Link to Jason Schrier's article
Some excerpts:
The TLDR is that Trendy is suing them over Jeremy Stieglitz, alleging that he worked on the game and poached talent from the studio while still employeed at Trendy. Stieglitz, if you don't recall, was the subject of Kotaku's Video game studio from hell article and seems like a real fun guy.
Some excerpts:
Who really designed Ark: Survival Evolved? A lawsuit, filed late last year, alleges that theres a messy story behind the development of one of Steams biggest hits.
The players involved are Trendy Entertainment, the company behind Dungeon Defenders, and Studio Wildcard, the start-up game dev behind Ark, which launched in Early Access last year on both Steam and Xbox One. In a lawsuit filed against Wildcard in December of 2015, Trendy alleges that one of their former employees, game designer Jeremy Stieglitz, breached his contract and has been secretly working on Ark since he resigned from his position in 2014.
Three years ago, Trendy employees reached out to Kotaku to complain about working conditions at their studio. They said they were forced to work excessive overtime, to the tune of seven days a week, and they claimed they were too scared to complain. They were worried about retribution from their creative director, Stieglitz. In June 2013, we published an article about these claims.
Within the next day, Trendy took action. They moved Stieglitz off the team hed been leading, and by the end of the year theyd created a new imprint of the company for him called NomNom Games, to helm development on the online shooter Monster Madness. According to an employment letter dated September 23, 2013, Stieglitzs new role would both maintain his current title of Chief Technology Officer at Trendy and grant him the new position of president at NomNom Games. The reshuffling didnt last long. On April 4, 2014, Stieglitz sent an e-mail to the upper management at both Trendy and their main investor, Insight Venture Partners, with the subject Might need to leave.
The TLDR is that Trendy is suing them over Jeremy Stieglitz, alleging that he worked on the game and poached talent from the studio while still employeed at Trendy. Stieglitz, if you don't recall, was the subject of Kotaku's Video game studio from hell article and seems like a real fun guy.