Almost four years after our reporting on the games industry’s unseen crunch at outsourcing studios in SE Asia, Chris received an email that demanded we return to this story once again.
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Created by Chris Bratt:
And Anni Sayers:
Stock footage: Getty Images
(Jakarta, Indonesia | Video supplied by Anadolu via Getty images)
Music & SFX: Epidemic Sound
00:00 – The biggest games story you didn’t hear last year
02:35 – What we reported in 2021
04:22 – The games industry’s lack of response
06:12 – How Christa joined Brandoville
07:24 – Cherry’s behaviour worsens
12:49 – My emails with Christa from 2021
13:24 – Christa defends Brandoville from PMG’s reporting
15:14 – Brandoville is a part of the games industry!
15:46 – Things escalate once again
21:21 – Cherry’s punishments become more physical
27:01 – Financial abuse
31:23 – Syifa’s story
37:27 – Brandoville shuts down
39:35 – Christa escapes
41:24 – No viral, no justice
42:21 – Where are we now?
45:40 – Why you haven’t already heard this story
48:10 – Support PMG on Patreon!
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Gonna make a quick comment for the algo bump. Hopefully this gets in front of more people
This video was well made, but hard to watch. What do you even say to this? I am glad these people are free of that nightmare
just want to say since this wasn't said in the video, enablers of abusers are almost always victims of the abuse as well. Both are likely true. It doesn't excuse the enabler. It's always complicated.
Im sure Syifa's story would never have taken such a dark turn if she wasn't under so immense stress
Super glad she managed to get away, but this is still such a horrible situation for everyone
regarding ken lai: as anyone with just 1 shitty parent knows, victims can also be enablers. if i had to guess, ken lai is both.
Gut-wrenching to watch.
This is the reason many people have issues with the current state of the gaming industry
Its bloated greedy and corrupt. And it doesn't value human life.
And some us just want watch it crashes like it did in the 80s.
I hope Crista and the innocent people mentioned in this documentary can find happiness, and move forward from this awful experience they had at Brandoville.
Hope Cherri Lai and her husand Ken Lai will face some sort of punishment in the future.
"No viral, no justice."
So glad I don’t buy Naughty Dog or EA games.
Even the video game industry has its own version of 'factory slave labor' now, disgusting.
Wow – a game studio slipping into cult behavior. Truly scaring. I am worried about how many others are on that slippery slope.
30:31 is scary, she literally just messaged Christa for no reason and she got such a sadly polite response
I think I kind of recall this lai couple though not about the stuff behind the scenes….i do believe they were sued for corruption or something I just recall seeing it on news in Hong Kong but I was busy with a family funeral * EDIT* sadly I didn't at the time hear in the news anything beyond the police were looking for information on the couple's whereabouts cos they were suspected of corruption/embezzlement.
There needs to be a strong global cooperation of unions to combat this, and even then it will be tough as many governments seem to actively support, or at least ignore the abuse in the pursuit of jobs.
As an individual consumer it is almost impossible to check if the product you buy has been made by people under proper conditions and with proper rights.
The last time I had to buy a computer I looked up every single thing in it to see where it was manufactured, and it was completely impossible. I could not help but feel that it was not an accident, but outright designed to obscure where the parts were actually manufactured and by whom.
It is frustrating as all hell.
It is not only game development that works like this. Virtually every production chain is global. Great work on this piece. 🧡💛🧡
Someone ring Luigi
Imagine telling people to not show empathy and then taking them to pray as a Christian. The absolute lunacy.
thank you
iam commenting so its boost the youtube algoritm good video btw
Azn peopIe in general seem to show a lot less emotions. I've always wondered why this is. Like they are very good at technical tasks, but emotions are bordering on non-existent, and when they do express emotions it almost seems forced.
Disappointed if staff at the 'main' studios, celebrated for those big games, and so focused on their own well-being, have been quiet about this.
This just makes me more disgusted at the ESG chasing corpos like Ubisoft, Naughty Dog, Microsoft etc, they fill their mouths about inclusivity and caring about people over profit blah blah blah, but you turn around and you see them using slave drivers that horrifically abuse their employees just to save a few bucks so their CEO can buy another sports car.
The undercoverage of this and the deafening silence from major studios that utilize outsourced labor is appalling. Appreciate this video
There are very few people who I genuinely believe deserve to be the target of an internet witchhunt.
This is one of them.
You skipped over the message where Cherry said she was going to "sell her to a man". What in the hell is wrong with this woman?
