Sea of Starsis removing a cameo from theYouTuberThe Completionists, following accusations of fraud related to his family’s charity. The Completionist, real name Jirard Khalil, denies many of the allegations made against him and his family, but continues to face pushback from the public and his initial accusers.
The claims of fraud relate to his family’s charity, the Open Hand Foundation, and were made by fellow YouTubers Karl Jobst and SomeOrdinaryGamers last month. Since then, all parties have made additional statements, accumulating in Khalil threatening to take legal action against the pair.
Now, it’s led to his character in Sea of Stars being removed, with the developers eager to distance themselves from the controversy. As spotted byNoisy Pixel, the news was first revealed in a statement on the developer’s Discord server.
“A small patch will be going live on Steam and be submitted to consoles soon to replace the builder NPC in Mirth,” says developer Sabotage Studio. “We arrived at this decision after carefully monitoring events over the past few weeks, and while it is not our place to pass judgment, we do make it a priority to maintain a positive and optimistic space that reflects the spirit of our intentions, be they creative or otherwise.”
It continues: “As always, we appreciate your support and trust you to respect our decision while keeping the tone of the conversation in line with the essence of what makes our games and our community what they are.”
Karl Jobst and SomeOrdinaryGamers have made several specific allegations against the Open Hand Foundation. The foundation was formed by Khalil’s family to raise funds for dementia research. However, Jobst and SomeOrdinaryGamers revealed that the charity hadn’t spent the $600,000 it had raised from The Completionist’s fundraising event, IndieLand. Going through publicly available filings, the YouTubers found that this money was instead sitting in a bank account, and the Open Hand Foundation hadn’t donated anything to any of its charitable partners.
“While it is not our place to pass judgment, we do make it a priority to maintain a positive and optimistic space that reflects the spirit of our intentions, be they creative or otherwise.”
In a responsevideo, Khalil does not dispute that the money had been sitting in a bank account all this time, but says his family always planned to hold onto the funds before making a larger donation. He goes on to say that he is “disappointed” that he was “not more straightforward regarding the foundation’s timeline for making donations”. The foundation has since donated $600,000 to the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration, although Khalil admits this “took too long”.
However, he denies that the Open Hand Foundation committed “any criminal or financial fraud”. He argues that the foundation was waiting to find the right organisation to donate to, saying that some candidates were not suitable due to admin costs, or not being able to guarantee that the money would go solely to dementia research.
Jobst and SomeOrdinaryGamers have since responded once more, criticising Khalil and maintaining their allegations of fraud. Jobst in particularsaysthat Khalil “lied” to fans since he repeatedly mentioned that the Open Hand Foundation was working with dementia research organisations, despite not actively funding them. He also criticises Khalil for saying that money raised through Twitch donations and merchandise was going to the foundation, when Khalil now says it went to production costs for IndieLand, seemingly skipping the foundation altogether.
The Completionist has not responded to the news that his cameo in Sea of Stars is being removed.
