Let's take a deeper look at Project Phoenix

                     



Project Phoenix is a kickstarter based video game that was started on August 12th 2013 and was fully funded by September 11th of the same year.

The game, itself is a fantasy themed squad-based real-time strategy, heavily influenced by JRPG designs of years past, and is currently being headed by project manager Horoaki Yura. Yura has produced music for games such as Valkyria Chronicles and Diablo III, as well as animation projects such as 2016's “Under the dog” and Steins Gate the movie.

His team consists of many famous names who have worked on a multitude of projects, including  Yoko Enoki, and the legendary Nobuo Uematsu. He worked on some little projects for Squaresoft and Square Enix, I can't remember what, exactly..

If, you've never heard of this game, Project Phoneix has been in what I would call “Development hell” for the better half of five years, Lack of knowledge of this kickstarter can likely be attributed to the project being completely eclipsed by Mighty Number 9's funding campaign which began August 31st and ended on Halloween of the same year. Looking back, News of Comcept's attempt at creating it's own spin on a Capcom classic ( for better or for worse ), would be enough to steal the spotlight from any other kickstarter projects at the time. In fact, for me, personally I wasn't familiar with the project until news broke in November of last year about it's recent troubles.

Tariq Lacey with Nobuo Uemetsu

On November 19th 2017 , A post surfaced that accused Hiroaki Yura of embezzling one million dollars of kickstarter funds in order to fund Tiny Metal, another game he had been working on at the time. Tiny Metal, at the time of these accusations was scheduled to release on the 21st of December, for PS4 Switch and Steam. The man responsible for posting these accusations was Tariq Lacey, a former employee of Area 35 who did PR and marketing work for Tiny Metal, The following is his written statement.

“My name is Tariq Lacey, and until recently I worked at a company in Tokyo called AREA 35 as a marketing and PR manager for TINY METAL, a game that will launch tomorrow.

Two months after I was hired at AREA 35, I had learned that the company funded this project by running a scam through Kickstarter. They gathered several famous creators and ran a campaign known as “Project Phoenix”, then used the $1,000,000 received from the campaign to fund the “TINY METAL” project. 

Here’s how it happened: after they received the Kickstarter money for Project Phoenix, they subsequently shut down their original company (Creative Intelligence Arts, or “CIA”), then used that same money to establish AREA 35 and pay for staff, equipment, and an office to make TINY METAL. 

The company’s CEO, Hiroaki Yura, asked me to deflect any accusations that this money was from anyone other than private investors; in actuality, Hiroaki only dipped into his own funds and asked for money from private investors after the funding that he had secured for TINY METAL was running low. I refused this request to fabricate and minimize the truth for the purpose of misleading others, then told Hiroaki to remove me from all matters regarding Project Phoenix so that I would not be implicated in this affair.

You will notice progress reports on the Project Phoenix Kickstarter blog, as well as their official Project Phoenix blog. These were written periodically by Hiroaki Yura himself in order to squander doubts that the project was dead. The nature of these blog entries, through their infrequency and intentional ambiguity, reveals to us that the project never was meant to be released. To Hiroaki, this ruse under the guise of a campaign and blog was merely an effective means to receive funding while removing any obligations to investors.

Unfortunately for us all, industry legends, indie creators, and gamers alike, this man's deception represents an enormous blow to the health of our industry, besmirching our medium while robbing each and every one of us of the trust that fuels our relationships, and consumers. 

We must do what we can to call out the unjust. I hope that my coming to you on this issue is a step toward more righteous business practices in our industry.

We deserve better, you project phoenix kickstarter backers deserve your money back.”

The original post

Eventually, The initial accusation was removed from the Facebook page, but had resurfaced in the comment section of the Project Phoenix kickstarter, via one of the backers.

The Accusations that Lacey brings to the project are definitely damning and have been parroted numerous times in articles, and forums, and the comment sections everywhere, yet very few have bothered to scrutinize these claims, and fact check them to see if they really hold any weight. That's where this video / article comes in, as I intend to break down the accusations and see if there is anything to them, while using the information available

There's so much being said about this situation, that it's difficult to work through the noise to actually look at this as objectively as possible, but that's what we intend to do, here.

