David Prassel, creator of ORION, gets 20k in donations and fires everyone. - Games

I'm sure everyone here is familiar with David Prassel, Orion's SOURCE lead creator. On Polycount a guy posted: [quote]Hey guys i have a bit of a conundrum to sort out more on a moral level, then anything else, im looking for some industry opinions or just well thought out ones. Im going to be as honest and exact as possible. Ive been working on a Orion a mod which turned into a game with the release of udk which is planned to be released publicly. Ive been working on it for over a year, in my spare time.[b] I was the main environment artist. i use that term loosely since i have been responsibly for 90%+ of the environment to date in that game, to add to that i also created first person hands and a few weapons.[/b] All vegetation models including about 40 different meshes a modular set to create abandoned green house style buildings and 3 larger complete structures, and more which i wont go on about. i still have all raw files, i didnt give that out. [b]Recently, David Prassel, the guy who is behind everything, the "boss" so to speak. created a kick starter fund. for those who arnt fimilar with it its a way to let people donate to your cause. so in the past month and a bit he has managed to get around 20k from the world, to aid in production of Orion.[/b] This has never been about money for me, i feel i need to make that clear, i did it to learn and put my work to use at the same time. So heres where the conflict i have is,[b] I was recently removed from the team. without warning. no heads up. Nothing mention to me that i was doing anything wrong. i maintained a consistent pace. i kept David informed of my life whats going on. [/b] The amount of time i donated to the cause was limited. based on me improving in the Arch Viz industry, and trying to secure my job. there were meetings at 9am on Sunday which i could rarely make, but yet read the .pdf outlines on the missed ones. It was never mentioned to me that this was a problem or was causing any frustration. Im left feeling used and frustrated. and recently got word that [b]the entire sound team has been removed with out warning aswell, and they are quite fumed. Of which the main sound producer Marcus Zuhr. was logging more hours then anyone else next to david prassel, and his work is "Professional Quality" [/b] So whats going on here? My work feels like it has been taken from me to be used commercially and i wont get recognition or pay for it. i have signed a NDA in the beginning, it specifies nothing related to my work being his. only stuff about pre releasing media. Ultimatly its a moral issue for me it feels wrong, and very unsettling. I have no problem giving my work away. but this isnt right.[/quote] And from Reddit: [quote]For those unaware, here is the website Website for ORION: Project, a free multi-player beta test released in 2009 He has since changed the layout, which once prominently featured donations on the main page, but is still (apparently) receiving money daily. EDIT: An official response from Michael Prassel, VP of Spiral Games: (his brother) "I would like to address this thread and also offer myself to answer any questions about Spiral Game Studios. I'm the Vice President of the company and I take all of these issues very seriously. Daniel had been with Spiral for 1.5 years and provided very quality work. He did this work on the understanding it was for free and that he could use it to build his portfolio to get other work. We will always credit Daniel with the work he has done and truly appreciate the stuff he has done for us. We were featured on Kickstarter and were able to raise a good amount of money to fund a build that we could show off at GDC. We had some intense deadlines and Daniel was scheduled to receive a good amount of money for his assignments for GDC. He had other things going on in his life and could not complete them on time so we had to find others who could. We found other artists and got the assignments done on time. As our company grows and needs to meet more deadlines we need to find people who are able to complete the work on time. If someone cannot meet the deadlines or there are external factors preventing them from doing so, we have to part ways just like any other company would do. In regards to Javid (Sn1pe) not getting paid he was also never let go from the company. David and I just got back from GDC on March 5 and received the money from Kickstarter in early March. We are still planning on paying him (and the others who completed work for our GDC build) for his work assuming he hasn't left the company. If anyone has any questions regarding Spiral Game Studios or any of its policies, please email me at [email]mprassel@spiralgamestudios.com[/email] or post a reply to this. I hope this clears up any confusion or doubt in our company. Thank you for your time." The problem still being that multiple team members were let go with absolutely no warning. From all accounts they had a great working relationship with him, delivered their content on time and were always courteous. From reading about the creator he seems to be very cocky and universally disliked throughout the game / mod community.[/quote] Basically Prassel got this guy to do all of the heavy work, and then fired him spontaneously after he gets $20,000 in donations from the community. :waycool: [url]http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=81931[/url] [url]http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/g2sol/david_prassel_creator_of_orion_prelude_receives/[/url]

He is Winning!

is prassel the same guy as praz who was spamming all those orion updates and got owned because he couldn't handle the fact that he was just the ideas guy and everybody hated him for it because the source mod was a fucking joke?

isnt spiral games that one mod team that made that underground mine Deathmatch "Open Beta" mod for fileplanet earlier claiming they would add dinos soon or something but never did

Yeah

[QUOTE=BeardyDuck;28574201]is prassel the same guy as praz who was spamming all those orion updates and got owned because he couldn't handle the fact that he was just the ideas guy and everybody hated him for it because the source mod was a fucking joke?[/QUOTE] yes, yes he is. [editline]12th March 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=Wii60;28574254]isnt spiral games that one mod team that made that underground mine Deathmatch "Open Beta" mod for fileplanet earlier claiming they would add dinos soon or something but never did[/QUOTE] yeah and then the udk came out and they switched to the unreal engine

Well he's a piece of shit. And I don't think the he can use the work that the environmental artist and the sound team made without their permission because it seems they didn't sign any contracts, just the NDA. I really do hope that's the case.

