Australian CEO steals servers to come to Ireland
In a bizzarre story, the American CEO of Perth-based game developer Interzone has shut down shop in the Australian Government Grant-funded offices to flee the debt-ridden company and establish a new company here in Ireland, based in the Digital Hub. The company owes the Australian tax payers $1million (Aus) and the employees $500,000 (Aus).
The Australian team had gone months without pay in the hope that their development results would yield financial reward and pay off their debts and get the company back into the black. However, late in the night the CEO, Mike Turner, broke into the offices to steal the companies’ IP and servers before moving over here.
The amazing story unfolded on video as staff caught Turner red handed. In turn, Turner threatened the staff with legal action, claiming they were trespassing on his property.
Later, the employees cornered the CEO and he agree’d to answer questions on-camera from the employees themselves.
A full-length video is here:
On top of that, a rundown of the events from the employees (the official Interzone domain forwards here) has been posted here. Big Collision is being setup in Dublin to complete development of their game, “Futebol”, in time for the World Cup, and without the debt they have accumulated in Australia.
After initial reaction on Australian blogs and news outlets, the CEO sent this note out:
After being directed to your article I felt it was necessary to offer some corrections.
First, I never said and have evidence that your source Tim knew before this article was published that it is and has always been our intention to settle out tax debt and Super in Perth.
Secondly, a big part of our tax problem began when the payroll company we were using there went bankrupt after it had already deducted over $450k in taxes and never paid them to the ATO.
Third, Big Collision is our European operations arm and is ran from the US it is not a studio and does not have 1 employee.
Fourth, Mike and Greg also have deferred their own pay in the interest of the company and have more outstanding funds owed to them than anyone one else.
Next, IZ has sunk millions of foreign dollars into the Perth economy, we were initially told that there would be much more than the $500k made available to us in R&D and other grants but they never came to fruition.
Next, IZ has not received millions in funding. And the list goes on.
Let me be clear that to this day we are very close to closing a major round of funding and have always had the intention of making Perth whole through proper channels if in fact we make a full exit from Australia, and in fact we have suspended operations there until a resolution can be met.
The last 18 months have seen extremely difficult times for a lot of companies, there are plenty of fortune 500 companies that could be singled out. We have always worked in the mutual best interest of the entire organization, which is why our employees have stock and still have the opportunity to benefit – which is very rare in this industry. I believe InterZone will succeed in launching its game and it will do so with every individual that has ever been a part of the organization being properly taken care of.
Best Regards
Marty Brickey
CEO
InterZone
We’ll keep you updated if anything else comes about from this.
6 Comments
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Ok so top tip don't get a job with them
Re Marty's “Response” :
Point 1 : Marty's been saying that to Perth employees for over 18 months, repeatedly, and repeatedly breaking his promise. He's a liar – plain and simple.
Point 2 : The payroll company bankruptcy happened -well- before the REAL problems of Chicago/Corporate came home to roost. They had the money, they just weren't willing to spend it on, you know, employees who were actually making their game for them.
Point 3 : That's rather funny, since Big Collision Games' OWN website lists the following job openings : Senior Systems Programmer, Web Developer, Associate Producer, IT Technologist. Sounds like a studio to me.
Point 4 : I feel very sorry that Mike and Greg, with their probable multi-million dollar houses, Marty with his private learjet, and salaries probably in the range of up to half a million dollars a year, have not been paid in a very long time. But of course, I'm sure that didn't stop them from more than likely writing everything in their entire lives off as a “business expense”. Perhaps it is the scale of their salaries that is the reason why they “have more outstanding funds owed to them than anyone one else”. It is a fairly well known fact amongst International Interzone employees, that the Chicago “office” despite only having 5 people working there at its peak, managed to outspend the 150 or so global employees (who were actually MAKING the game) by a ratio of close to 3:1. Where did that money go? Good bloody question.
Bottom line : never, EVER EVER work for these snakes. They are not at all interested in the business of making a good game, pure and simple. Investigations have shown that they have upwards of seven companies that move money and shares around in order to get away with this bullshit – basically what you see here is a “pump and dump” scandal that went horribly wrong for these particular snakes.
Let the Irish Dev community be warned : DON'T DO IT. Marty and Greg and Mike will talk to you VERY sweetly and you'll almost be convinced by what “nice guys” they are – but make no mistake, the -second- you question their integrity, you are dust to them.
You have been warned, Irish Games Devs – don't do it!
madness. sorry to hear the story iz victim. hopefully this gets fixed and you get paid for the work you did
Cheers for commenting IZ Victim, in fairness they'll fit right in over here with our own snakes.
Get bloody St. Patrick onto them then! There shall be no snakes in Ireland!
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