A Conversation With Alexis Kennedy And Lottie Bevan
Along with his partner and Weather Factory co-founder Lottie Bevan, the Cultist Simulator creator discusses his side of the story and talks about life after being cancelled from the indie dev scene.
In 2019, Fallen London and Sunless Sea developer Alexis Kennedy was accused by two women of inappropriate behavior, with accusations ranging from cheating during a relationship to preying on young women eager to find a foothold in the video game industry. Kennedy, who founded Failbetter Games and currently runs the game studio Weather Factory with his partner Lottie Bevan, found himself at the center of a scandal that would upend his entire world.
I discuss the scandal with Kennedy and Bevan in Episode 2 of the diabolical podcast. Give it a listen, and read on below for some backstory.
The Backstory
Following an anonymous Twitter account’s claims that Kennedy was a sexual predator, game writer and narrative designer Meg Jayanth posted accusations on the social media site claiming that Kennedy was a “well-known predator in the games industry” and that the only reason we hadn’t heard of it before now was because he “has retaliated against people who have spoken out against him in the past.”
Kennedy denied Jayanth’s accusations, calling them “malicious misrepresentation” in response.
Jayanth’s accusations were numerous but vague. She accused Kennedy of befriending young women entering the industry and exploiting them but didn’t post details. She accused Kennedy of targeting vulnerable people and “particularly young women” but didn’t post specifics. Nobody was named and nobody came forward.
“He has frightened and threatened a lot of women into silence,” she wrote, going on to say that he used his friendship with her to “isolate” women, calling it a “grotesque violation of trust”. None of the unnamed women in question have backed up or corroborated these claims, though several others have said they heard similar stories.
When Jayanth asked for other women to come forward to tell their own stories of Alexis’s abusive behavior, just one woman came forward with anything resembling what Jayanth claimed.
Olivia Wood, quote-tweeting Jayanth, accused Kennedy of cheating on her during their relationship while she was an employee at Failbetter Games, an accusation Kennedy does not deny—though naturally he has his own version of events.
“I was in a relationship with Alexis Kennedy for nearly two years. He was my line manager the entire time. It was kept a secret from the whole company, including the board,” Wood tweeted—a fact that Kennedy claims was her idea, but admits was a mistake.
“During our relationship he cheated on me with people brought to company events,” Wood continues, “and who were wanting to work with the company. He broke up with me by messaging me that he'd cheated on me with a colleague (also his direct report) at the office Halloween party.”
While Kennedy denies Jayanth’s accusations he admits that dating Wood and keeping it a secret was “a serious error of judgement on my part, and it ended badly, as relationships sometimes do. I take responsibility for my part in the bad ending.”
Meanwhile, Failbetter Games—the company Kennedy had founded several years earlier—was quick to denounce him via its official Twitter account, saying, "We believe and stand with everyone who has come forward to speak out about Alexis Kennedy tonight. Alexis left Failbetter three years ago. We no longer have any ties with him personally, creatively or financially.
"We know that for some of you, Fallen London and Sunless Sea are irredeemably linked with him. It can be heartbreaking to love something as much as people love these games and feel they're tainted by association. We fully understand and respect that. This sort of behaviour has no place in our industry, or in any other. We can only say that we strive to be a studio we can be proud of, and that you can be proud to support."
To my knowledge, Failbetter Games did not provide any evidence of Kennedy’s wrongdoing at the time. Several studios involved in Weather Factory’s mentorship program withdrew from that program, quickly distancing themselves from Kennedy after the accusations were leveled.
When I looked into this story, I was surprised by the lack of any actual evidence beyond a handful of tweets. At the very least, it appears to be a case where accusations were made very publicly and the accused was quickly “cancelled” (for lack of a better term) without any real form of due process taking place. Jayanth made accusations, other women said they had heard similar stories, one woman called out his infidelity and that was that.
Despite no other corroboration, and apparently no further investigation into the claims, Kennedy was presumed guilty in the court of public opinion. Many of his peers in the indie game scene sided with his accuser. He and Bevan have spent the intervening years working at Weather Factory on the game Cultist Simulator trying to make sense of what happened.
Before we go further, I will say this: I don’t know the truth, either. Only the accusers and the accused can truly know what happened. Still, I find the story troubling for a number of reasons.