So, let's cover Lacey's accusations.

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1. Two months after I was hired at AREA 35, I had learned that the company funded this project by running a scam through Kickstarter. They gathered several famous creators and ran a campaign known as “Project Phoenix”, then used the $1,000,000 received from the campaign to fund the “TINY METAL” project.

Essentially, the Kickstarter for Project Phoenix ran under the premise that through utilizing the talents of multiple famous creators, a JRPG would be developed with financial backing from people who were interested in seeing this come to fruition. The claims of this being a scam are interesting, since we don't know much about the inner workings of the company, or any of the financial records other than what is publicly stated.

When these two parties begin legal proceedings, any information intended for use during the trial will come to light through subpoenas and motions to compel discovery, which is a means of gathering information from either parties that would be relevant during trial (this is commonly used in Japan as well as the United States). Depending on relevance to the case presented, the information can become public record, post trial, but for the time being we have really nothing to go on, but the obvious accusations and speculative information.

Before we get too far into this, I should state that there is a post of interest on the Project Phoenix blog dating back to June 12th of 2017 from poster Alkorin this post seems to addresses Lacey's claim months before it was even made.

Dear backers,


Thanks for your patience. Today, we’d like to go through the Battle Mage. But first, we should clear the air to put aside a few misunderstandings.We noticed that several of you are worried that we may have or might be using funding that we received from the Project Phoenix Kickstarter to fund a separate project of mine. I am writing to assure you that this is absolutely not the case, and we would never consider doing that.


A group of private investors was interested in a prototype of a strategy game that I had begun development on several years ago with Daniel. I used my own money to fund the prototype, and they offered to fund the project the rest of the way through. To be clear, we never mixed funds between this project and Project Phoenix.There is a potential that Project Phoenix can get more funding from these investors if I prove to them that my team and I can ship a successful game. This obviously places an immense amount of pressure on me and my staff to make and ship the absolute best game possible for them, and the best news is that this strategy game project is coming together nicely. The worst news is that progress on Project Phoenix has slowed temporarily as a result.


I hope from the bottom of my heart that the resulting impressions and sales results from this strategy game catapult our development plans for Project Phoenix so far forward that we not only hit every one of our original Kickstarter targets—we outright dazzle everyone as a part of a new generation of Japanese developers.Because frankly, although we are determined to prove to ourselves that we have what it takes to see Project Phoenix through, we also eagerly want to prove to you that we are not viewing your expectations from a rear-view perspective. We are determined to ship a game that will deliver on nothing short of what we have promised to you.

This statement was reiterated by Yura in an interview with Gamespot published on December 16th

"What we came to [an] agreement on was that [the investors] were going to throw some money to finish [Tiny Metal] off, and then if this succeeds, we will basically resume on Project Phoenix," Yura said. "That's how we finished off most of the work on [Tiny Metal], and then Sony approached us and we finished off with full voice-over, and other expenses that we couldn't even begin to afford. We were first introduced to Sony during the work on Project Phoenix, and though this is not official, verbally we agreed that if Tiny Metal does well, then we will probably work on Project Phoenix. So, what Tariq did to us was pretty bad. I mean we can't go ahead and show this kind of evidence because it's [under a non-disclosure agreement]. I mean, we can't show this to our backers; people are likely to always side with the employee. It's a bit messy for us."

Tiny Metal has been picked up in a four game publishing deal by Sony's Unties indie gaming label, So if this post is actually correct, then Sony may have been offering to fund Project Phoenix the rest of the way, if Tiny Metal was successful with the launch of the game. Yura in an interview with Siliconera also goes on to state that due to the relationship between Area 35 and Sony, he has to release that project in a suitable time period, despite not being satisfied with the results of the game. This is likely due to the nature of contractual obligations for game development. Despite these issues with the final product, the current nature of design in the industry is to put it out as soon as possible and patch everything out on the back end. It's not something I'm particularly satisfied with, but it's certainly a common practice.


