Soon after massive layoffs, Epic Games is once again in hot water after a developer has accused the company of refusing to pay royalties.
This has certainly been quite the controversial week for Epic Games, after laying off over 870 employees, despite making record profit. It has also recently been revealed that one developer has not received any royalties from the company.
It’s not unusual for companies to lay off their staff, but the reason why the layoffs that took place at Epic Games are causing such a stir is because one of the layoffs included employees from Mediatonic, who you may recognise as the developers behind the popular multiplayer game, Fall Guys. The developer was acquired by Epic Games back in 2021, this came after Fall Guys skyrocketed in popularity. Mediatonic is well known for listening to their players and providing many quality-of-life changes to their games. Sadly, all good things must come to an end.
Fall Guys isn’t the only well-known game from Mediatonic, you may also know them from the unusual pigeon dating simulator, Hatoful Boyfriend, which released in 2011 and is most famous for its surprisingly gripping story and fun ‘choose your own adventure’ style gameplay. Despite its popularity, the creator of Hatoful Boyfriend, Hato Moa, recently shared a post on Twitter that she hasn’t seen a cent of royalties from Epic Games. While the creator did emphasize that the situation wasn’t serious, but curiously enough, Epic Games seemed to have delisted Hatoful Boyfriend from the PlayStation Store.
Epic Games did respond to the developer, saying that they were looking into the matter. Fans of Hatoful Boyfriend did side with the developer and are also hoping that the issue will be resolved soon. Sadly, this isn’t something new as it seems that Hato Moa is one of the many developers that have not had their royalties paid to them. Famously, HoYoverse, the company behind Geshin Impact had a similar issue last year with many of the game’s voice actors revealing that they haven’t been paid in over 6 months.
