Firefall studio couldn’t make payroll on Christmas

Bad times at Red 5

Employees of development studio Red 5 got something worse than a lump of coal for Christmas this year; they got a note from management saying that the company didn’t have the funds to make payroll.

Multiple sources reached out to Kotaku, who broke the story. Red 5 generally pays its employees every other Friday, but was unable to last week when payday fell on Christmas. Instead, several members of Red 5 reported that they received the following message from their employer:

Hi Team,

I regret to inform you that Red5 currently does not have the funds necessary to meet our payroll scheduled for today Friday, December 25. Due to this, there will not be payroll paid this week.

Red5 and The9, our parent company, is currently working to resolve this, during the holidays, as soon as possible. We are hopeful we’ll be able to resolve this and will update the team immediately.

The studio, which is located in Irvine, California, held an internal meeting this morning to attempt to explain the situation. As reported by Game Informer, it claims that the missed payments were at least partially a result of “potential investments failing to materialize.” At time of writing, Red 5 employees are being told they’ll be paid on December 30.

This development is the just the latest in a rough couple of months for Red 5. In November, 40 employees were laid off. Last week, “several more” were let go. The ones who are still around probably aren’t in much of a productive mood, and likely have their eyes set on January 9 — the next date that they’ll supposedly get paid. We’ll keep our eye on the situation too, but it sounds like Red 5 might not be long for this world.

Sources: Game Studio Red 5 Misses Payroll On Christmas [Kotaku]
Firefall Studio Red5 Will Try To Pay Employees On December 30 [Game Informer]