Despite extensive work on the game and key contributions to the finished product, some Callisto Protocol developers claim they were left out of the end credits sequence. The allegations come amid a renewed push in the video game industry to fix a broken crediting system that frequently penalises lower-level employees and those who leave before the final release date.
Former Striking Distance Studios employees say they believe around 20 developers were left off Callisto Protocol’s lengthy end-of-game credits roll, according to a new report. Many people were taken aback by the omission, and the studio claims it never formally communicated a policy of leaving developers off the credits if they left before the game shipped. Some see it as retaliation for taking another job.
“To those who were left out, [the credits omission] felt like an obvious F-U,” one source tells. “Someone wanted to send a message that said, ‘Next time, have a little more loyalty to us.’”
After leaving Call of Duty studio Sledgehammer Games, former Dead Space director Glen Schofield founded Striking Distance in 2019. Schofield was chastised late last year, as its debut game was nearing completion, for a tweet that endorsed crunch culture, celebrating sacrifice and long overtime hours.
While he later deleted the tweet and apologised, Bloomberg later confirmed that at least some of the studio’s developers crunched during production. Schofield told Bloomberg that some employees had been “working hard for a few weeks,” but that no overtime was required.
Former developers have told that studio management would make promises to address crunch culture in the same meetings that they would praise the long hours people had put in. “My issue is that those of us who participated in that culture, who put in the time and worked tirelessly to help craft this product, were penalised with a credit omission for not going the extra mile…to stay until it shipped.”
Last August, the International Game Developers Association announced a plan to standardise how developers are credited for their work and to encourage the spread of tools that can make it easier to update end credits scrolls when they are missing someone or contain other inaccuracies. “Game credits are hard, especially in AAA,” Scott Lowe, former Naughty Dog communications manager, tweeted in response to today’s report. “However, the solution is simple: credit everyone. Gating by time and subjective value/impact assessments is inefficient and cruel.”
Striking Distance Studios did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
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