2. subsequently shut down their original company (Creative Intelligence Arts, or “CIA”), then used that same money to establish AREA 35


As far as we know, CIA still exists and it's webpage is still active. The site changed URLs around September 2016, but that seems to be about it. The facebook page has been inactive since March of 2012, but to be fair, I don't even update my facebook page that regularly. If they're working on any major projects, it's likely that any information won't show up until the projects are ready to be marketed, or released.

This guy could give the Wendy's twitter a run for their money.

3.The company’s CEO, Hiroaki Yura, asked me to deflect any accusations that this money was from anyone other than private investors; in actuality, Hiroaki only dipped into his own funds and asked for money from private investors after the funding that he had secured for TINY METAL was running low.

Now we're getting to the meat of this situation. The main claim, here that Lacey was asked by Yura to deflect accusations that the money used on Tiny Metal was from anyone but private investors, yet Going off of the Kotaku article, and Lacey's original Facebook post, Lacey stated he was the PR manager for TINY METAL.

The role of a Public Relations Manager is to oversee how a company is viewed by both customers and the media. This can mean both promoting the company, preparing press releases and announcements, as well as helping the company to develop market presence. A PR Manager is also supposed to assist a company in handling bad press, or knowing when negative stories are going to run, and preparing statements to determine how to place a positive spin on them.

When Lacey makes this claim in particular, It's being implied as a negative thing, and yet this was exactly what he was hired on to do as per the job description. So in saying this, he's really stating that he was incapable of being able do the job he was hired on to do. 

I should note that the Gamespot article that covers the incident states that Lacey was a developer for Area35 and Tiny Metal, which completely conflicts with Kotaku's statement, unless Lacey was holding dual roles on the project. Which at the time of this presentation is unknown.

Covering The second part - without any information to back this up, this can only be summed up as Lacey's word against Yura's. This statement also seems to contradict the June 13th 2017 post on the Project Phoenix dev blog which predates Lacey's claim. Both Alkorin and Yura's statements seem consistent with each other, with Yura expanding on it further, in the latter article.


4. I refused this request to fabricate and minimize the truth for the purpose of misleading others, then told Hiroaki to remove me from all matters regarding Project Phoenix so that I would not be implicated in this affair.

Upon reading this, There are some issues here that need to be addressed, namely the subjective nature of moral obligation. Here, Lacey states that he took it upon himself to refuse to minimize negative PR for Area35 and the project, which as we stated before, was part of the job of being a PR Manager, if in fact that was his actual role in the company, as Kotaku states.

With no evidence to prove his claims, it's even hard to say that his move to do this is even morally justifiable, and this only seems to serve as a means of spinning himself into a martyr, while flinging inflammatory statements at his former employer.

Even the statement of implication is questionable, here. Due to the fact that Yura has taken the brunt of criticism for the accusations Lacey has made, while Lacey has been completely absent of any form of scrutiny, even when counter-accusations of sexual harassment have surfaced which can't be expanded on since this has escalated into legal proceedings.

Though, from an observational standpoint, due to the nature of Project Phoenix, it's repeated delays, the increasing irritation from fans due to those delays, and the climate of Kickstarter, as of late it seems that Lacey stands to benefit more from throwing accusatory statements, after leaving his former place of work. To take any heat off of himself.

But we will get to why this hypothesis makes sense, in a bit. 

5. The nature of these blog entries, through their infrequency and intentional ambiguity, reveals to us that the project never was meant to be released. To Hiroaki, this ruse under the guise of a campaign and blog was merely an effective means to receive funding while removing any obligations to investors.

Again, another bold statement from Lacey which implicates Yura in participating in fraudulent activity, but without any evidence. Out of context, the infrequency of the blog posts can be considered questionable, if they were all just vague posts with no substance or content. However, upon researching multiple posts from the Project Phoenix kickstarter and site, the level of content would lead us to believe otherwise.

In the four years Project Phoenix has been in development, we've seen gameplay videos, concept art, character designs, enemy designs, Musical arrangements, and at least one solid Alpha build of the game. All of the content featured with a high production quality in design and presentation regardless of level of completion. 

