our modelling team from the United States, character artist from Korea, and animator from Canada, we work with a team from around the globe on this project.

Every individual in the team is committed to extensive research and attention when it comes to representing the themes of Nekojishi, its setting in Taiwan, and the deep cultural foundation the story is built upon.

Q: I heard you have money issues and I’m worried about the Kickstarter.

When Nekojishi was first brought to crowdfunding, it was our team’s first project and we had made our best attempt to set reasonable funding goals to make the game. In order to do this, we acquired quotes from various individuals and groups to produce the game assets and crowdfunding rewards. In the end the crowdfunding campaign on FlyingV was a success, and we pulled in over $1.2 million NTD ($38,500 USD when fees were deducted) from those supporting the project.

However not all plans work out, and with all the things that came up during development, the final cost of production by release significantly more the amount we had raised on FlyingV. While we had made some of this money back from merchandise sales before release, a fair amount of it was paid by us out of pocket as we were determined to meet the expectations of our original supporters.

In the year after Nekojishi’s release, our financial situation had worsened such that we were at risk of collapsing. One of the company’s shareholders ended up stepping in by selling their house and using the funds to keep the lights on and our staff paid. We think about the sacrifice they made for us every day. This is the only reason we have been able to keep going and get to the point of being able to share Lin & Partners with you today.

Recently, with the more efficient structure of the company’s workforce, extra revenue streams such as the release of Beek - Familiar Spirit, merchandise sales, Patreon, and projects like Astatos, we have become better able to guarantee the financial stability of our team, and we thank all of our fans who have helped this happen along the way.

We are committed to delivering on promised projects, such as Astatos and the Lin Hu plush which had their production delayed due to the COVID-19 outbreak in Mainland China. In addition, Nekojishi: Lin & Partners, our latest project, is ready to go into full production.

Game development is always challenging, uncertain, and expensive, but we want to keep pushing ourselves to both increase the quality of our work and represent the community that helped us grow in the first place.

Q: Didn’t Pahce say that there wasn’t going to be a sequel to Nekojishi?

In 2016, there was a news article written during the initial crowdfunding of Nekojishi where Pache, the lead writer and creator of the project, very solidly affirmed there wouldn’t be a sequel to Nekojishi.

As one can imagine, his thoughts and feelings towards the story and the characters evolved over the coming year as Nekojishi went into production. New ideas arose, and that’s where the concept for Nekojishi: Lin & Partners originated. The development of this project began not long after the release of Nekojishi and has taken until now to bring to a reality through every hurdle we’ve had to traverse along the way.

Q: Does the artwork seen on the campaign page represent what we’ll see in the final game?

We’re surprised to hear so much conversation about this online; however, we would like to clarify that the artwork found in the “Story” section of our crowdfunding page are not assets from the game but from a story trailer which will be released in the future. Due to it being an adventure game, it is not planned for Nekojishi: Lin & Partners to feature visual novel style CG artworks at this time; however, we hope you enjoy the rich character artwork featured throughout the game itself.

Q: Why don’t I see the same artists working on Nekojishi: Lin & Partners as the original Nekojishi?

During the initial development of Nekojishi: Lin & Partners, we had continued to work with some of the original members who worked on Nekojishi. These members set the groundwork for many things, such as character designs, and some scenes in the game. However, we soon found that in order to facilitate the development of a game like Lin & Partners, we knew we needed to pull together a new team with the various diverse skills required from concept artwork, to character and scene modelling, animation, programming, and gameplay design.

As a part of this, we needed to adapt the visual style of Nekojishi and its characters from a visual novel into a more expansive and detailed world. We stand behind the work of both those who led the foundations of Nekojishi and Lin & Partners, as well as the work of the incredibly talented staff working for us today, and we hope you enjoy the art of Nekojishi in all its forms.

