Gunzilla CEO denies delaying payments to 'full-time official employees,' says contractors complaining about going months without being paid are just 'haters' who don't know what it takes to run a business

Gunzilla Games, the developer of the NFT battle royale Off the Grid and, more recently, resurrector of Game Informer, is facing multiple allegations that it has failed to pay some of its staff, in some cases for months. Gunzilla CEO Vlad Korolev acknowledged the claims in a message posted to X, writing, "to not disrupt company operations, some payments may be scheduled in a way that works for the company's cash flow," but added that "we honor every obligation" and said the complaints are coming primarily from "haters" who want the studio to fail.

The issue first came to light on LinkedIn, where former senior animator Paul Creamer wrote that "Gunzilla Games has not paid its employees for many months but still expects them to work," adding that he had not been paid since October 2025, and that some employees have been waiting even longer.

"In December the CEO himself (Vlad Korolev) had a call with my department where he promised us that invoices would be paid as soon as possible, that the company was profitable and that we were all doing the right thing by keeping quiet and continuing to work," Creamer wrote. "He was not being truthful and now the company ignores our questions and removes our posts about what's going on trying to silence us. Silence is what they're hoping for, wishing that we'll just quietly go away."

Former head of talent acquisition Anna Savina shared a similar story, saying that after three years at Gunzilla she is "forced to face a significant outstanding debt that covers several months of my professional life."

Others followed suit: In responses to Savina's post, QA engineer Oleksii Zhestianenko said he was laid off at the end of August and still hasn't received his final pay, while senior QA engineer Anton Palii wrote that he went five months without being paid, and that after he confronted the CEO about it, he was terminated and remains unpaid. Former QA staffer Illia Metelskyi said he quit after the second month of delayed payments, after which the company cut all ties; he wrote that Gunzilla's head of HR contacted him five months after he left to promise he'd be paid, but still has received nothing.

Korolev, the Gunzilla CEO, said in his response that the salaries of "full-time official employees" at Gunzilla "have never been delayed by more than a week," although Savina, the former head of talent acquisition, describes herself on LinkedIn as a full-time employee of the studio.

Most of Korolve's statement is spent talking about the success of Gunzilla and its battle royale Off the Grid. "While people who have never played OTG and have never built a business sit and spread FUD [fear, uncertainty, and doubt] 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 building for the millions of players who actually love our product," Korolev wrote.

After several more paragraphs talking about proving doubters wrong and implying a persistently crunchy culture at Gunzilla—"there has never been a single day where anyone worked in a 'work-life balance' mode"—Korolev addressed the allegations about missing payments, which he described as "a new narrative from haters—that Gunzilla incorrectly laid off contractors or paid them with delays."

"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," Korolev wrote. "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."

Korolev also said that "that one of the loudest voices—a contractor who finished working with us just a week ago—was repaid immediately." He didn't specify who, but Savina, whose LinkedIn profile indicates she left Gunzilla earlier this month, updated her post the day after it went live to note that "the situation regarding my personal matter has been resolved."

Off the Grid does seem somewhat successful, at least as far as we can see on Steam. User reviews are decidedly mixed, with just 55% being positive, but it puts up several thousand concurrent players every day—not a massive hit but not nothing, either. And that's just a fraction of the whole: Off the Grid is also available on the Epic Games Store, and for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles.

Off the Grid initially drew attention primarily because of the participation of District 9 director Neil Blomkamp, but it's also earned scorn for sketchy cosmetics and NFT integration: Its premium currency is the Gunz token, which can be used on the NFT marketplace Opensea. Which may be part of the problem: The value of the Gunz token dropped off sharply immediately after it launched, and has shown no real sign of a possible turnaround.

I've reached out to Gunzilla for comment and will update if I receive a reply.