Compare this to the development of 2012's Mythic: The story of Gods and Men, which follows a similar scenario of twelve industry veterans (Nine of them from Activision/Blizzard ) coming together in order to create an action RPG with funding from backers. The project was claimed to be headed by creative director, Seth Westfall. Westfall provided art and assets from the project and eventually gained $4,739 from 83 backers before it was revealed that the assets and content had been stolen from multiple websites and the DeviantArt account of popular artist, Genzoman.

The disaster that was Mythic: Gods and Men....

Between the two there is far more original content available for Project Phoenix than Mythic, and is still a sizable amount of content for four years of progress. However, people aren't going to view it as such, either due to irritation, impatience, or their own personal biases cultivated by both the media and by their own expectations of how projects should go. That's the nature of the beast. 

However, in saying that, the question that should be roaming through your mind, is; How would this be considered a scam if you're actually seeing this level of original content surface in a four year span? If Yura and company were running a hustle on everyone, why would they go through that level of effort for what was, according to Lacey, just a scam? What would they really stand to gain from gathering funds and putting out essentially 30% of a game just to say “ha ha, we got yer monies!” ?

Think about that, for a second; Hey I just conned people out of all this money, let's throw them two alpha builds in two different engines, some tracks from Uemetsu, and a metric butt tonne of 3D animations and sequences. It's like taking de candy from de babby!!1!

Dramatization may not have happened.

Don't assume that because of this I'm not blaming Yura for the mistakes he has made in the process of developing this project, either. I do think Yura is at fault for terribly mismanaging Project Phoenix, though I do feel that this stems form not having the proper experience of being a project leader. If he had the experience, he might have been able to hone the project to a finer edge and have gotten a bit farther in development before hitting the wall, like they did. Overhauling graphics for a more mature artistic vision may not be a wise decision when you're only dealing with a set amount of funding, and yet here we are.


Return Fire..

Now that we covered the accusations, Let's take a quick look at the responses to Lacey's claims. This was posted in the kickstarter page, by an account named “Tiny Metal programmer”.

“Calm down guys, we had an ex-employee who it turns out has made a career of sweet-talking his way into jobs he is not qualified for. After causing months of pain for everyone in the office we bit the bullet and bought out his contract. Afterwards I heard from people he worked with in past companies that he has been fired from about 5-7 game companies so far.

After he was let go with a generous severance package (about 3 months salary, money he did not earn by any definition of the word). He then turned around and stopped paying his rent thus trying to extract more money from us. So when he claims Project Phoenix money was used in TINY METAL keep in mind the truth is everyone except him has worked hard and at times with zero pay to be able to get investment for TINY METAL for the exact reason that we never used Project Phoenix money for TINY METAL. In fact other employees lent him money and had their own paychecks delayed so he could be paid on time. 

Likewise when he writes "I left" the truth is 'I was fired 3 months ago and am only writing these lies now because I want the company I barely contributed to, to pay my rent while I go on holidays to America with my severance package instead of paying the rent I owe'.” 

“This is not officially a response, but I know lots of people are going to be asking for proof. We need to check with our lawyer if we are allowed to post the contracts relating to this ex-employee, but keep in mind we have hard copies of the contract buyout signed by him and dated three months ago. We also have of course copies of the rental contract he is not paying. 

If you want to check this ex-employee's facebook and twitter, you will also see where he is spending his severance package instead of paying his rent. For example a trip to America, and expensive restaurants. Personally, I stopped following his facebook and twitter, because it was painful to see him wastefully spending money he had taken from us, so... ”

Concerning this statement, we do know a few things that help shed some light on the situation, namely, the procedure for employee termination in Japan, which actually differs greatly from The United States. Specifically, the procedure of termination and the nature of severance packages.

According to the Labor Standards act, The employer must give at least thirty days advance notice before dismissal, while also delivering a certificate stating the reasons for ending employment upon request for legal purposes of fighting the dismissal in court. Upon termination, a company will approach the employee and solicit voluntary termination in order to avoid unnecessary future disputes. Once the offer is accepted and termination is mutually agreed in writing, future litigation risk decreases unless the employee can prove that he or she have been coerced to sign against their will. If the employee does not agree with the terms of termination, however, The employee can unilaterally terminate within thirty days of advance notice or Thirty days of salary payment in lieu of notice.

