Firefall developer Red 5 Studios reportedly misses payroll on Christmas day

This is the news any employee at a developer dreads.

Red 5 Studios, the developer behind the free-to-play, massively multiplayer online shooter Firefall, reportedly failed to make payroll on Christmas day, via anonymous sources at Kotaku (some of which shared Facebook posts from employees noting the situation). While this obviously makes the future prospects for the studio look bleak, it’s awful news for employees counting on that money to help pay for the expensive holiday.

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We reached out to Red 5 Studios for confirmation.

Red 5 Studios started in 2005, founded by ex-Blizzard employees who worked on the wildly successful World of Warcraft. It launched its only game, Firefall, last year (after a lengthy beta period that started in 2011). Firefall sought to combine competitive shooting multiplayer with the role-playing and community aspects of massively multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft. It never found a substantial audience, and Red 5 has suffered layoffs since its release.

Chris Stewart, a software engineer at Blizzard, started a GoFundMe campaign to earn the $100,000 supposedly missed in the employee payroll, but it’s currently at just $97.