An employee strike at Dungeon Fighter Online and The First Berserker: Khazan studio Neople, under parent company Nexon, has intensified following union accusations of employee bonuses being reduced as some executive bonuses shot up.
As Automaton reports, Korean outlet ThisIsGame notes that the Neople strike began on July 31 on a three-days-a-week basis. This has now escalated to a full five days a week in a "first of its kind" strike for South Korea's gaming industry, according to Chosun Biz.
Neople was the developer for The First Berserker: Khazan, but this dispute is orbiting another internal dev team. The Neople union alleges that some executives saw their bonuses grow by more than 10 times while a bonus meant for the Dungeon Fighter Mobile team shrank by 30%.
This followed record revenue for the game, boosted by an influx of Chinese users, and seemingly compounded general obscurities regarding bonuses.
Dungeon Fighter (or Dungeon & Fighter) doesn't have a dominant presence in the West or on platforms like Steam – where Dungeon Fighter Online has 5,557 user reviews sitting at 61% positive – but the series is enormous in Asia, and stands as one of the highest-grossing game IPs of all time.
Neople has evidently committed to paying the Dungeon Fighter Mobile team an additional performance-based bonus that could amount to several times the average developer's annual salary. Union representatives have reportedly pushed for greater transparency and consistency, and called for a more general profit-sharing plan distributing a percentage of last year's record profits to all employees.
Dungeon Fighter Mobile development disruptions caused by the strike have spilled over into the game's planned anniversary celebrations, it seems. Neople has reportedly initiated negotiations to resolve the strike.
The First Berserker: Khazan missed its own sales targets despite rock-solid reviews, but Nexon still described the game as a success because it introduced a new audience to the shared world of Dungeon & Fighter as the publisher seeks to take the series beyond its Asia foothold. Khazan was "a strategic first step in a multi-year plan" here, and if that plan means we get more good Soulslike RPGs, you won't hear me complain.
