Sea of Stars Replaces 'The Completionist' NPC Following Fraud Allegations

A shame they couldn't add YouTuber ModdedController360 in his stead.

A big shame. I'm someone that believes in innocent until proven guilty but I gotta admit that the evidence seems pretty stacked against him. Charity Fraud is pretty despicable so I can only hope that there was some kind of mix up somewhere.

Probably a good idea to avoid any real life cameos in games.

You never know what they have hidden in their closets... or USB sticks.

Been following it and yeah he's guilty alright.

This just proves that they're taking a side. Also, I keep asking this: Did they remove the Jordan Peterson stuff from The Messenger?

great to hear.

the completionist sounds like a true scumbag who cheated his own fans for a decade, using the sympathy of his deceased mother to bring in the donations. despicable stuff. just to be clear, ign did not break this story — it was a youtuber who goes by the name of Karl Jobst. search his name for the videos that document the situation in its entirety and in great detail. the completionists' youtube career is likely over now.

What an unfortunate situation. I feel his wrongdoings/misleading whether through genuine stupidity or malice will really push people away from donating in general and leave a bad taste. A shame.

@Porco Great point. Have updated to make Jobst work breaking the story clearer.

@Yuyukirby
People take sides on everything buddy otherwise nothing ever gets accomplished. The evidence is pretty damning. At worst he actively committed fraud, at best he's incredibly ignorant of everything that was happening for a full decade. Regardless of which is which that is not a good look and this company has every right not to associate with that.

If he is exonerated of these allegations?

This type of Knee jerk reaction should be criticised and demonized for what it is by PushSquare and other outlets.

Not only are the going the Guilty until Proven innocent route, but they've engaged in the kind of 1984 censorship BS that has people in an uproar right now. This is not a positive action, even the rename of McCree in OW was a bit of a step too far. Basically erasing history because it makes someone uncomfortable.

In this case, this just sounds like sheer stupidity from someone who genuinely intended no harm. Ion Fury was also particularly brain damaged and is the kind of brain damaged move that leads to issues being experienced at US universities. We really need to stop this madness.

@NotSoCryptic
Oh no people are held accountable for doing bad things? Oh the humanity! Buddy at best he was completely ignorant of a major fraud case happening directly under his nose. If a company doesn't want to associate with a guy who at best is an idiot, at worst literally committing fraud against people who believed they were donating to a good cause; then yes they can exercise their freedom to cut all ties.

@NotSoCryptic
Innocent until proven guilty, of course, but being associated with someone in the midst of controversy is bad for business and a reputational risk so warrants some distancing. Whether Jirard is guilty or not, association at this point is not a good thing for Sea or Stars. This can often seem like "guilty until proven innocent," but it makes a lot of sense for entities, in general, to disassociate with someone who MAY be guilty or at least could potentially damage their brand on their way down. This sort of behavior is all over social media and it is tiresome, but as someone who manages reputational and legal risk for a large financial institution, I totally understand why a company would preemptively act due to mere allegations.

P.S. The presumption of innocence is a legal standard, not a social one.

Kinda ironic that he "forgot" to donate the money to dementia prevention research

OK, nobody's gonna comment on the fact he's now Bob the Builder?

@NotSoCryptic

Not only are the going the Guilty until Proven innocent route

Innocent until proven guilty only applies to criminal convictions, it’s not a free pass to get away with anything in the world forever unless you literally get prosecuted in court of law.

Losing privileges like an npc in a game, or even your job does not require a criminal conviction. Go into work tomorrow and call your boss an absolute clown, you’ll be fired and you’ll deserve it. You won’t be getting charged though, there won’t be no court date. Presumably you are still “innocent” though?

Lots of things in life have negative consequences, you do bad things and you lose out. You don’t need to go to court and get proven to be a criminal.

There's always at least one person going on about "innocent until proven guilty" and "censorship" in cases like this, and it's always completely irrelevant and a total misunderstanding of what those concepts mean. I'm just surprised "free speech!!" wasn't mentioned as well.

In this case, it's simply 100% Sabotage Studio's choice whether they want to keep associating with The Completionist. His inclusion in the game was a sort of thank you to him, and if they now feel like they were misled, or that it could harm their own reputation, than they are absolutely free to cut ties. It has nothing to with concepts like guilt or censorship.

