Wyrmwood Gaming Under Fire After Abuse Allegations and Video Response
After a former employee alleged abusive practices at Wyrmwood Gaming, the company has come under fire for a poorly received response video.
Wyrmwood Gaming, makers of high-end tabletop gaming tables and other accessories, has come under fire after a series of sexual assault allegations and other abusive practices this past week. Especially after a now-removed video response seemed to make light of community concerns.
The story began on February 15th, after a tweet alleging the company was protecting an employee accused of sexual assault started making the rounds. Not long after, a former employee came forward, alleging that he’d been fired in response to reporting the sexual assault of a coworker.
I’m a former employee of @WyrmwoodGaming
and want to put my story on record. I’m who the tweet was talking about. Remember firing me, Doug?(I’m glancing away through the video because it wrote this all out for clarity and brevity.)#WyrmsArentFriends pic.twitter.com/FiVDKyg6iM
— Andy Morocco (@Andy_Morocco) February 19, 2023
In the video, the former employee provided more details on the situation outlined in the earlier tweet. Including describing taking a private meeting to inform Wyrmwood about the alleged assault, and then another meeting an hour later:
“I was taken behind the shop by the CEO Douglas Costello. I assumed he wanted more information directly from the source, but instead, he fired me in retaliation for, in his words, ‘creating shop drama’.”
The employee went on to say that the remaining employees faced pressure from Wyrmwood:
“I was informed by remaining employees that they were threatened with immediate termination if any of them were caught discussing what happened to me.”
Wyrmwood Responds and the Community Reacts
Wyrmwood responded with a four-page document that laid out the story from their point of view. In their document, Wyrmwood outlined the findings of their own internal investigation including firing “Employee A” and “Employee B” — Employee B being Andrew Overbeck, the employee in the tweet and video above —for “toxic behavior”.
That same day, Wyrmwood released a 14-minute YouTube video that has since been made private. In the video, Wyrmwood’s CEO and head of HR gave more details about their story. The story got heated, at times, as the management team went into detail, saying that “the police needed to be involved” among other things. Including the fact that they had no idea the alleged assault occurred on company grounds.
Not long after the video was up, some of Wyrmwood’s partners and community supporters responded. Take This, a non-profit organization committed to supporting mental health in and around gaming, released a statement announcing they were ending their charity partnership with Wyrmwood Gaming “effective immediately” on February 22nd:
“The serious allegations involving egregious employee behavior and the termination of the person reporting the behavior at Wyrmwood Gaming violate the ideals and mission of our organization. Wyrmwood has since released a written statement and accompanying video that are troubling and fall outside the ethical standards of Take This.”
Other supporters voiced their disappointment at Wyrmwood’s response. And a day later, Wyrmwood both pulled down the video and made a new statement, apologizing for the initial response:
“We are pulling down the video we posted. We reacted viscerally out of anger and disbelief at the false allegations that were spreading online, and we did what we always do — post a video addressing it to defend ourselves. However, many of our partners and customers have contacted us and have explained that the video was tone-deaf and harmful. We agree with them and apologize.”
With a new million-dollar Kickstarter still in the works, the story continues to develop.
