Gunzilla Games CEO Responds to Accusations of Not Paying Workers, Calls it “A New Narrative From Haters”

Yesterday, we reported on accusations from former and current workers of Gunzilla Games that the studio had not been paying its workers, in some cases, "for many months." Several developers came forward to share that they are still waiting on pay owed for work they did, calling out the studio's leadership for trying to convince them to work for free to work towards 'an idea.' Well, the studio's leadership, chief executive officer Vlad Korolev has responded in a lengthy post on X (formerly Twitter), denying the accusations and calling them "a new narrative from haters."

A brief reminder, Gunzilla Games is the studio behind Off the Grid, an NFT battle royale game that launched back in 2024. The studio is backed by Hollywood director Neil Blomkamp, and last year the company also became known as the developer that 'saved' the publication Game Informer, after the outlet was unceremoniously shuttered by GameStop.

Korolev begins his post by calling the accusations "FUD," (fear, uncertainty, and doubt), meant "to farm views" by going after "the biggest web3 game ever created." He claims that Off the Grid has "millions of players who actually love" the game, that the studio added "100K users" to its premium Off The Grid Pro subscription in 2025.

He also claims that "every single day, 3,000 new players join Off the Grid," and that he is "happy" to set up a live dashboard for anyone willing to pay 100k GUN to see it, "so you can finally put real weight behind your words."

While people who have never played OTG and have never built a business sit and spread FUD to farm a few views — targeting the biggest web3 game ever created, a game that represents not only itself but the entire web3 gaming industry in front of traditional gaming — we will keep…

— Vlad Korolev (@VladK133) April 9, 2026

After continuing to boast about how successful Off the Grid has been in spite of "haters" who claimed the game wouldn't be able to reach certain goals like releasing on PlayStation and Xbox, Korolev also boasted about how the studio seemingly has a permanent crunch culture, and how over the six years of the game's development, the company's founders "invested tens of millions of dollars before raising a single dollar externally."

"Within 6 years, there has never been a single day where anyone worked in a 'work-life balance' mode - it has been a day-and-night fight to ship a project on the scale of Call of Duty, built by an independent studio. And we made it."

Korolev continues to claim that Off the Grid "defines" web3 gaming, and it's only after all this bragging that he finally addresses the accusations directly, mostly denying them, but partially apologizing for them. According to Korolev, no one who has worked for Gunzilla Games has had their pay delayed more than a week, and that delay would have only been caused by the company choosing "to not disrupt company operations" and to work in a way that is better for "the company's cash flow."

"Today there is a new narrative from haters - that Gunzilla incorrectly laid off contractors or paid them with delays," he writes. "Yes, we are optimizing costs - like every company in gaming, crypto, and tech is doing right now. We have been doing this for over a year. And yes, to not disrupt company operations, some payments may be scheduled in a way that works for the company's cash flow - not always for everyone individually. That's the reality of the world we live in."

"But to protect the interests of our players and our full-time official employees - whose salaries, over 6 years, have never been delayed by more than a week - we operate at a pace that ensures the company continues moving forward. And of course, we honor every obligation. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused."

Korolev then tries to discredit at least one of the claims by saying "one of the loudest voices - a contractor who finished working with us just a week ago - was repaid immediately."

Ranting about how successful your game is for more than half of the message while still admitting that you had cash flow issues a few lines later that meant you had to delay workers wages doesn't exactly fit together in the way Korolev seems to think it does, because if Off the Grid has been such a success, why should the studio have problems paying its workers in the first place?

And if Korolev is "happy" to prove "haters" wrong by showing those alleged haters a live dashboard of the "millions" of players who love Off the Grid and the thousands who pay for its premium subscription, why not disclose those numbers for free? Why claim to not have money problems and at the same time ask people to pay you to prove to them you don't have money problems?

It's worth noting here that out of the former Gunzilla workers who came forward yesterday, only two claimed to have actually been repaid. One claimed they got what they were owed only after making a public post about it calling Gunzilla out. Another claimed they only got their money after getting lawyers involved.

It's also worth noting that since the accusations have come out, other studio leaders have even taken the chance to call out Gunzilla Games for not paying workers. Scott Albright, chief executive officer and founder of Combat Waffle Studios, a VR studio behind games like Silent North and Grim posted on his LinkedIn page, writing, "Gunzilla not paying people? Good. I'm glad this is finally coming out."

"Let me be blunt. If you run a studio and don't pay your team, you are not a founder, you are not a leader, you are disgusting. I currently have people on staff that worked there. Real people. Not a headline. Not a 'situation.' People who did the work and got screwed for it. And now we're the ones picking up the pieces because another studio decided basic responsibility didn't apply to them. This industry is hard enough without garbage leadership treating developers like disposable assets. You don't get to hype your game, raise money, post flashy trailers, and then just...not pay the people who built it. That's not 'startup culture.' That's bulls**t. Studios that do this deserve to get dragged into the light. Loudly. If you can't afford to pay your team, you shouldn't have a team. It's that simple."

Of course, Albright is right. When you run a business, when it comes to matters of paying people, it really is as simple as whether you have the money to do so or not. If you don't, you shouldn't expect people to continue working for you.

The circle doesn't get the square on Korolev's argument that Off the Grid is a wild success, but the studio can't pay its workers on time. Also, Korolev's claim that the studio has only ever delayed payment by a week might've been more believable if these accusations all came from one person. But it's not one person, it's several people, all of whom are coming forward to say they haven't been paid for at least a month's worth of their time working there. And you can't dismiss their claims by just calling them all "haters."

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