IGN were not involved in the investigation, other than posting a very basic article that more covered the Twotter reaction of the issue than the content of the video. Why are they directly listed as a contributor after Jobst and SOG @Khayl

@NotSoCryptic This is the problem with the "innocent until proven guilty" mindset, it puts the legal system on a pedestal and pretends as if it's flawless, perfect. It's not. Plenty of people are found not guilty or not responsible in court for reasons outside of guilt. Others are found guilty or responsible erroneously or dubiously. I'm actually of the opinion that court cases have little relevance to the individual. I'm perfectly capable of weighing evidence on my own, I don't need some judge or jury to come to a conclusion for me.

@Marquez I personally thought he was never really on the same page as the other 3 main members of the podcast, personality and humour wise. Like, the others are all sort of self-deprecating and light-hearted while he always came across as self-aggrandizing and serious, though I might be too harsh on him.

He did bring a heavy indie-focus to the table though, something the others also try to do but are definitely not as deep into as him.

So glad they have done this. They were scammed too and dont deserve to be associated with a charity fraudster.

Watching this situation unfold has been so dissappointing.

@NotSoCryptic Wise up. Look at the clear evidence and stop sympathy for an absolute scumbag whis admitted what hes done in his own words.

@Marquez I only listen to them maybe once a month if something interesting happened. Did they address it at all?
I tuned in a couple of weeks after the allegations happened & there was no mention. Makes sense as they’re genuine friends.

@NotSoCryptic While all the money has been accounted for, it has just been sitting there for years & years (I think 10?), while he has been continuously drumming up donations.
So hasn’t technically broken the law, but something shady definitely went down.
Just based on interest accrued & inflation the 600k from then is not the same today.

Speculation Over the years he’s had some very expensive projects which helped grow his YouTube personality & ‘fandom’. I’ve wondered before where the money comes from especially before he blew up & grew his patreon & channel. I would not be surprised if the charity money helped ‘float’ him over & once he ‘made it’ returned that money. Again pure speculation, but that’s the cynic in me.

@Fight_Teza_Fight They did address it at the start of the first podcast after it all came to light, so you can check that particular episode if you want to hear it.

@Ainu20 Guess I’ll do some sleuthing. Probably would be the episode after that Karl Jobst video was posted.

@Fight_Teza_Fight Just looked it up, it's Ep 34, aired on November 17. The statement is the first couple of minutes so you won't have to fast forward or anything.

@Ainu20 @Marquez Thanks guys!

@Marquez Ah I actually had no idea that he was leaving permanently and you're right, that was only shared on the FPS twitter account (and since I'm never on that cesspool, I missed that).

Even though I didn't think he was a perfect fit, I'm still sad to see it come to this point. He was one of the founders of that podcast so it's hard not to feel at least a little bit sorry. On the other hand, if he's as guilty as the reports make it seem, I guess I shouldn't have any sympathy for him, but my understanding of all this stuff is so little I don't really know what to believe.

cool, I've genuinely never heard of Jirard "The Completionist", but bravo to the company for having morals and sticking to them. Wish more where like this

@themightyant - 'It feels like the punishment doesn't fit the crime'

He hasn't been punished at all yet, career wise he's absolutely shat the bed but legally, not at all yet.

He has openly admitted to embezzlement. The majority of money made from the golf fundraisers never made it into his foundation coffers and that's been proven beyond doubt. Paying out 600k because your hand is forced means nothing when that money should never have been hoarded.

For years he's been telling donators that their money is going directly to XY and Z and it went nowhere, he lied. How anyone can defend this guy is mind boggling.

@Yuyukirby why should they?

“He gave the money” so it’s not fair.

That’s the new ridiculous mental gymnastics do to protect people they like. He got caught and was facing serious consequences so he paid and tried to say it’s a mix up.

That’s just as bad as never paying. If he hadn’t been caught he would have never paid.

“Free speech” “innocent until proven guilty”

Those engaging in the most dubious actions always hang their hats on these things but don’t understand the basic principles.

The guy is a wrong un

A “influencer” in it just for self gain?!? Never.

@NotSoCryptic How do you decide which words to capitalize?

@themightyant - He admitted to embezzlement when he said in his apology video that donations had been used to offset costs for his indie game events. You can't tell your donators that 100% of donations go into the foundation if you're using a portion of that money to fund the events. You can use that money to fund the events but donators have to be informed. That is embezzlement.

As for the golf fundraiser money. The donations paid to the foundation didn't include a large amount of that money, it's unaccounted for. All on public record.

LET'S GOOOO! I don't care if he innocent, guilty or what he did but f*ck putting Youtubers/influencers in games lol.

