Link to the twitter post and text statement on the situation. https://x.com/MadixxTV/status/1852270120489365698
Link to Discord if you have questions and want to DM me personally – https://discord.com/invite/dP3AkYQdMS
source
Link to the twitter post and text statement on the situation. https://x.com/MadixxTV/status/1852270120489365698
Link to Discord if you have questions and want to DM me personally – https://discord.com/invite/dP3AkYQdMS
source
This was kind of sad to see. I'm not sure how they vet their community helpers/staff, but hopefully they do a better job and clean up some of the bad apples.
this is very worrying
I’m happy you came out with all this Madixx, I can’t imagine the stuff you went through at that age, it’s not easy to talk about stuff like that. Stuff no one should be dealing with at that point in their lives ESPECIALLY as a volunteer as well as a child. I can’t imagine people spending their time working on the game for absolutely free and then being upset with them for not being fast enough, or making fun for having complaints about some of the work put in. I’m truthfully sorry to you, and anyone else involved had to deal with this work environment and I hope you as well as anyone involved in the toxic environment are doing well. ❤ 🙏
I love this game, but i’m kinda sad about this. I’m torn if i should keep playing or not. I think i will, given that this is about a minority of the team, but that is absolutely not to downplay your experiences. I respect you immensely.
I've been sorting through comments and feedback on all platforms so I'd like to address some of that here with this comment.
Someone mentioned to me that I didn't talk enough about how this situation effected me. So let me explain it here although it might be a bit long. Going through this stressed me out immensely (obviously), made me feel mentally exhausted from constant arguing and going in circles, made me feel like I was doing something wrong as a person and was trapped in an never ending cycle of this (by always being looked down upon for my playstyle and told our opinions don't matter), and gave me anxiety about if I was doing enough or not. Because of Shuee's constant pressure of not doing enough volunteer work, I found myself being very pressured to prioritize beta/staff things over others just so I wouldn't get chewed out. There was times I'd ditch irl plans if I knew a beta update was coming out and felt pressured to do so to remain on Shuee's good side where I wouldn't be met with attitude for that update. The times I wouldn't be around for an update (say if I was on a 3 day vacation), I would have bad anxiety about not being able to test because Shuee would consider me inactive and group me in with the "people who do nothing". Balancing this and school wasn't easy and sometimes I found myself putting Phasmophobia over school which made me get behind because I felt like I had to in order to stay on the team, and like I said, on Shuee's good side. There was multiple times I'd have to take a break because of me being mentally exhausted from all the fighting. During these periods of mental exhaustion it affected my motivation to do anything in real life, and activites with my friends and family, and I often found myself doing nothing and getting behind in school because I was exhausted from all the childish things going on in beta. I'm also ashamed to admit that being around such a toxic environment all the time turned me into a toxic person myself to fit in. There was times I had to distance myself from the beta team (or joining vcs) because it was a common occurrence to insult people in there and I noticed I was starting to do it too, and I didn't want to go down that route.
The experience that I had on the last update I tested for Kinetic (Ascension) was horrible. I had dedicated so much of my time into testing exp values, a VERY VERY broken photo system, and very broken pieces of tier items. Essentially I spent a majority of time from May-August (my whole summer) testing it. This was probably the most I had tested an update. At one point I even spent 3 days straight making sure EVERY item in the game was heard through the paramic when it was interacted with at Shuee's request because she asked me to help her as she had a "massive workload". Shuee tasked me with a lot of things that didn't require additional bug reports, but just adding to her bug reports. I think this was done intentionally as after the update when public I was removed from QA for "inactivty" for not having enough bug reports. Dknighter wouldn't even respond to my DMs about this situation for 2-3 months until I brought it up to the Lead Admin. I felt absolutely useless and betrayed by a company I dedicated massive amounts of time into.
I've also seen people saying that Kinetic Games is not at fault for this situation and that Shuee is all to blame. I'd disagree. Dknighter, the lead of Kinetic games, has been aware of this behavior for a while and has done nothing. Multiple staff have submitted anonymous feedback forms to him and nothing changes because him and Shuee are friends. There was even a past situation where admins were involved with talking to him about Shuee and nothing changed.
