When devs do guild drama

I get sent press releases all the time, and usually just ignore them, as this isn't a news site. But this Alganon press release has a certain inherent entertainment value:

Phoenix, AZ (PRWEB) June 4, 2010 -- Quest Online responds to and files counter-suit against David Allen.

In early March of this year, Quest Online officially announced the hiring of industry veteran Derek Smart to head the company as President Pro Tempore and to lead the Alganon team toward the completion of the game.

Allen was subsequently removed from his position as independent contractor (a position for which he received a generous monthly fee since the formation of the company) to the company. Shortly after, in two unanimous votes by the members and investors, Allen was later removed first as a Managing Member and later as a Voting Member of the LLC, thus leaving Gregory Wexler (also an investor and co-founder of the company) as the sole Managing Member.

In response to the above actions, this past March, Allen filed what the LLC members, partners and investors believe to be a frivolous lawsuit (Case # CV2010-010391) in Arizona against Quest Online, 3000AD and several other parties.

Alganon, the company's flagship product, is a game that the investors had originally invested almost $4M to develop and which ended up being released in an incomplete and exceptionally faulty state in December 2009 under Allen's leadership. That action resulted in the game and company generating a lot of bad press for the company as well as the game.

Since appointing Smart as President Pro Tempore of QOL, Smart has helped the company obtain new funding, reduce overhead, streamline operations, revitalized the team's efforts and focus as well as - through transparency - provided the investors with renewed confidence in the company and indeed their investment. In addition, Smart led the team to the successful completion and release of the Alganon game in late April.

Smart also put into effect a plan that saw the company refund back to gamers 100% of the thousands of dollars in paid subscriptions which were bought in good faith prior to the game's fateful December 2009 launch.

In recognition of Smart's efforts and leadership, the investors and owners of the company recently voted him in as one of two Managers of the LLC. This appointment further establishes Smart as the President of Quest Online going forward.

As to Allen's lawsuit, all parties involved have now filed responses to same and an extensive counter-suit (Case # CV2010-010391) has also been filed against him in the Maricopa County Court in Arizona.

The full court document containing the company's response and counter-claim (starts on p31) can be found on the company's website: http://www.qol.com/downloads/Answer_and_Counterclaim_of_QOL.pdf

It is rare that a company admits "our game was so bad, we had to refund our customers". And I found it interesting that it costs $4 million to develop a game like that. Can't really say anything about the validity of the rest of the claims, I'm sure David Allen's version of the story sounds different. But I'm not quite sure how this public bickering, which reminds me of some guild leadership drama, is going to make people want to play Alganon, even assuming that the new leaders somehow manage to improve it.