Whenever you hear defence phrasing like "expenses",it pretty much raises red flags from there...its no secret that any major charities similarly will have expenses out of their fund raising operations but they usually budget these things,not use that as a sole defence for years of inaction.
Like some political or other celebrity types, for all the well meaning ones,you get the rotten apples that'll use such activities as a tax write off & used for anything but charity.

I'm surprised Push Square didn't disable comments for this story.

They were a big part of this year's Open Hand Charity Streams. And to all who are saying innocent until proven guilty, he's been proven guilty. He said for years that the money was going to all these different charities and that they've been working closely with them - and that has turned out to be a lie. He's been proven guilty in that sense, just not in a court of law. But, that alone is charity fraud. He accepted money for years and didn't donate it, and when it came time to donate they only donated to one charity and not the assortment to which he's claimed. He screwed up badly.

@themightyant

But it's not like it was a scam and he ran off with the money, they have now donated $600,000 to dementia research

The revenue that they self declared is over 750k. It’s not like they made 600k and 600k just sat in an account.

From a simple search of their filings I can see they’ve declared expenses of around 125k in the last 9 years. Almost every expense is listed as “other expense”.

So that’s 125k to “expenses” while 0 was given to charities before they got rumbled.

This is before you even take into account the fact that it’s very likely they were underdeclaring revenue as even simple maths makes it look bad for them. They were basically declaring the official number from their big charity drive as the total revenue while everything else is seemingly generating zero revenue(can’t state categorically that it’s a lie but it obviously very likely a lie)

Total revenue is probably closer to a million if I were to purely guess. They’ve skimmed a bunch of that through incorrect declarations and then legally skimmed a bunch more through “expenses”.

@themightyant most charities are run 365 days a year and have proper admin staff, so that is why they cost a lot to run.

I’m not sure how much work this charity does all year around but I believe it is mostly an online drive with people volunteering their time. I don’t see many costs there at all, but I might be misunderstanding and they do lots of local work as well.

@PegasusActual93 There is holding people accountable, then there is just lynching someone because you don't like them or being afraid of a blow back if you don't participate in the lynching.

This guy has not been proven guilty of anything. The word "Allegations" is literally being thrown around.

Now if you'd like I can get your name and address and start throwing around some allegations about you that aren't true or remotely related to somehthing you're doing and we can see how worth while that is for you.

Point being. This is extreme. I don't see any body being served by this. If Jeffery Epstine was a character in Sea of Stars, knock yourself out, remove the character. Hell I'll even fly myself out on my own dime, to their studio, and do it for free. I get paid to do this work for a living mind you.

The rest of what you say on the subject is utter nonsense. They clearly had no issue with him prior to this issue, released a game with him in it, and then decided to act like a bunch of goose stepping leftist and rewrite history to make themselves look better after the fact. I don't see this reflecting on them or them being associated with the individual if they actively do so AFTER the project has shipped. A public statement was all that needed to be said if they felt that strongly about it. Jumping into the code and spending the money to remove or change a character after the fact does nothing for anyone involved. At best it just draws attention to the developer having the association in the first place. It's the same reason I won't buy from Voidpoint in the future after Ion Fury's controversial dialog.

Me personally, I feel like this reflects poorly on the developer for taking such extreme actions. I kind of now regret backing the project because they rashly turned on someone who may have made an honest mistake. I'm not ready to condemn him for this and neither should they. I'm going to be questioning future purchases from them going forward.

@TheCollector316 He's not on Epsteins list. The allegations (which all they are at this point) aren't enough to condemn a man even socially. If anything distanching themselves from him, puts egg on their face. I backed this game. Now I'm being to question if I should have.

I can understand a certain point at which someone has been pretty much condemned and there isn't a doubt, but there is a fine line between when and when not that action should be followed. I'd say they are being incredibly premature. Not asking they stand by and support him, but I'd rather a statement stating they will wait and see. Even then I would not have them modify a game like a bunch of book burning fanatics just to make themselves look better in the eyes of history. This is a bad move and Sabotage studios should be shuned for taking such abbrassive action.

@ChrisDeku "Losing privileges like an npc in a game, or even your job does not require a criminal conviction."

Actually if he's found innocent the blow back on sabotage studios can be just as severe. If I'm not mistaken he contributed to the kickstarter funded project and endorsed the game. At that point its a business transaction not a privilege by any definition.

