Factor 5 employee Sam Baker makes it very hard to decide whether his latest project has been canned or is still in development. Over the course of the weekend, Baker had made both a disgruntled and retracting blog post in regards to a title he’s been working on for the past eight months. While one entry has been deleted in favor of the other, Baker’s complaints of having to find a new job seems to indicate the cancellation angle a tad more.
We’ve included his now deleted blog post below.
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"So I figure I’m at liberty to talk about how my company is doing, because it’s really not confidential, and it’s part of my industry experience. I feel I’m obligated to share my stories with others interested in getting into this field, so here goes:
When I came back from The Orphanage, I find out no one at Factor 5 had been paid in a month…. and we weren’t going to any time soon. It was incredibly lucky that I got the Orphan gig when I did, or else I would have been in deeper shit than I am right now. Anyway, regardless of the financial issues of the company (which I won’t elaborate on), we all stayed and continued to work. If we left, there would have been no hope in F5 staying afloat. We had faith in the projects and the company, so there was no reason to bail just yet. At this time it didn’t seem like much more than bad timing and bad luck.
Then we lost health care. Ok, who needs it? If we’re going to eventually be paid, some sacrifices would be worth it. I had my own on the side, so I wasn’t sweating it. Then things turned bad…
Without proper funding on the project I was working on, the company was forced to stop production. Unfortunately I was finally having a ton of fun working on it and we had made such insane progress that this was a total kick to the chest. It was basically like saying "the work you’ve been doing for the last 8 months has been all for none, but thanks anyway." After that news, moral was definitely not the greatest. We figured it wasn’t a problem, however, because there were other projects that needed us, and we still had work to do. So then…
The president of the company basically told us that if we didn’t receive funding in 1 week, all of us should move on and look elsewhere for another job. I had no idea how bad this economy was getting until something like this affected me personally, and yea, it sucks. I have 1 more week left at Factor 5. Financially it won’t be the end of the world for me, but I really need to work on my reel and find a new gig fast. I wish the best for all my coworkers. They’ve been great fun to work with, and this last year has certainly been an amazing experience that I will always remember. I’ve learned a ton, gotten way faster and organized, and I feel like I’ve grown as an artist/professional because of the people I’ve met and the challenging yet sometimes stressful situations I’ve been a part of.
Til next time!
– Sam"
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The above post was removed shortly thereafter in favor of a more diplomatic approach that seemed to convey the idea that the project was indeed still in production. It wouldn’t make sense to not include his new entry, so we’ve done so below.
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"A writer for 1up came across my blog and read some information that was then misinterpreted. I’d like to clarify what exactly is going on.
Steve Watts of 1UP wrote that I said Factor 5 cut one of their main projects, a comic book superhero game, and that’s incorrect. It was a big story in the news that we recently lost a publisher, Brash Entertainment, when they went out of business. This does not mean that we’ve stopped production on that game, or that it was ever even in trouble. The other projects currently under way at Factor 5 are doing great. We hadn’t received payment because of the situation with Brash, which is why I said I needed to look elsewhere for work.
I removed my blog because it contained information that easy to misinterpret. I’m not, nor have I ever been in contact with 1up and was not a direct source for their article. Sorry for the confusion. "
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We’re still unclear how the original blog entry could be misinterpreted; however, Baker not only retracted the original entry, but also removed all past entries as well.
We’d love to hear what our readers think about this situation, so don’t hesitate to leave your thoughts in the comments section below.