Funomena co-founder Robin Hunicke accused of workplace emotional abuse

gamedeveloper.com:

Funomena co-founder Robin Hunicke is facing accusations of emotional abuse in her role as creative director and CEO of the company. These accusations come from current and former employees, via the team at People Make Games. 

In People Make Games' video, host Chris Bratt walks through several high-profile accusations against prominent independent developers, revisiting the accusations against Mountains co-founder Ken Wong and Fullbright co-founder Steve Gaynor. While interviewing developers close to these stories, People Make Games began to hear stories about Hunicke's alleged behavior at Funomena. 

All three studios do share a glaring commonality: their games are published by Annapurna Interactive. While Annapurna itself is not directly named as participating any specific behavior, developers at all three studios did apparently contact the publisher to ask for intervention, which did not come.

The accusations against Hunicke center around accusations of personally inappropriate discussions in the workplace and dismissals of concerns about how women and minorities at Funomena were being treated. People Make Games alleges that Hunicke would use knowledge of employees' personal lives (some of it gained in her role as company CEO) to pass judgment on their work. 

"I don't think it was intentional," one employee told People Make Games. "I don't think in her mind she wanted to tear down women. I think she had some biases herself about women having competency problems. It could have also been a perception that they wouldn't fight back." 

Hunicke has been a public advocate for diversity and inclusion in the games industry. Not only has she advocated for better practices for minority developers, she's also championed safer, more