Previous artists working for the company during the production of the original Nekojishi had reached the end of their contracts and were paid as such. Additionally we always welcome anyone interested in working with us, past or new, to send us their portfolio to contact@klondike.studio.

Q: What happened to the art book stretch goal from the original crowdfunding?

During the original crowdfunding for Nekojishi, we reached a stretch goal for an art book and collector’s edition with a soundtrack to be made available for sale outside the campaign at a later date. At the time, we prioritised delivering on the game and the rewards for the crowdfunding backers, which we delivered successfully.

After the game was released, we found we were not in a position to make this stretch goal happen immediately; however, we are still committed to making it happen. As such, the Art of Nekojishi book featured in the Lin & Partners crowdfunding is planned to be made available for sale after it is released. This art book is planned to feature all the artwork from both the original Nekojishi and Nekojishi: Lin & Partners. Additionally, we are planning a special version of Nekojishi; however, this is still in progress. Through this experience, we now know how to make better, and more achievable promises to our community. We apologise to our original crowdfunding supporters who had anticipated this stretch goal being completed earlier.

Q: What happened to the Nekojishi Limited Edition?

The Limited Edition of Nekojishi was originally created as a promise of the original crowdfunding campaign; however, during the development of the game, we found ourselves discontent with putting NSFW content in the story.

At many points, we considered not releasing a NSFW version of the game at all; however, we prioritised the fulfilment of our promises to our supporters. In the end, the Limited Edition was released for free with an optional donation.

The standard version of Nekojishi has always been the original and complete version of the story.

More recently, we have reflected on the Limited Edition of Nekojishi and it’s content as a team, and come to the conclusion that the content does not represent our values, particularly when considering the content found in earlier iterations of the patch’s English translation. As such, we decided to remove the Limited Edition from distribution on all platforms. We hope you can respect our decision to remove the content from distribution.

Q: What happened to the www.nekojishi.tw website?

We forgot to renew the domain when it ran out last year and it was taken by someone else before we noticed. It wasn’t intentional in any way, and we apologise for this mistake. At the time the domain registration had expired, the domain had been used to redirect to www.nekojishi.games for nearly a year; however, we acknowledge this has led to unnecessary confusion.

Parting Thoughts

Our goal for this statement is to provide the facts, which are presented fully and correctly to the best of our ability. We encourage everyone to take the statements here and that of others in the community into account, and to come to their own conclusions on us, our games, and our company.

As for treatment and fair pay of our staff members, we are committed to providing a safe and inclusive environment for our team, and we are equally committed to ensuring compensation is fair and rendered according to our company contracts and guidelines. It is through the tireless work and dedication of our staff that we are able to bring our works to the community, and for that we are forever grateful.

We take the allegations of any wrongdoing or mistreatment very seriously, and we spare no effort to work with those with grievances to come to a mutually agreeable resolution. If you feel you have experienced wrongdoing by Studio Klondike or its associated companies, we invite you to reach out to us so we can engage in constructive dialogue to make things right. For those who fell out of touch with us regarding any outstanding matters, we will keep our channels of communication open to you, and you are always welcome to reach out to us should you decide to re-engage.

Our hope is that our statement will also serve as a starting point for improving the transparency and integrity of our company. We invite everyone, from our fans, to our current and former staff members, to those critical of our studio and our works, to join us in constructive conversation to shape the future of our company.

One last thing. We ask that everyone engages in civil dialogue between all parties. It is unnecessary and inappropriate to attack, harass, or demean any individual or group because of their personal beliefs, values, or past or present engagement with our games or our company. We ask that such behavior cease immediately as it is not constructive and only serves to divide the community that we build and cherish together, and cause pain and unwarranted hardship for those involved.

Thank you for taking the time to read our statement. Every day we’re proud of the distance we’ve come since we’ve started, and we hope that we’ll be able to be given the opportunity to keep on growing into a studio that not only makes us proud, but also the community who put us here.

Best wishes always,

- Studio Klondike