that mod wasn't that good anyways. Levels were confusing and stuff but some models were good. hope this guy gets lawsuited or whatever for doin a dick move

Yeah, Prassel has no actual game development skills of his own (except writing 12,000 years of unoriginal backstory). He's very very good at making people think he knows what he's doing and getting a whole lot of people to do work for him for free/very little money (or in the case of the donations, give him a lot of money). [editline]12th March 2011[/editline] I animated for the Source ORION, he gave me a whopping $10 per gun. Then he offered me $25 a gun to animate for the UDK version, and I said no. He got the $20,000 in donations and changed his offer to $50, which is still totally crap pay; I can make 10x that amount doing something I actually enjoy for a guy who isn't a dickhead. Also who knows if he'd actually pay me once I'd done the work for him. He doesn't have you sign any contracts or anything guaranteeing payment, so he can just take your work and run, like he has with these other people.

Fucking dick

[quote]Just noticed this thread, My name is Javid and I've worked on Prelude as an animator, I kept hearing about all these promises especially about getting paid for my work David would mention this countless amounts of times every day which aroused suspicion for me After submitting the work I had created I was immediately canned from the project without any warning/notice along with Curtis and Marcus Zuhr, the main sound guys. He forgot to remove me from the skype group chat however and he basically lied and told the rest of the team members that we found jobs or something came up. I personally don't care about the money or anything as I just do things as my hobby and I wanted to get the word out there as well about David Prassel, It's hard to believe someone such as himself would exist, I'd say he's the worst. [/quote] From our very own sn1pe

[url]http://www.facepunch.com/members/31795-Praz[/url] There's his account. Also, TicTac: yo TicTac: what happened with orion Sn1pe: gaysex TicTac: i see

[QUOTE=bionic0n3;28574195]He is Winning![/QUOTE] Bi-Winning!

[QUOTE=Penis Colada;28574382]Yeah, Prassel has no actual game development skills of his own (except writing 12,000 years of unoriginal backstory). He's very very good at making people think he knows what he's doing and getting a whole lot of people to do work for him for free/very little money (or in the case of the donations, give him a lot of money). [/QUOTE] Okay wait, so you're telling me that I spent 10 years modding games and learning to model and texture and map and a god damn ideas guy gets 20 grand and his mod on steam there is no god

I remember Praz came to me and offered me a job on the team back when the mod was on source, he mostly wanted me to set up a bodygroup system for their player models or something of the like, I declined as I was working on Guard Duty at the time, this was a huge dick move, firing people after they gave him their work unbelievable.

To be honest, I am pretty poor and Irish, but I wouldn't run off with 20k, just doesn't seem like enough to begin being a dick.

I just read up on all of this. Pretty rage-tastic shit. With the case of the artist's, sound guys and animators, shit sounds ridiculous. I don't know how the situation will turn out for Spiral games, but I do hope everyone that got fired manages to find some work. Specificly with the main artists, it sounds like they didn't bother to give this guy a chance. If what he says is true, and he has made over 90% of the env art, then thats pretty fucking harsh. That kind of makes me think that generally what made orion an interesting game to play from a strict art perspective is going to fly out the window with the UDK project. More or less, the UDK project is probably going to look ugly as fuck.

Orion sucked dicks and always have. Was nothing but pretty looks, with boring and unoriginal gameplay. And he promised dinosaurs, which was never given. That is [B]unforgiveable! [/B]

[QUOTE=usaokay;28575019]and who would actually donate money for support of the mod?[/QUOTE] Probably die-hard fans who knew David slightly more personally than regular community goers. But I still wonder how he managed to get 20k in all. Either he got a lot of small donations, or a few big as hell donations.

Commercial investment maybe? The minecraft documentary got $150,000 just to interview some fat racist swede

This makes me feel ill.

Hey guys I just thought I would let you know that Galactopticon is starting a kickstarter also Phone booth you are fired also jaanus and TH89 and sparkwire bye :) [editline]13th March 2011[/editline] no but seriously this guy is a cockface

Damn. So who wants to interview me, er I mean, us? [editline]13th March 2011[/editline] You know what. I am taking my funny rating back, you actually scared me for a second there.

haha this guy is a genius brb making mod with dinosaurs you know what though some mod teams are absolutely the worst. insurgency's dev team was pretty unorganized and awful but nobody would ever have the gall to just take donations and fire everybody off i mean wow and who donates to a shitty mod that had maybe ten players tops and took like five years to come out who does this? [editline]12th March 2011[/editline] that's like donating to neotokyo. [editline]12th March 2011[/editline] or nuclear dawn

10 years, actually.

I don't think it would be possible to be a bigger dick than this guy, he's an aspiring game company director. He's probably going be the next CEO for Activision if he continues that way.

It seems like Prassel's been a massive cunt for a while; he apparently stepped all over his team since day one. He's just your average mid-twenty year old "entrepreneur" with more ego than competence. Not to mention, Orion was a pretty mediocre game to begin with.

[QUOTE=Kenneth S;28576739]He's just your average mid-twenty year old "entrepreneur" with more ego than competence.[/QUOTE] this this this His skill is in making people believe he has skills

That's how game industry works though. You've got all these business graduates making tonnes of money + bad decisions while the actual creative side gets nothing.

that's not just the game industry, though. that's every form of business. if you have a masters in dicksucking, someone's going to hire you to look over people with technical skills they got in high school who know more than you do about their field who get tramped on by you because you make six figures a year that's life.