Dr Disrespect's Former Studio Distances Itself Even More

Back in 2021, Guy "Dr Disrespect" Beahm revealed his secret game studio, Midnight Society. Fans were excited to see what he and the team were cooking up, but it's starting to sound like the Doc was less involved with the studio than anyone thought. Midnight Society's other co-founders recently spoke with Bloomberg about Dr Disrespect's true role in the company, as well as why they decided to part ways with him.

Over the years Dr Disrespect has been heavily involved in promoting "Deadrop," Midnight Society's debut game. Until June 2024, that is, when allegations that the Doc had exchanged inappropriate messages with a minor came to light. His partnership with Midnight Society quickly unraveled. Dr Disrespect lost several major deals after he admitted that he and an underage individual engaged in "casual, mutual conversations that sometimes leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate."

Midnight Society broke away from Dr Disrespect the day before his lengthy post confirming the allegations. The company released a statement saying, "In order to maintain our principles and standards as a studio and individuals, we needed to act. For this reason, we are terminating our relationship with Guy Beahm immediately." The lost partnership seemed cataclysmic for Midnight Society, which had heavily leaned into its association with Dr Disrespect up to that point. Now, however, the company's co-founders are painting a different picture of how important the Doc was to "Deadrop" and the studio itself.

This isn't the first time that Midnight Society has had to weather controversy. In 2022, the company caused an uproar when it embraced NFTs to promote and fund "Deadrop." The studio and its free-to-play extraction shooter managed to weather the storm, but the Dr Disrespect scandal is another beast entirely. After processing his initial shock, studio co-founder Robert Bowling told Bloomberg, "My emotions shifted very quickly to, 'How can I make sure all the incredible work that's been done on 'Deadrop' is not lost?'"

All four Midnight Society co-founders — Bowling, Dr Disrespect, Quinn DelHoyo, and Sumit Gupta — met and decided almost immediately that the Doc needed to step away. When the company made its announcement, some were convinced that removing Dr Disrespect would be disastrous for "Deadrop" in the long run. Not helping matters was the fact that many of the comments underneath the studio's statement on X (formerly Twitter), also said that the game is doomed without the Doc's input. That's not how the studio's co-founders see it.

"His job as an influencer was to bring eyeballs and community to it," Bowling said in the interview, adding, "Having some initial marketing in the beginning we wouldn't have otherwise definitely helped, and acknowledged that Dr Disrespect's presence helped attract early investors. Bowling and the other co-founders frame Dr Disrespect as more of a hype-man than someone with irreplaceable creative input on the game.

Midnight Society is down one co-founder, but the remaining three don't seem to be losing any sleep over the change. "We knew it was the right decision after talking everything over with all four of us," DelHoyo told Bloomberg. "We made agreements on what our principles were and are as a studio, and his actions don't align with our principles." The studio is charging ahead with "Deadrop." Backers have gotten a good bit of hands-on experience with the game, and according to the company's roadmap, it's currently in a refinement stage. The next step for Midnight Society is obtaining approval to release an early access version of "Deadrop" on PlayStation and Xbox. 

While the past few weeks have been challenging, we're more confident than ever in our team, our work, and our mission.

Our goal for DEADROP remains unchanged: creating a next-gen PvPvE extraction shooter. This week, we enter the Founder Testing stage, marking the start of the... pic.twitter.com/ECVV425CHt

— Midnight Society (@12am) July 17, 2024

Midnight Society hasn't announced an official early access release date just yet, but the company says that moment is right around the corner. Based on what Bowling and the other Midnight Society co-founders told Bloomberg, it's not unreasonable to imagine that the studio will partner with other content creators to help promote the game as it gets closer to release. Meanwhile, the company continues to distance itself from Dr Disrespect, replacing an in-game cosmetic referencing the disgraced streamer and refunding players who already purchased it. Some people thought that Dr Disrespect's ousting would be the end of Midnight Society, but the studio and its community have seemingly maintained an optimistic view of the future.