The Callisto Protocol was one of 2022’s major horror releases, setting players loose inside the dark and dangerous Black Iron prison colony. The game received average reviews, with special attention being given to the visuals and monsters of the game. But it now appears that some of the people who helped work on the game were left out of the credits—and it’s not going over well.
The story was broken by GameIndustry.biz, who had discussions with at least five omitted names from The Callisto Protocol’s credits. According to those people, around 20 names in total were omitted from the end credits. In the article, those left out voiced how they felt about being snubbed from a game they had a considerable hand in.
“It sucks,” one of the anonymous developers said. “I made a good amount of contribution and worked on it for [a length of time]. To just not be there at all is shitty.”
“I understand if a contractor does a small amount of work for a few months and is left off, but we’re talking full-time employees with over a year invested in the title,” another dev said. If true, these people’s work likely made it to the final version, which makes their exclusion more notable.
Due to the way that other departments were credited, some staff were listed as “additional” to departments and other employees were put into a “miscellaneous” section at the end.
The industry has had a somewhat mixed reaction to this news. “This happens all the time,” Video Games Chronicle owner Andy Robinson said. “Leaving before a game ships is a big taboo, and game crediting is still completely unregulated.”
He’s seemingly saying that leaving before a game is finished is typically frowned upon and that crediting in games is unregulated. The International Game Developers Association lists guidelines for how to credit games, saying that those who work for more than 30 days be credited, but this doesn’t seem to be an enforced standard.
Kotaku senior writer Luke Plunkett shared an article from the site that was written in September 2021, showing that this isn’t an issue that’s exclusive to The Callisto Protocol. It’s likely that developers and small-time staffers have been left out of the credits for as long as games have been around.
Another ex-developer in the GameIndustry article said what they think is the biggest problem: “My issue is those of us who took part in that culture, who put in that time, and worked intensely to help craft this product, were punished with a credit omission for not going the extra mile… to stay until it shipped.”
Many people feel that if the person has worked on the game, they should get their name in the credits—simple as that. If a company doesn’t include the name of a developer, there should be methods in place to claim one’s work. Until then, it’s likely that developers will continue to be omitted from game credits.