Severance packages are not required by any acts in Japan, however it's stated that there is a long standing established practice of offering retirement benefits to employees in the form of a lump-sum payment and/or pension. This benefit is offered even in the case of discharges; except in the case of disciplinary ones for serious misconduct. These benefits are used as severance payment for discharge, and for the sake of courtesy are paid in generous amounts in addition to the retirement benefits.

So whatever it was that Lacey was terminated for it was either not considered “Serious misconduct” by what Jason Schrier supposedly says in the Kotaku article, or was negotiated in a way to get him out of Area35, and out the hair of the development team. Of course, all while getting a substantial severance package in return. To expand a bit more, Yura made a bit of an official post on the matter on the Tiny Metal steam page, which surprisingly had a bit more favorable response than the Kickstarter reply.

This thread is intended to clear the air in regards to the false accusation from a former employee, Mr. Tariq Lacy. 

On the morning of November 20th, 2017, Japan Standard Time, Mr. Lacy posted a false accusation claiming that development of TINY METAL used funds from Project Phoenix.
Despite presenting evidence to the falsehood of Tariq’s accusations, his lies have been repeated and have deterred potential players from enjoying TINY METAL. We have shared confidential evidence to members of the press, leading to Gamespot confirming that TINY METAL never once used Project Phoenix funding. 

Gamespot:https://www.gamespot.com/articles/facing-accusations-of-mismanagement-project-phoeni/1100-6455702/ 

TINY METAL has only ever used outside sources of funding. Our staff have personally gone through considerable sacrifices and hardship to bring TINY METAL to life. To claim that we used Project Phoenix development funds to create TINY METAL is an insult to all the developers who have made these sacrifices.
Japanese law prevents us from providing full details about Mr. Lacy, his motivations, and his actions during his brief time at our company. Please understand that Japanese law would not protect us from potential further abuse from Mr. Lacy if we provide these details in public. 

He has refused to apologize for his lies. Our only option to clear our name is to bring Mr. Lacy to court. Unfortunately, he is ignoring multiple legal correspondence in an attempt to delay. Once we submit evidence to the court, it will become public and everyone can understand the truth. We hope that this message will be received by him and that he will take actions to resolve this serious matter.
The lies Mr. Lacy posted are not the first of his actions deserving to be brought to court, they are merely the most public. We wrongly thought we could be free of him in private, but he has forced the issues public.\ 

The motivations behind Mr. Lacy’s actions will become clear as the court case unfolds, and we will keep everyone informed as the case progresses. The court will be open to the public and we have invited journalists to attend. 

We are a small and earnest team, though Mr. Lacy’s actions in the office and posting of his lies has caused great distress among his former co-workers. We have devoted over two years of our lives to bring TINY METAL to life. Having poured our heart and souls into TINY METAL, it is truly a sad thing to see false and evidence-less accusations cause such great harm. 

I want to end this message on a positive note: we will continue despite how much we have been hurt. Our goal is to make TINY METAL the very best game it can be, no matter what obstacles we may face. TINY METAL was a passion project for all of us and we thank you everyone for your support.
Hiroaki Yura
Producer / Director

As stated at the top of the video/article, through legal discovery, we will eventually find out what exactly it was that got Lacey terminated, as well as what exactly he's been doing in terms of the rental agreement.

Additionally, Yura's statement about “thinking we could be free of him in private” also seems to reflect the theory presented about negotiating a three-month severance package to get him out of Yura's, and in turn, Area35's hair.

Though, there is one more thing that needs to be aired out …


I took the liberty of visiting Lacey's Facebook page in order to follow up on the lead that “Tiny Metal Developer” stated. Now, before I'm hit with claims of “OMG that's doxing!! REEE” and the like, I want to set this up with a statement that Facebook actually made pertaining to public information and posting on their platform.

