Cognition Dissemination: Lab Zero’s Fall Is a Sad Sight

Between how Skullgirls was quickly tossed around among a small batch of publishers shortly after its initial release, and a portion of the pre-release and especially post-release treatment for Indivisible, the Lab Zero Games team has been lightly cursed for a while. But that curse has dispensed with pleasantries and has gone for the killing blow, all thanks to the actions of one foolish person.

The trouble started when Lab Zero Games’ sole owner and lead designer Mike Zaimont, most frequently known as “Mike Z,” made an “I can’t breathe” joke on a stream, to subsequent stunned silence from the other participants. This slogan first appeared following the murder of Eric Garner at the hands of the NYPD in 2014, and reemerged with the state-sanctioned killing of George Floyd three months ago. Mike Z thought it was a brilliant idea to jokingly use it when Floyd’s death was fresh in everyone’s memories and when protests and unrest were near their zenith, which provoked immediate and deserved backlash. He provided an okay apology, but this was thought to be a one-off terrible joke from a usually-decent person. That, it turns out, was nowhere near true.

Then, the floodgates opened. Two cosplayers accused Mike Z of making unwanted suggestive comments with them during fighting game events, conventions, and in their Twitter DMs. One of them, Carbonbae, said he did so over a five-year period. Both this and the above incident were bad enough, but no one knew about the level of hell that was erupting behind closed doors at Lab Zero.

Stories about his terrible behavior with coworkers have been revealed now that employees have left Lab Zero en masse. Former Lab Zero art producer Brian “EU03” Jun was the first to go public after announcing his departure on Sunday. He explained how it’s not possible to separate Lab Zero from Mike Z because he maintained ownership of the company after planning to only hold it temporarily, and fired the board of directors. He also explained that Mike Z, according to chat records from others, put people in “extremely uncomfortable situations” and exerted his position to “demean and control employees.” They tried to work something out with him, but that couldn’t happen when one party argued in bad faith.

That was only the beginning. Senior artist Jessica Allen announced that she resigned on Saturday in a semi-reply to Jun’s tweet. Artist Jonathan “Personasama” Kim and creative director, artist, and animator Mariel Kinuko Cartwright announced their resignations from the company on Monday. Cartwright in particular detailed some of the frightening harassment she tolerated from Mike Z, including comments about her body and clothes, and a suggestion that she “’help’ him with his unfulfilled sexual needs.” She first complained about him at Reverge Labs, the predecessor to Lab Zero, in 2011, nearly a decade ago, and he later called her a “hypocrite” for complaining in 2017.

The fall of Lab Zero hurts because it’s clear all the employees tried to make something work, knowing full-well how beloved Skullgirls and Indivisible are, and the number of fans who were looking forward to their future efforts. Yet, they couldn’t because Mike Z made one of the dumbest decisions in the gaming industry in recent memory. All the stories describe a pattern of harassment and verbal abuse perpetuated by him, and a refusal to seek help or change. He’s what anyone would have thought about him following his cameo in Indivisible:

Talk about an inflated ego.

This is tragic stuff, but all isn’t lost. Lab Zero fortunately doesn’t own Skullgirls, and handlers Hidden Variable Studios (primarily of the mobile game) and Autumn Games issued a statement saying they’ve cut ties with the company. Makes sense since “the company” is only one asshat programmer now. Whether the new playable character recently announced, Annie, will arrive on time is another question, but she might if the other developers can finish her on a freelance basis. It’s tough to figure out who owns Indivisible, but it just might be a Lab Zero property if it isn’t 505 Games’.

It’s not a guarantee that the ex-Lab Zero employees will stay together to form yet another indie company or go to one of the companies listed above. They could go in different directions, either by continuing as freelancers or gaining employment at other small or large companies. Kinuko demands the biggest following of anyone who worked on Skullgirls and Indivisible, even larger than Mike Z before his fanbase dwindled, so she’ll be set more than any other ex-employee.

Even though the developers will move on to greener pastures, it shouldn’t have ended like this. The developers could have continued to make further projects after Indivisible if it wasn’t for Mike Z being one of the gaming industry’s worst decision makers in recent memory. This is hardly the first instance of hubris destroying a company or organization, including in the gaming sphere, but it’s almost always a damned shame when it happens.

But don’t worry: We live in a terrible timeline, so he’ll likely be fine too. It’s going to be great when he teams up with, I don’t know, Gootecks, who’s recently taken to spreading COVID-19 conspiracies on Twitter and has gone so far off the deep end that even the wretched hive known as the r/kappa subreddit won’t take his side, and ChrisG, who was released by sponsor Evil Geniuses after saying black women can’t play video games, for some kind of “I was cancelled by the FGC” YouTube Channel. That’s the pattern nowadays.