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One source described SK president Denis Dyack as a man who has "repeatedly stated to the company that artists are ‘a dime a dozen' and can be replaced." The same source described Dyack as a man who "proudly smiles in staff meetings and describes his role as a ‘benevolent dictatorship.'... Dyack is SK; SK is Dyack. They are one and the same — a single unchanging entity."
"Once [Nintendo] were out of the picture, SK could do whatever they wanted," a source says. "Denis believed that SK was finally out from under the oppressive nature of Nintendo as a publisher. Once Denis was given more freedom, things started to fall apart."
I'm told that, at one point, SK experienced 25 resignations within a six-month period. "Only after the Activision producers started hearing bits and pieces about people leaving did they start inquiring about employee turnover," says one of the sources. In some cases, sources believe that Activision only found out via former SK employees updating their LinkedIn accounts. According to multiple sources, the publisher then "insisted that they be notified of departures of staff members, especially more senior members such as leads and directors." Startlingly, [X-Men: Destiny] chewed through four design directors during the course of development.
"SK didn't take the development of XMD seriously the entire time I was there," a source says. "They were working on an Eternal Darkness 2 demo that they could take to publishers. While I was there, they were even siphoning off staff from my [XMD] team to work on it."
Given the poor quality and sales performance of XMD across all platforms, it now seems less likely than ever that Silicon Knights can resurrect their once-proud history of producing quality games. Several sources report that the company today exists as a shell of its former self, employing less than five staff—including Denis Dyack.