After controversy sparked over a swimsuit design, Gyeonggi Youth Union held a press conference condemning game studio ProjectMoon for the unfair dismissal of their staff and calls for legislative action.

On August 3rd, the Gyeonggi Youth Union, a youth generation labor union in Gyeonggi-do, South Korea, held a press conference condemning game studio ProjectMoon for recently falsely firing an illustrator of Limbus Company over feminist allegations.

In the press conference, Gyeonggi Youth Union urged the province government to fulfill its social responsibility and implement a joint declaration at the council as well as the revitalization of ESG management.

The labor union will also hold additional legislative campaigns if it is necessary in order to resolve unfair dismissal issues in the game industries.

According to Gyeonggi Youth Union, they aim to set an example in Gyeonggi Province and in the youth-dominated game industry so that there are no more workers and freelancers fired over creative controversies.

“ProjectMoon should give up their pointless resistance and comply with labor laws now.”, said a Gyeonggi Youth Union representative.

Gyeonggi Youth Union noted that ProjectMoon had previously received an investment of about 2 billion won from DevSisters Ventures, an investor of the Gyeonggi-do Content Agency and the 3rd manager of Nexed Fund, to which Gyeonggi-do has invested about 3 billion won in taxes.

The Gyeonggi Youth Union said, “The unfair dismissal of ProjectMoon has left a serious stain on the environmental, social, and governance aspects of ESG.”

“Earlier, the Governor of Gyeonggi-do, along with the Gyeonggi Youth Union, practiced joint management for carbon neutrality and a just transition to labor and promised to promote ESG management in this practice.

“Gyeonggi-do, as a local government, must fulfill its social responsibility to protect citizens.”

Gyeonggi Province Members’ Statement 

At the press conference that day, members of each Gyeonggi Province also attended and announced that they would join forces to resolve the issue of unfair dismissal in the game industry.

Yu Gyeong-hyeon, a provincial council member of the Safety Administration Committee, planned to solve the safety issue for workers caused by players who suddenly visit ProjectMoon headquarters during the controversy.

In addition, Seo-Hyun-ok, a member of the Economic and Labor Committee, urged the government to confirm that there were no similar cases in the process of managing investment funds and checking ESG management capabilities when selecting fund managers to do Gyeonggi-do taxes.

“A worker in Gyeonggi-do was unfairly fired, but this is not because the victim is a special person.”, said Jang Min-soo, a Democratic Party lawmaker.

“I hope that the problem will be resolved by properly applying the Labor Law and the Labor Standards Act.”

ProjectMoon’s Response 

Following the press conference, ProjectMoon CEO Kim Ji-hoon released an official online statement in response.

In their statement, ProjectMoon clarified that they have not dismissed the illustrator, VellMori, even though in the previous announcement, they explicitly stated that they have terminated her employment.

ProjectMoon claimed that they did not terminate VellMori due to ideological conflict and they made the decision with legal judgment and advice.

“This was not a case of ideological investigation or unjust firing; the decision was made based on legal judgment and advice.”

“The company did not take issue with the ideological alignments of the worker, nor did it give them a notice of dismissal.”

However, in the original statement, they explicitly reference terminating VellMori.

“Because this was a violation of our rules that we’ve brought to their attention, we’re terminating [the artist’s] contract.”, said CEO Kim Ji-hoon.

“We ask that you refrain from any further verbal abuse or threats, both online and offline.”

In addition, ProjectMoon also noted that they will take legal action against individuals who are spreading misinformation with unconfirmed claims.

Limbus Company Controversy 

On the 25th of last month, a protest against ProjectMoon happened after the ‘S.E.A./The Magic Hellbus’ summer event was revealed for the strategy gacha RPG Limbus Company.

In the reveal, a female character named Ishmael was wearing a diving wetsuit instead of a traditional swimsuit, while the male characters were wearing regular swimwear that exposes their chest.

This caused some fans to have a negative reaction as they claimed the new costume for Ishmael to not be “sexy” enough and her appeal isn’t equal to what the male characters got.

The swimsuit reveals led to a controversy where a group of players believed that “radical feminism” has taken root within the company, despite having no proof, and as such the reason why characters of both genders are not equal.

An uproar soon followed as fans protested against ProjectMoon through review bombing Limbus Company and even go as far as cyberstalking the employees working for the studio.

Fan’s Uproar

There were claims that the cyberstalkers initially were targeting the artist responsible for the swimsuit design but upon finding out that the target is a man, they switched focus.

They then found an illustrator by the name of VellMori, who worked on the game and had past Retweets against illegal filming in the Nth Room case that happened in 2018 on Twitter.

Upon finding out about the Retweets, some fans began to link her to “radical feminism” and pressured ProjectMoon to terminate their employment.

Furthermore, there were also claims of people visiting the head office of ProjectMoon and demanding VellMori’s firing on the spot and the removal of her work from the game.

VellMori made the Retweets before ProjectMoon employed them and deleted them before joining.

However, some people claimed to have archived screenshots of them.

Dismissal of the Illustrator

After the uproar, ProjectMoon CEO Kim Ji-hoon announced on the 25th of July that he had fired VellMori with notice and that he would comply with the players’ complaints relating to the game.

CEO Kim explained that the reason for the illustrator’s firing was that their personal social media account had linked to the company and caused a social controversy.

In response, Gyeonggi Youth Union debated that the former staff in question was a full-time employee, thus it was an unfair dismissal and not a termination of a contract.

The labor union further added that the Constitution and the law recognize the “freedom of conscience”, so it is difficult to justify ProjectMoon’s action as a legitimate disciplinary dismissal

Moreover, such a disciplinary dismissal should require a disciplinary committee, which unfortunately cannot be done as the dismissal of the illustrator was effective less than 3 hours after the controversy arose.

The Gyeonggi Youth Union continued to add that this was an unfair dismissal with poor reasons and procedures.