How is this compatible with the EU Corporate sustainability due diligence (CSDDD) Law? A company like Ubisoft that are based in france are accountable by law with CSDDD that in every step of making a product can't break any human rights or other law that are active within the EU. By this law every EU company gets punished if in a other not EU country they are doing stuff that is not legale in the EU, like Child Labor or abusiv work conditions. Hope this will have more legal actions as a consequence against every EU Company that does outsource anything to these studios.
realizing what the channel brand is
people make games
games dont appear from nowhere
theres people there
and iirc, a fair amount of videos are about the people who make the games
its an amazing look into gamedev, not from the game perspective, but from the dev perspective
and here
people make games
this is what happens when people stop thinking that
a phantom person in the eyes of others
lets let the game makers be people
Why does nobody ever go to jail, or at the very least get constantly booed and publicly ostracized by people who see their evil deeds fully on display. It's baffling to me that nothing ever comes of these reports, as good at they are.
This is insane, I havnt heard a peep about this till now, thank you for covering this. Ill have to look up the games these guys worked for to avoid them, or at least see if people are aware of this on forums and such.
Iirc, Brandoville owners already has new studio recently.
They just cut their tail when this story burst into public consciousness. It's easy for them to do so. Since the 1st world will always needs something like Brandoville to prop their works, their wealth. Nothing will change.
This is literally, a modern fay slavery.
This whole horror show is a confirmation to me that refusing to buy AAA games was and always will be the right choice. These parasites always find places to infiltrate and 'make the line go up' at the expense of all others. We must be perpetually vigilant in everything we buy. When you are not a discerning consumer, you are incentivizing them. If you're buying games from these people still then you are, at the very least, 50% of the problem. I
Basically this was a high control group operating within a company.
23:58 That wasn’t “coldness, slightly disinterested, irritated callousness”. THAT, that was evil. It was pure villainy.
30:55 This dude is tripping. That didn’t “sound fraudy”. That was blatant fraud and theft.
i'm having trouble feeling sorry for her ngl. the only acceptable answer when someone tells you to slap yourself 100 times is "no."
The irony is not lost on me that AAA game industries are afraid to show slavery and racism in their games but actively treat some devs as slaves
God… this isn’t just disgusting, it’s absolutely and utterly vile. Thank you so much for sharing this.
I really want to give this video the watch time, but the content is so hard to watch emotionally. I will leave a comment instead to feed the algorithm. Incredible work all.
this needs to be heard.
There's no way on this planet Ken Lai wasn't aware of this, because even in those screenshots of the conversations you showed a portion of Christa's salary was meant to be transferred to him directly. Absolutely impossible for a CEO to get a 5mil rupees from their employee and not question it/mention it in a personal conversation once. I also do not think he was a victim of Cherry Lai unless her father is some trash mafioso of Jakarta or the king cop or something. He looks alright and confident in videos, not forced. I'd sooner believe he's a psycopath behind the closed hotel doors and treated Cherry just the same, so then she'd carry it out on their employees. But less probable theories aside, to me the spider sense is clearly ringing that he was not only aware but also involved in all of this.
Thank you for your investigative and journalistic work, PMG. It matters a ton.
One Love!
Always forward, never ever backward!!
☀☀☀
💚💛❤
🙏🏿🙏🙏🏼
Let's be honest.. every company is looking for a person for a given position, it doesn't matter if they are white or black, male or female, straight or gay. a company is looking for people with the desired achievements and skills. you can't call a company pro "White" if it has mainly white men/women if they do their job… honestly if there was a company with mainly LGBT+ if they fulfilled their duties I wouldn't have a problem with it. every company is looking for people who will fill their schedules. it's sick if people demand that every company has lgbt+ or other race people in their team just to be diverse
Thx for this video!
The fucking evil of Cherry.
Oslem must have been born right around the same time as my own daughter. Fucking hell. Rest in peace, hope Syifana and her husband are ok.
boy, this was upsetting
That toilet logo was some much needed comic relief within this horrific story. 11/10 reporting as always, keep it up.
thank you very much for making this video. It's time we, people from the western country, realize how we're basically profiting off modern slavery…
There is a word for these environments. TECH SLAVERY smart prisons.
As a Christian, it's sad to hear people using the name God as an excuse for abuse. It's also sad watching this video as a video game developer, it makes me fearful for the future of game development.
I find it deeply sad and disheartening that this is one your most important videos and it hasn’t got nearly as many views as it should have. People simply do not seem to care about this topic.