Skullgirls studio head lays off everyone who hadn't already quit

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Rights to the Skullgirls IP remain with publisher Autumn Games.

(Image credit: Autumn Games)

Multiple employees of Skullgirls and Indivisible studio Lab Zero resigned recently, after allegations about studio head Mike Zaimont's history of sexual comments and inappropriate behavior, directed both at staff and members of the fighting game community, came to light. As of last week, Zaimont has laid off all remaining staff, as animator Jonathan Kim explained on Twitter, noting that Zaimont "hasn't agreed to a severance for them yet."

Kotaku reports that Lab Zero's board asked Zaimont to stand down when the allegations became public, but a deal couldn't be reached and instead Zaimont dissolved the board and took over Lab Zero completely. It was this that triggered the initial exodus of developers. Apparently only 11 remained for Zaimont to lay off.

Regarding the future of Skullgirls, Autumn Games, who own the Skullgirls IP, and Hidden Variable, who created the mobile version, released a joint statement last month saying that, "We plan to work with the many talented individuals who are leaving Lab Zero to build new Skullgirls content moving forward".

Jody Macgregor
Jody Macgregor
Weekend/AU Editor

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.