What is public information?


Something that’s public can be seen by anyone. That includes people who aren’t your friends, people off of Facebook and people who use different media such as print, broadcast (ex: television) and other sites on the Internet. For example, if you use our services to provide a real-time public comment to a television show, that may appear on the show or elsewhere on Facebook.

What information is public?
Information you share that is always public: Some of the information you give us when you fill out your profile is public, such as your age range, language and country. We also use a part of your profile, called your Public Profile, to help connect you with friends and family. Your Public Profile includes your name, gender, username and user ID (account number), profile picture, cover photo and networks. This info is also public. Some of the ways this helps us connect you are:


•Your name, profile picture and cover photo help people recognize you


•Gender helps us describe you (ex: "Add her as a friend")


•Listing your networks (ex: school, workplace) allows others to find you more easily


•Username and user ID (ex: your account number) are in the URL of your profile


•Age range helps provide you with age-appropriate content


•Language and country help us provide appropriate content and experiences

Information you share publicly: When you choose to share something with Public (ex: when you select Public from the audience selector), it’s considered public information. If you share something and you don’t see an audience selector or another privacy setting, that information is also public. Learn more about using the audience selector to control who you share with when you post to Facebook. 

Stuff other people share: If other people share info about you, even if it’s something you shared with them but did not make public, they can choose to make it public. Also when you comment on other people’s public posts, your comment is public as well.
Posts on Facebook Pages or public groups: Facebook Pages and public groups are public spaces. Anyone who can see the Page or group can see your post or comment. Generally, when you post or comment on a Page or to a public group, a story can be published in News Feed as well as other places on or off Facebook.

Emphasis mine.

With that out of the way I have to admit, I did find something interesting pertaining to this matter. While Lacey has images and posts of him doing every-day things, and a few pictures of him with industry celebrities such as Nobou Uemetsu, and Goichi Suda, Two particular things stood out.

The "Again" statement kind of adds to the claims of vacating his previous rental property.

One being a response in Lacey's post about moving to Akibara, and the other being an image of Lacey on a night out on the town with some friends. If you're pretty savvy you'll notice that's actually Chris Kohler , former Games Editor at WIRED, and currently Features Editor at Kotaku, the site that first broke the Lacey allegations the day after the post appeared on Project Phoenix's Facebook page.

The plot thickens...

Now, I don't want to be presumptuous, but I do want to pose a question; If Kohler and Lacey are acquaintances, why wasn't this disclosed in Jason Schreier's article? I can understand Kohler's recusal from the article by passing it into Schreier to do writing duties, but there seems to be absolutely no disclosure of the fact that Kohler, who works at the journalistic outlet (I'm using this term as loosely as possible ), and Lacey, who's accusation IS the story, know each other.

It's almost as if a conflict of interest could actually undermine any impartiality and integrity of the article being presented, and make it appear as if Kotaku actually had something to gain by helping Lacey get his accusation into the public eye, Thus getting many of it's readers and Backers, who are already worked up due to the delays, to cast doubt on the motivations of Hiroaki Yura, Area 35, Tiny Metal, Project Phoenix, and by extension it's team......

Naww conflicts of interest aren't Kotaku's style..

Editor's Note: What's even better about this is that after I posted the video, I stumbled upon Schrier's follow up article on Kotaku stating that Project Phoenix is ruining Kickstarter for everyone else... Stay Classy, guys.


- I'll See you Next Bossfight!


Additional Materials
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-Project Phoenix content

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1300298569/project-phoenix-japans-indie-rpg-feat-aaa-talent/posts/1925555

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1300298569/project-phoenix-japans-indie-rpg-feat-aaa-talent/posts/1365584

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1300298569/project-phoenix-japans-indie-rpg-feat-aaa-talent/posts/1527835

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1300298569/project-phoenix-japans-indie-rpg-feat-aaa-talent/posts/1710401

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1300298569/project-phoenix-japans-indie-rpg-feat-aaa-talent/posts/1452286

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1300298569/project-phoenix-japans-indie-rpg-feat-aaa-talent/posts/1329068