An employee of Netmarble Neo, the South Korean studio behind Lineage 2 Revolution, has died due to overwork. The game developer reportedly worked himself to death.
“Crunch Time” – that’s what you call it when overtime is piled up on a video game. There are horror stories circulating about developers who no longer see their family, pull insane hours, lose touch with reality, and take weeks to get back to normal.
But rarely does a story end as brutally as this one: Last year, three employees of the Korean game studio Netmarble died from causes suspected to be related to overwork. Netmarble has denied this.
Now the South Korean government has accepted one of the three deaths as a work-related accident, allowing the family of the deceased to file for compensation.
The deceased was employed at Netmarble Neo, a subsidiary studio of Netmarble, which works on the mobile hit Lineage 2 Revolution.
The employee died in October 2016 from a heart disease, from atherosclerosis of the coronary arteries.
The developer was only in his 20s
The employee reportedly worked irregular night shifts and overtime for 12 weeks before the illness led to his death.
As the employee was in his 20s and no symptoms were detected during a health check beforehand, the authorities assume that the death is work-related. This was reported by the Korea Times.
The employee is said to have worked 89 hours a week in the seven weeks leading up to his death. Even on the day of his death, a Sunday, he was supposed to work again, according to the family of the deceased.
The game he worked on became a mega-hit
- The death of the employee occurred in October 2016.
- Lineage 2 Revolution was released in early 2017 in South Korea and made an insane amount of money in the first months.
- Netmarble abolished overtime and weekend work in February 2017. Employees now receive compensatory days off if they have to work on weekends, and supervisors are not allowed to assign work after hours. This reportedly happened in connection with the deaths. MMO Culture reported on this.
Netmarble is the company behind mobile MMOs like Marvel Future Fight and Lineage 2 Revolution, which is highly anticipated here in the West. The company is considered a rising star in the Korean gaming market because it entered mobile early, while the big players NCSoft and Nexon are still struggling with the transition from PC to mobile.
We explored the unusual success story of Netmarble in this article.