I appreciate all the support I've gotten on this situation. I never expected to be heard or for people to even believe me as the developers often times present themselves as nice to the public. It means the world to me. Thank you.
wild
perfect example of you don't know what it's like until you're actually involved. i love phasmo and i've always made great memories but it's just not the same anymore
I am also not a fan of speed running but you know what I do? I just don't watch speed running videos. 😱 Crazy. I know. Nothing against speed runners, I just don't like speed running. As an adult I can make that distinction and have some simple fucking respect. Sad that others can't.
Ohh I saw this video on my main and I IMMEDIATELY had to hop on my alt to come comment this. I used to be a regular in the phasmo discord and disappeared off of the face of the planet basically as soon as Shuee got her promotion. She's the most passive aggressive egotistical dirtball I've ever met in my entire life. I've also addressed her behavior to admins and NOTHING gets done because she's the favorite for whatever weird reason. There's even been times where I've had admins come into my dm's because they saw how she talked to me to ask if I was okay. Hell I saw her get after someone once for using the !emergency command whenever someone was showing inappropriate images in a voice chat .. if that's not what the emergency command is for then what is?? I honestly couldn't think of a better use. She's on a power trip.
I guess my reason for commenting is just adding another +1 to vouch for how much of a prick she is
Shame that a game I used to play all the time has that type of community, then again it's not like I will be involved with the Discord anyways but still that sucks
Thank you for this, the kinetic team needs to be called out, also very sorry you went through all of that from people who are supposed to be professionals.
Phasma has made a lot of money its insanity to me that they were using underage volunteer QA, like this isn't just random playtests.
Damn. Insym is my favorite streamer so I enjoyed CJ’s presence every time. I always thought he’s a pretty cool dude. Didn’t know stuff was like this under the surface. That’s pretty upsetting. Hope they can learn.
My heart goes out to you and thanks for speaking out. This kind of behavior is widespread (speaking from experience in another gaming community). The lack of professionalism, the abuse of free labor and underage volunteers, and the predatory behavior feels like it's very common in workplaces like this.
At first I thought this Shuee person was a grown a$$ man, but she’s just the definition of a video game Karen who has a little bit too much ego, and should be removed from the phasmo team or she should be dealt with. I’m sorry you had to go through this and I hope you’re caught up in school now. 👍🙏🙏💪
Oh boo hoo waah waah
You're too young to understand how to navigate these situations. Internet vs reality are so different. Play games with friends cause they are fun.
Thank you for sharing this!
Phasmophobia drama before gta 6. This is why we can't have nice things. Least there's no predators involved like every other drama in 2024.
There is no excuse for this type of treatment. Informed an MP (Member of Parliament) friend of mine and he is interested in looking into how Kinetic Games handles things like this.
It is awful that you experienced this. Thank you for being brave enough to speak about this. It is a shame that the people behind such a wonderful game are toxic and awful people.
Really sad to see this happen behind the scenes without publicly addressing the situation and being more transparent with the community.
You sound like a nice down to earth person, but this whole video sounds like a whine because you weren't accepted into something.
Some things that dont sit right with the info you gave. 1. You said you guys were bug/beta testers (volunteers at that), yet the whole video it sounded like you were trying to be developers. The clip of her mocking someone else shows it. She was mocking the other person because the other person was complaining about something not being fixed. You're a tester, that's it.
Which leads me to number 2. You mentioned you were speed running the game, and they "got mad at your play style" Bug fixes = work, speed running = playing. If u hired you to bug test (volunteer or not) and found you speed running, I'd fire you/ban you as well.
3. Aside from the accused stalking, you made comment they were watching to make sure you weren't breaking rules. Sound like a NDA(non disclosure agreement), which they have the right to basically shut you up. Even sue you over it, that's what u signed if you did.
The last issue i see here is that they accepted adolescent adults for testing. That in itself is asking for trouble. However, if you could not handle the stress level of work, school and life then you have to be the one to step away and say this isnt for me right now. They had a schedule and a time frame to run on. So again, if that timeline doesnt fit you, then step away.
Overall, it sounds like a bunch of you were hired to do a job and you treated it like being accepted into the cool kids club and were also treating it as a social club and not a job
I think its pretty clear evaluating all the dramas that have occured with the game that DKnighter is either woefully unprepared to actually regulate the quality of his team and community, or actively complicit in how they act. Shuee is known to be a problem, CJ is known to be a problem, favoritism is known to be a problem, rampant harassment is known to be a problem, etc. Everything is known to be a problem which implies its reaching the right people to do something about it aka DKnighter, its just that DKnighter hasnt done his job of making sure his employees are behaving or being let go whenever they act like this.