Controversy

In June 2020, multiple allegations of misconduct were made against Zaimont. Two individuals claimed that Zaimont made inappropriate sexual comments towards them, which triggered an internal investigation of Zaimont's behavior within Lab Zero Games. A decision was reached by Lab Zero's board to request Zaimont's resignation. According to Lab Zero senior art producer Brian Jun, Zaimont refused to resign unless a series of demands were met, of which Jun deemed "unrealistically high and potentially illegal". Zaimont's demands were rejected by the board. In response, Zaimont disbanded the board and assumed sole ownership of Lab Zero Games. Jonathan Kim, Lab Zero's senior animator, claimed that Zaimont delivered an ultimatum wherein he gave all unsatisfied employees until August 31st to leave the company. In late August, Kim, Jun, and Mariel Cartwright, Lab Zero's lead animator, resigned from Lab Zero Games and individually issued statements denouncing Zaimont's actions.

Within a day of the series of resignations, Hidden Variable and Autumn Games severed their ties with Mike Zaimont and Lab Zero Games in a joint statement. In the statement, both parties expressed intent to work with the employees who resigned from Lab Zero Games on the continued development of Skullgirls.


Due to Mike Z’s harassment towards his former employers, Arc System Works also severed ties with him and banned from getting involved with any Arc System’s projects, such as rollback netcode fixes.

On December 3rd, 2020 Mike made a Blogspot post explaining that he was "relatively recently" diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder, and how it has affected his life.