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Gazillion, the owner of the studio behind LEGO Universe and the failed MMO Auto Assault, was “hands off, to a fault” according to ex-NetDevil programmer Stephen Calendar.
In a recent interview with MMOFallout, Calendar stated: “[Gazillion was] hands off, to a fault. I think we maybe had one corporate HR person that split their time between our office and the headquarters in San Mateo.
“After Scott Brown left, the NetDevil founder who was president of NetDevil, we had an interim president sent from corporate, Stuart Moulder. Mr. Moulder was actually pretty cool, very sharp fellow, but I have the feeling he was mostly a steward of the company without a ton of control to do anything.
“Lack of communication was a big frustration, as employees we never felt like we had a platform to submit ideas, criticism, feedback; and I know in particular Scott felt left out of the corporate loop and ham-stringed when he attempted to improve or change anything. We felt a little too much like just property instead of people.”
Last year NetDevil founders Scott Brown, Peter Grundy, and Ryan Seabury left the company. One year later NetDevil met with massive layoffs from its JumpGate Evolution MMO team, as well as its LEGO Universe team when Gazillion gave control of the latter MMO to the LEGO Group.