For one thing, Jayanth’s accusations were not corroborated or investigated at the time by anyone who reported on them; or, if they were, their findings were never published. That doesn’t mean that Jayanth isn’t telling the truth, of course, only that nobody has provided any evidence that her accusations hold water. Other people tweeting that they heard similar stories does not count as proof. It counts as hearsay.
Without proof, while we should certainly listen to women when they come forward with accusations like these, we should nevertheless treat people with the presumption of innocence—not merely in a court of law, but on social media and in the court of public opinion. If we don’t hold ourselves to that most basic standard, than any outrageous, false accusation can be weaponized based entirely on rumor or popularity. It doesn’t take an advanced degree in human nature to plot out that slippery slope.
Typically, when these types of allegations are leveled reporters go to great length to ensure that the accuser is telling the truth. This is important for many reasons. It’s crucial that journalists get a story like this right because many different peoples’ reputations are on the line, including their own. It’s all well and good to say “believe women” until you find yourself responsible for ruining the lives of several University of Virginia students falsely accused of rape. Now your career is in the gutter and several young men have had their lives and reputations destroyed. Believe women, certainly, but not without doing your due diligence.
When reporting a story like this, journalists set out to find corroborating witnesses, not merely other people on Twitter who claim to have heard similar stories. Hearsay and gossip may point us in a helpful direction, but they’re no substitute for evidence. So reporters must dig and find witnesses whose stories can bulwark the original accuser’s case (or disprove it).
Maybe these are other victims who have experienced similar abuse at the hands of the accuser. Or someone who has had conversations, texts or emails in the past that reinforce claims. In this case, a reporter would ask Jayanth for specifics, especially since her tweets are vague and unspecific. Perhaps she was not willing to share private details on the record or in a public forum like Twitter, but could share them behind closed doors to a reporter. Off the record, at the very least, journalists would seek out the names of other witnesses to speak to and establish a pattern of abuse. Concrete evidence, or the nearest thing to it, would be gathered and poured over prior to going to print. Journalists have a duty to facts that goes beyond mere activism.
The accusations were reported in various publications at the time, but I can find no evidence that basic journalistic steps were taken to verify any of the claims leveled at Kennedy by Jayanth. Granted, I haven’t come across any articles that claim Kennedy is guilty or innocent. But all too often, once an accusation is made it tends to stick, even if the reporting around it is guarded and neutral.
Olivia Wood’s accusations are by far the most concrete and specific, and while Kennedy’s version of events differs, the particulars are largely the same. They were in a relationship (Kennedy describes it as off-and-on). It was kept secret from others at Failbetter Games and things ended badly.
Of course, a romance ending badly is not a scandal. And it sounds as though this was one of several that ended poorly for Kennedy and his various flings. He describes himself as having been “promiscuous” at times and his exes are not his biggest fans.
Jayanth’s accusations, however, are not specific and have not been corroborated in any fashion beyond other women having heard similar stories. A third woman, Emily Short, joined the fray saying that she had a number of interactions with Kennedy that made her feel uncomfortable and that she deemed inappropriate. She distanced herself from Kennedy because of this.
Again, Kennedy has his own versions of events here and again, we enter into “he said/she said” territory.
My interest in this story is the same vein as a defense attorney’s when they look at criminal trial. The presumption of innocence is sacred. We abandon it at our own peril, and I believe that social media—and the speed at which information and misinformation travels in today’s hyper-connected world—makes this issue more important than ever.
Give the podcast a listen and let me know what you think in the comments. I’ll sign off by reiterating once more that while I am skeptical of how quickly we accept unproven accusations and hearsay as the truth, and while I am sympathetic to anyone who finds themselves on the wrong end of torches and pitchforks, I am also not claiming to know what actually happened here or suggesting that anyone is lying. Kennedy and Bevan give their side of the story in this podcast. Kennedy’s accusers have told theirs. You can make of it what you will.
Check out Cultist Simulator on Steam.
Update: Here’s the YouTube version:
There are some similar incidents in the past couple of years that I kind of want you to write about but interviewing Kennedy is probably difficult enough for your reputation so I wouldn't blame you for avoiding them.