Firefall: Geschenke an Spieler, obwohl Angestellte nicht bezahlt wurden

This must be weighing heavily on the stomachs of the developers of the online shooter Firefall and the fans: The CEO of The9 awards packages worth over 1.5 million dollars to Chinese players.

The9 is the Chinese company that bought the development studio Red 5 – mainly to bring the online shooter Firefall to market in China. Rumors surfaced at the end of last year that The9 had allegedly not been paying the employees at Red 5, all were waiting for their last paycheck. There were also some layoffs and a generally quite toxic work atmosphere, especially since the China launch of Firefall, which held many hopes, likely fell short of expectations.

It’s likely to meet with rather much incomprehension that the CEO of The9 distributed so-called “Red Envelope” packages to Chinese players at the launch of the open beta of the game. These had a total value of 1.53 million US dollars.

In China, “red envelopes” traditionally contain money gifts for the New Year.

The situation at Firefall has reportedly relaxed again

Now one might say that in-game items don’t cost a company much, but they aren’t free either. Moreover, the players who received these packages no longer need to purchase them in-game, which could lead to corresponding revenue losses for the company. Revenue that could have been used to adequately pay the employees.

Allegedly their salaries have now been paid, and according to a statement from Red 5, work continues diligently on content updates for Firefall. The US/EU version is also expected to be supplied with content.

The distribution of the gift packages serves, of course, promotional purposes, as The9 hopes to build a loyal fan base that is then also willing to spend money in the game. This action shouldn’t be seen entirely negatively. However, it does leave a bad taste, especially since it directly follows the announcement that the employees had not been paid for a period of time.