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Yes, it could have.
The post I made was focused on gratitude as some of the staff were already in communication with the necessary individuals regarding the debts owed to them.
I didn’t think it should be made public as there was already established communication internally.
That may not have been the best decision, but I can’t take it back and I will live with that choice.
This is a very dicey situation, as some of the documents that I would love to share to debunk some of the statements made, are all internal documents and I don’t consider it professional sharing those documents here.
There are documents that contain an agreement between some of the staff members (about 5 of them) and the company on a deferred pay (read as salaries owed) before they were employed, and they all signed this.
These debts were tied to a Kickstarter launch and a fundraising event which even when these milestones weren’t met, the company kept funding the team through multiple delays.
Some of the other staff members were then later re-engaged earlier this year on an agreement split across three choices: Leave the company with no debt as we couldn’t finance all staff payments any longer, stay with the company and get 50% of your pay (we fulfilled as much of this as we could), stay with the company on a volunteer basis with deferred pay until our Kickstarter or Merch store launches.
None of the staff members' pay were held back last year (asides those who had deferred pay written into their contracts, which they all signed and agreed to)
Number of months of debt owed (3 months, between January 2026 and April 2026 for the majority of the staff and these were tied to milestones and deliverables, which were not met).
Mazerance’s biggest problem was a lack of clear communication and I fully recognize and acknowledge this.
I know emotions are high and that the recent trends in the ecosystem has posed a trust issue, especially with startups, but facts should never be misrepresented to sell a story that isn’t true and this does not show any acknowledgment for a company you once claimed to fully support when things were running smoothly.
Businesses face issues, founders make mistakes, and Mazerance and I are not immune when it comes to the chances of these things happening.
This is not to remove any accountability from me or Mazerance, but facts should never be misrepresented.
I have read what has been said today. People who worked at Mazerance are owed money. That is true and I am not going to dress it up.
The company has been in contact with the people affected and is working on how to settle it. I am still a director and I am part of that, for this very reason, I remained on the board.
Not everything said today is accurate. I am not going to argue it here. When I give my account it will come with dates and facts, and people can judge for themselves.
I have stepped down as CEO of @Mazerance.
Mazerance began with an idea I had early last year. Together with friends who loved puzzles and escape rooms, we set out to build a story-driven co-op strategy game, and to show what a game studio out of Africa could look like on the world stage.
That idea became a studio registered in Australia, Nigeria and the United States, with a team that brought everything they had to building the game and the company behind it.
Eighteen months ago, none of this existed. No company, no team, no community, no world to build a game in. There is now, because of everyone who made it possible: the team, family, friends, my co-founders and the people who backed us from the start.
We built a community of roughly 20,000 people and generated over 8 million impressions on this app alone.
Through Project 9, Rancers Remix and Pass It On, we became one of the most talked-about budding game studios in Africa, earned more than five press features and made our presence felt at Moonshot, one of Nigeria's largest tech conferences.
More than 25 people across three continents have worked on Mazerance, and in the first eight months alone that team produced over 600 pieces of brand, world and community work, from characters and lore to artwork, videos and campaign content. That is close to three assets produced a day, every single day; working closely with these talented individuals has been the highlight of my career.
The studio is also set up on Steam and Kickstarter, which as a company registered across three countries is harder than it sounds.
None of this was one person. It was everyone who has put something into Mazerance, and leading that team every day for eighteen months has been nothing short of a privilege.
There is still a lot of work ahead. I do not count any of this as the finish line, but the effort and the outcomes deserve recognition.
The game is still in development, and delivering it would be the best outcome for me, the team, the community and our stakeholders. The foundation is there, and whoever leads the business next has something substantial to work with.
I have poured almost everything I have into this company for eighteen months. I need to step back, look after myself, and go back to the work I love. I am a designer and storyteller before anything else.
Leading Mazerance has been one of the most difficult and beautiful things I have ever been in service of. I believe I did it well, and I am grateful for every moment of it.
But design is where I do my best work, and what I build next will reflect that: experiences that transform how physical products understand human interaction and change how people live with them.
As for who takes the seat, the company has chosen an interim successor.
To the team (past and present) and my co-founders, thank you. To the Rancers, our investors and everyone who backed us early, thank you for believing in what we set out to build.
I remain on the board, and will continue to support Mazerance in whatever capacity it needs me. This is my child and I have its best interest at heart.
More on what is next for me soon.