Throughout last year we watched the slow implosion of Prytania Media, a company owned by former ArenaNet founder Jeff Strain, and its various sub-studios including Crop Circle Games and Possibility Space; readers may recall that latter closure was particularly traumatic as devs reported they were fired via email, with Strain blaming the shuttering on staffers leaking details for an unpublished Kotaku piece that he alleges shook publisher confidence in its developing Project Vonnegut.
Now it would appear that story has shifted per the lawsuit filed by Prytania in January. The lawsuit accuses NetEase, which held a 25% stake in Crop Circle Games at the time, of spreading “defamatory rumors […] that caused the demise of Prytania Media,” claiming that the corporation accused Prytania with fraudulently mismanaging Crop Circle’s funding, which eventually spread to the press. The lawsuit is seeking $900M in “treble damages” – triple the $300M valuation of Prtyania.
Former developers at Possibility Space reacted with some understandable anger at the details the suit unveiled. One argued that the Strains resigned from the company’s board so that they could file suit against the remaining board member, NetEase executive Chenglin Han, while another shared his dismay at the Strains’ earlier story about why Possibility Space was shut down. “[T]he reason given was ‘an employee talked to a journalist so we had to shut down the studio.’ But now, in their own telling, it was actually [because] one investor told another investor not to trust them, so the money dried up,” he summarizes.
A statement from NetEase issued to Polygon unsurprisingly denies the lawsuit’s accusations. “The allegations by Prytania Media and its founders Annie and Jeff Strain are wholly without merit, and we emphatically deny and will vigorously defend ourselves against them,” it reads. “We are confident that the legal process will vindicate our position and shed light on the real reasons behind the demise of the Strains’ studios.”
