RPG studio Obsidian faces class action lawsuit alleging violations of state wage laws

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Obsidian Entertainment, developer of Fallout: New Vegas, Avowed, and The Outer Worlds, is being sued in a class action lawsuit that alleges it "engaged in a systematic pattern of wage and hour violations under the California Labor Code and Industrial Welfare Commission ('IWC') Wage Orders."

As reported by GamesRadar, the case has been ongoing since October last year, but it was raised to attention by Reddit user macken_zee on the r/pcgaming subreddit, following an amended class action complaint being filed in January.

The case and subsequent amendment were filed by plaintiff Victoria Turner, which matches the name of a QA lead on The Outer Worlds 2 who has also worked on games like Mass Effect 3 and Deus Ex: Human Revolution. The suit currently defines the class as anyone currently or formerly employed at Obsidian "as non-exempt employees in the State of California" from October 9, 2021 up to the date of the class certification, though Turner is also looking to certify class members who left employment at the company on or after October 9, 2022.

The complaint alleges that Obsidian "increased their profits by violating state wage and hour laws" by failing to "pay all wages (including minimum wages and overtime wages)" as well as wages "due upon separation of employment."

Outer Worlds 2 Spectrum Beam Saber - Order soldier raising tankard

The suit also claims that Obsidian failed to pay wages due to the plaintiff and class members in a "timely" fashion during employment, and that it failed to "provide lawful meal periods or compensation in lieu thereof" and "lawful rest breaks." It further claims that Obsidian did not "reimburse necessary business-related costs" or provide "accurate itemised wage statements."

In a response filed in early March, Obsidian said that it "denies, generally and specifically, each and every allegation" made by the class action lawsuit. It then laid out 38 points in its defence, including that employees "consented to and/or acquiesced in the alleged conduct by Defendant of which Plaintiff now complains."

There's been little movement on the case since March.

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Back in 2019, Obsidian senior designer Brian Hines told PCGamesN that "Obsidian is not a crunch studio, which is one of the things that keeps people staying there for a long time." Employees would occasionally be asked to put in additional hours "for a week or so", but this was "always a request" that developers were free to decline, he said.

Rick has been fascinated by PC gaming since he was seven years old, when he used to sneak into his dad's home office for covert sessions of Doom. He grew up on a diet of similarly unsuitable games, with favourites including Quake, Thief, Half-Life and Deus Ex. Between 2013 and 2022, Rick was games editor of Custom PC magazine and associated website bit-tech.net. But he's always kept one foot in freelance games journalism, writing for publications like Edge, Eurogamer, the Guardian and, naturally, PC Gamer. While he'll play anything that can be controlled with a keyboard and mouse, he has a particular passion for first-person shooters and immersive sims.

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