1/27 12:30pm PST Update:

Scavengers Studios CEO Amélie Lamarche issued a statement today responding to the allegations and outlining several steps the company will take as a result. Creative Director Simon Dalvaux, the subject of most of the allegations, will be held fully accountable and suspended indefinitely by the board of directors. In addition, Scavengers Studios will bring in a third party to audit its workplace culture and practices, the results of which will be shared with all Scavengers Studios employees upon completion.

Lamarche said she will temporarily step down from her role as CEO for the duration of the audit, as she is also the subject of suspicion and her romantic relationship with Darvaux was considered a conflict of interest for some of the anonymous employees who came forward.

"Scavengers Studios would like to apologize for the damage caused. allegations are serious and we are committed to doing better for our employees, fans, and partners," Lamarche wrote

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Scavengers Studio is a Montreal-based indie with about 40 employees. studio, which made a big splash at the December Game Awards with the release of Season. This narrative-driven adventure game stars a young woman biking across a surreal landscape, documenting the artifacts she finds on her journey to prevent them from being lost in an impending mysterious apocalypse. However, despite Season's calm atmosphere, Scavengers Studio's co-founders, Creative Director Simon Darveau and CEO Amélie Lamarche, have been accused of fostering a hostile and sexist work environment, and several of their employees have came forward.

A report by GamesIndustry.biz, in which nine current and past employees were interviewed, detailed multiple specific instances of sexual and verbal harassment dating back to 2018. These allegations also describe a generally hostile work environment - especially for women - where employees are publicly degraded, yelled at, and objectified; in one such incident in 2019, Simon Dalvaux got drunk at a company party and allegedly touched several female employees, allegedly touching them. One of the employees who was touched by Darvaux resigned the following Monday, and another left the company shortly thereafter. Other accusations include that Darvault publicly berated employees, made inappropriate remarks about their appearance, and even harbored a grudge and refused for weeks to speak with employees who he felt had wronged him.

A major concern of sources interviewed by GamesIndustry.biz was the conflict of interest that existed between Darvault and Lamarche; the two were co-founders of the studio and had allegedly been romantically involved for years. For years, Scavengers Studios did not have a proper personnel department or procedures, so employees had no choice but to complain directly to Lamarche, who repeatedly downplayed Darvaux's harmful behavior, sources said. 'Darvaux has charisma and gets a lot done,' the source said. But [Lamarche] is actually worse. Because she covered up a lot of what he did or is doing."

"They said, 'You can talk to us,' but at the end of the day, everyone knows you can't really say anything against the founder or you're done," another employee told Gamesindustry.biz.

Darvault has also been accused of being a disorganized leader who refuses to listen to advice from other developers. He served as creative director for the studio's first release, The Darwin Project, in January 2020, but announced that the wintery battle royale would go offline just four months after launch.Darveau is embarking on a third unannounced game Season, which was to be run by a separate team run by Creative Director Kevin Sullivan. However, according to sources, Darveau is currently working in an unspecified role on Season, forcing the development team to make many unwanted changes, including making the open world larger and adding quests and objective markers. One person told GamesIndustry.biz, "Now we don't even know what was announced." We don't even know what the game is."

"It's the same pattern with every game," another source said. '[Dervaux] builds a vision for the game, pitches it to the team, the team gets excited, and then he pitches it to the publisher. The people working on the game are trying to do their best, but the whole company is built on building prototypes, getting paid by publishers, and repeating the process. There is no real goal of releasing a quality game, and there is no process for doing so."

Scavengers Studios later addressed many of these accusations in a statement provided to GamesIndustry.biz. The company stated, "Scavengers Studios recognizes that there have been a variety of situations during its rapid growth and that harassment of any kind is unwelcome and unacceptable, and we take any complaints in this regard seriously. Please note that Scavengers Studios is taking proactive steps to investigate what aspects of its culture need to be adjusted."

Of these steps, Scavengers Studios noted that Lamarche took over as CEO from Darveau and that it has established more rigorous HR procedures, including hiring a third-party HR consultant in 2019. However, none of the nine employees interviewed felt that these steps adequately addressed the toxic culture and harassment issues perpetuated by Darveau or the conflicts of interest resulting from the romantic relationship that existed between him and Lamarche.

At this time, neither Lamarche nor Darveau have publicly commented on the report, but the allegations detail a troubling studio culture behind an otherwise very pleasant and exciting indie game. The story is also part of a growing number of accusations of sexual abuse and harassment throughout the gaming industry. Last year, for example, Ubisoft was at the center of several scandals in which senior developers and executives resigned or were fired after being accused of sexual abuse and harassment.

The full report on the allegations against Simon Darvaux and Amélie Lamarche can be read at GamesIndustry.biz.