Equally so you're advocating for the mob mentality and lynching someone when the law doesn't meet your requisits. This isn't a case of Epstein's list or OJ Simpson. Not to mention he's far less guilty of anything serious in this situation being nothing more than a useful idiot. Not someone beyond redemption.

If you need an understanding of this situation I'd suggest you look at the relationship between Johnny Depp, Amber Heard, Warner brothers, and Disney at the moment.

The social lense is also no excuse to treat him this way. You're allowed to have your own beliefs and act on them, but you and I both know this was more about how Sabotage felt this would reflect on them, rather than about the completionist failing to be a paragon of worldly virtue and intelligence. A situation most of us probably would have been blissfully unaware of had pushsquare not posted an article on it.

@guntam True, it is a problem. Though I don't think it puts the legal system on a pedastal. The fact that you acknowledge its short comings kind of runs against your point. I certainly don't believe its perfect either, but it is the rules of our society by which we go by. If just ignore that same imperfect system and act on our own, then what is justice beyond what the mob decrees.

There are legal ramifications if he is found innocent of any malicious wrong doing, he could just as easily come back as a backer and endorser of Sea of Stars and sue Sabotage Studios. That isn't even getting into the other issue of Sabotage Studios erasing history simply so they can distance themselves from a man who you and I can't wholely judge or come to a concensus on. I don't think he's done anything wrong. So at what point does your imperfect social justice fall victim to the same failures of the imperfect legal justice system? Let's be fair here in the social domain in the United states Social Justice has been proven wrong more than 20 times in the last 5 years. There is even evidence about whether or not incidents around a certain drug addict man in Minneasota dying as part of police action has put an innocent a man in jail. That same imperfect system, infused with the morals of a social justice system you're advocating for as the voice of reason were in unison at the time.

So I don't buy your position. An innocent mans rights can be trampled on just as easily in the community view. I'll take the judge and jury over this nonsense any day.

@Titntin Nothing to wise up to until a jury comes into play. I'm not interested in your BS Social Justice positions.

@Fight_Teza_Fight If the money hasn't moved, then no foul. The money just needs to get to where it needs to go.

As far as how he affords things. No idea. An investigation will reveal laundering schemes, a trail of money in and out of the account, etc. Until that information is brought to light, we can only assume at worst he's an over privileged A.hole who hasn't had to worry about money and tracking the books. I'm guilty of that at least one point in my life (now every penny is tracked). If he himself has a lot of money to run his channel and its a passion project, then who knows maybe he's just a fool who has the funds to keep it going, even if he dreams of also making money from it. How many people have sunk their entire wealth into ventures that went no where. A lot, including currently millionare and billionares in the US who eventually figured it out and locked it down.

Point is we don't have all the facts. I'm not ready to run this guy down simply because he got wrapped up in something he may have just been oblivious too. Another stupid gamer in over their heads, not a new story. I don't think its right for Sabotage to be so proactive, at least at this juncture. I'm not sure anyone is served by removing a character from the game or renaming it. Especially when most of the people playing the game probably aren't even aware of this happening. If he's proven innocent as a back of Sea of Stars, that could lead to legal implications for Sabotage Studios. I'd rather Sabotage make it out unscathed.

@themightyant we've seen how well the court of public opinion turns out for even the innocent. Honestly public opinion barely knows this incident even exists. In fact I'd bet their target demographic isn't wholely aware of the problem. After all this article will come and go as fast as me hitting this reply button. The percentage of people reading this or even caring is going to be mitigated to a small subset of a subset of people (across all articles online).

@mrraditch How do you decide which comments to reply too?

@NotSoCryptic Found not guilty is not the same as innocent. In a criminal conviction you need to prove guilt beyond all reasonable doubt. That’s not the bar a private business needs to pass to make decisions on how best to run their business.

He’s involved in a highly dodgy charity organisation, ostensibly the one running the whole thing. That’s enough, I wouldn’t want anything to do with him in a professional capacity and private organisations are free to make their own decisions over who they associate with and how they run their business. You saying they shouldn’t do that is tantamount to taking away from them their freedom of speech(and freedom of actions).

@NotSoCryptic Then you just keep on supporting a charity fiddler who has openly admitted whats he's done. It means I think almost as poorly of you as I do of him - but I dont know you, and would never want to, so I dgaf.
Have a lovely day.

@NotSoCryptic Touché. I guess you're implying the answer to these 2 questions is the same: whatever strikes our fancy, with no rhyme or reason!