An Update 11/3/20
Studio Klondike, apologises for any inconvenience caused by Orange Juice Dog Shanghai & Taipei for their poor management processes and is currently doing their best to resolve the mishandling of matters made by these companies as well as making changes to put in place new processes.
We continue to make every effort to resolve all issues brought to our attention. From the results of current investigations, we have never left any artist working on our games unpaid. Other staff members who had payment concerns have either been paid or have their payments awaiting collection.
From all of us at Studio Klondike who are hard at work on our next games, we hope you will read our update below. We endeavour to keep you up to date and dearly wish for your trust.
Q: What progress have you made?
After our last statement, a programmer on the original Nekojishi, brought to our attention a missed payment that took place in 2018. After emailing us and confirming his identity, we were able to expedite the investigation and confirmed a missed payment caused by a lack of finances after Nekojishi’s release. We made a payment to resolve this within 24 hours. We apologise for this mistake.
A supporter of the original FlyingV reached out to us asking for clarification about the status of a 1% share in Orange Juice Dog Taipei. We were promptly able to verify that he still holds his share in the company and we had delivered related documents. According to the individual in question, their claims are concerning our partner Pache directly and are not targeted at the company. We continue to support Pache’s creative work as the foundation of our company and the Nekojishi series.
As per our previous statement, the concerns of Bobo & Evan have been resolved. Kadokawa’s share purchase is a private matter outside the company. The concerns of Suntik, and Panda Fang are ready for resolution pending their response to us.
One artist raised concern that their prior contribution had not been credited on our crowdfunding page. While we did not intend for this section to be a full credits listing as it only includes a few key members working on this project, we do agree that the past contributions of members and contractors for Team Nekojishi should be acknowledged, and the campaign description has been improved to reflect this.
We continue to kindly ask that anyone who has issues with us, please raise these issues with our management directly to seek a prompt resolution. As per our policy on raising feedback and concerns with management, we request that those interested email us at contact@klondike.studio.
Q: What are the results of your audit?
Over the past few days, we have completed an audit of payments made to staff and artists during the production of Nekojishi. Including platform fees, physical rewards, and postage of said rewards, a total of NTD 2,985,169 ($137,318 SGD) was accounted for in payments made during this time period. To the best of our knowledge, there were no further staff members who have not been mentioned above were not paid for their work. We apologise for the incidents where this did occur and have made our best efforts to fix this.
Q: Where did the money from the original FlyingV go?
Below are the project costs of producing Nekojishi between 2016-2018.
As shown, platform fees, physical rewards, and shipping, accounted for NTD 560,000 (or 45% of funds). Bringing the available budget of this game down to NTD 700,000 (SGD $32,500)
However, the cost of game production exceeded NTD 1,500,000 (SGD $70,000) as we did not want to sacrifice the quality of the final game. An additional NTD 242,000 (SGD $11,200) was spent on promotion such as the promotional video, Nekojishi Weekend Show and messaging stickers for our fans. NTD 400,000 (SGD $18,500) was spent on the DLC which was our only source of income from game sales.
The estimated project costs of Nekojishi was over 200% of the funds raised from crowdfunding. (NTD 1,250,000 | $55,000 SGD) Even with this extended burden of producing the game, we still completed the project with no compromises to our vision and did our best to fulfil all promises made.
We have learnt from this experience and have worked to make more responsible and informed production decisions and promises to those who support us. We continue to improve our communication and goals for transparency for our team and the projects we’re working on.
In the near future, we plan to release the trailer and more information about Nekojishi: Lin & Partners in Chinese. When this happens, an update will be made to the supporters of the original FlyingV campaign for Nekojishi regarding the fulfilment of the art book merchandise stretch goal from that campaign. We apologise for our lack of communication on this front.
Q: Why was legal action involved against those who first raised these issues on Weibo?
As a company, it's our obligation to protect our legal rights and seek the truth in any situation. Whether it’s the commercial misuse of our copyright, or in this case, misinformation and false accusations made against our employees and company which are a severe infringement in many places in the world. We welcome any contributive discussions and are happy to resolve misunderstandings actively, but in this case the individual refused to stop their accusations. There was no other option but to take legal action. Orange Juice Dog Shanghai had to refer to legal processes in order to demonstrate the truth. In these situations, our contact is always open and we’d like to be able to talk things out and reach a solution that works for everyone involved if possible.
Q: What are you doing to make sure this doesn't happen again?
This incident has been put under review by the full management team of Studio Klondike. As a result of our review, new processes have been put in place at the company.
In the case of pay disputes, we have moved the burden from individuals to respond onto company processes. Any past or present employee can email contact@klondike.studio with their concerns to begin the resolution process.
Based on legal advice, OJDOG Shanghai’s initial response published a few documents on Weibo as evidence regarding false accusations brought up by two parties. These documents contained personal details including the names of the parties and bank account number of one party. We reiterate that the disclosure of unnecessary information by us was inappropriate and should never have happened. However, OJDOG Shanghai deemed it necessary to use legal names in pending legal action against severe false accusations not mentioned here. They could not present evidence to an online username as this can be changed and given to another user rendering the company liable. Additionally, both their legal names were public information viewable on the relevant companies registrations. However, this was not an appropriate way to disclose any personal information in front of a public following and sets a bad example. We apologise to the affected parties for the incident, and we also apologise to all our followers. We will do whatever we can to protect the privacy of the parties in the future and would seek a better solution in such severe scenarios that we wish never to happen again.
In the case of sensitive social media interactions, posts and replies must be written and discussed in collaboration with multiple staff members. The post will only be made once multiple staff members are satisfied with it. This is to ensure the same values are portrayed, and a consistent message is made by the entire company.
Please be aware that all business from here on should be conducted through our public points of contact, on social media, and through our official staff email.
Parting Thoughts
Through this update we hope to continue to remain transparent about the steps we’re taking and plans moving forward. Studio Klondike remains committed to resolving the issues of both Orange Juice Dog Shanghai, and Taipei.
At this point we believe we have resolved the disputed payments to the best of our ability, and we thank everyone for their patience and strong feedback that has taught us valuable lessons.
As a young game company without the experience in running a business, or dealing with matters like this, we apologise for the mistakes that were made in the past and are seeking to take professional advice and put in place professional solutions.
We are forever grateful for our hard working team who have remained strong during the uncertainty an event like this can bring to the livelihood of the employees at the company. We kindly ask that people do not harass, threaten, or demean anyone within our team.
We value your criticism because we want to make sure to take the right actions in improving our company and providing better services to our customers, and employees both past and present. As such, please feel free to reach out to us should you have any concerns, and we will put forth our best efforts to correct any problem in a timely manner.
If you wish to see our stories, and our games grow into the future, we need the community of people like you to support us, as we have so many more things we wish to create for this world.
Best wishes always,
- Studio Klondike
Below is a link to our original statement from the 7/3/20 for reference.