Project Moon () is a South Korean

video game developer A video game developer is a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large business with em ...

headquartered in

Suwon Suwon (; ) is the largest city and capital of Gyeonggi Province, South Korea's most populous province. The city lies approximately south of the national capital, Seoul. With a population of 1.2 million, Suwon has more inhabitants than Ulsan, tho ...

. Founded in 2016, it developed works such as ''

Lobotomy Corporation ''Lobotomy Corporation'' is a 2018 indie game, indie Horror game, horror Roguelike, rogue-like strategy video game, strategy management simulation video game developed and published by South Korean studio Project Moon for Microsoft Windows. Set in ...

'', ''

Library of Ruina ''Library of Ruina'' is an indie deck-building turn-based role-playing game developed and published by South Korean studio Project Moon. Initially released for Windows and Xbox One on August 10, 2021, it is a direct sequel to the 2018 PC game ' ...

'', and ''

Limbus Company ''Limbus Company'' is an indie gacha strategy video game for Microsoft Windows and mobile devices using iOS or Android, developed and published by South Korean studio Project Moon. It was released worldwide on February 26, 2023. The game is se ...

''.

History

Project Moon was founded in November 2016, headquartered in Gwanggyo New Town in

. The company's original members were composed of college students recruited by the founder Kim Jihoon. The team's goal was to create a video game inspired by media about the

paranormal Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Not ...

like ''

The Cabin in the Woods ''The Cabin in the Woods'' is a 2011 science fiction comedy horror film directed by Drew Goddard in his directorial debut, produced by Joss Whedon, and written by Whedon and Goddard. It stars Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchis ...

'' and

SCP Foundation The SCP Foundation is a fictional organization featured in stories created by contributors on the SCP Wiki, a wiki-based Collaborative fiction, collaborative writing project. Within the project's shared universe, shared fictional universe, the ...

. The development cost had been funded through a

crowdfunding Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and Alternative Finance, alternative finance, to fund projects "withou ...

campaign launched on Tumblbug in 2015. The finalized project, ''

'', entered

early access Early access, also known as alpha access, alpha founding, paid alpha, or game preview, is a funding model in the video game industry by which consumers can purchase and play a game in the various pre-release Software release life cycle, developm ...

on December 17, 2016, and was released in April 2018. The developer's next game was ''

'', first released on 28 May 2020 as an early access title and officially published for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

and

Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third console in the Xbox#Consoles, Xbox series. It was first released in North America, parts of Europe, Austra ...

in August 2021. The game included music by Mili and continued the narrative from ''Lobotomy Corporation''. In March 2020, the company started publishing ''WonderLab'', a webcomic based on ''Lobotomy Corporation''. In 2021, Devsisters Ventures invested approximately in Project Moon as a proposition of Gyeonggi Content Agency's

investment fund An investment fund is a way of investment, investing money alongside other investors in order to benefit from the inherent advantages of working as part of a group such as reducing the risks of the investment by a significant percentage. These ad ...

established in 2017. The developer participated in

Tokyo Game Show , commonly known as TGS, is a video game trade fair and convention held annually in September in the Makuhari Messe, in Chiba, Japan. It is presented by the Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association (CESA) and Nikkei Business Publication ...

since 2022; it spoke in an interview that it desired to focus on expansion to other businesses like

publishing Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

of literatures. The developer released a

free-to-play "Free-to-play" ("F2P" or "FtP") video games are games that give players access to a significant portion of their content for free. The term "free-to-play business model" or simply, "free-to-play model", refers collectively to business models tha ...

game ''

'' for Windows,

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

and Android on 27 February 2023, sharing the universe with the company's previous games. The company owns a themed café named HamHamPangPang.

Labour disputes

On 25 July 2023, players of ''Limbus Company'' started arguing that one artist in Project Moon be expelled for allegedly having displayed erratic behavior. The reason argued by the protesters was that the artist engaged in misandric activities in the past. Although the artist had long deactivated her social media account and its feed years ago, the protesters excavated her deleted account history with other workarounds, going back as far as 2017, which was before joining the company in 2021. The protesters cited her

retweet A tweet (officially known as a post since 2023) is a short status update on the social networking site Twitter (officially known as X since 2023) which can include Image, images, Video, videos, GIFs, straw polls, hashtags, Mention (blogging), m ...

s of topics such as a protest against ''

molka ''Molka'' (, , lit. 'hidden camera') is the Korean term for hidden cameras or miniature spy cameras secretly and illegally installed, often in order to capture voyeuristic images and videos. Molka is an abbreviation of ''mollae-kamera'' (), whic ...

'' crimes and abolishment of the

abortion law Abortion laws vary widely among countries and territories, and have changed over time. Such laws range from abortion being freely available on request, to regulation or restrictions of various kinds, to outright prohibition in all circumstances ...

, some of which they claimed had derogatory insults toward men. They argued these are a proof that the artist sided with

radical feminist Radical feminism is a perspective within feminism that calls for a radical re-ordering of society in which male supremacy is eliminated in all social and economic contexts, while recognizing that women's experiences are also affected by other ...

associations, such as a defunct Megalia. There were

review bomb A review bomb is a malicious Internet phenomenon in which a large number of people or Sock puppet account, a few people with multiple accounts post negative user reviews online in an attempt to harm the sales or popularity of a product, a service, ...

ing on the video game as a protest; some players (approximately 10 in total) visited the company's headquarters in person to confront the developers. At midnight on 26 July, Project Moon announced that it would remove the artist from its staff and would not feature works produced by her from then on. The developer's official reason for this measure was that the artist had violated the company policy, which dictated a worker's social accounts must not meddle with the employer. There are conflicting recounts on multiple details between Project Moon and the other parties. Project Moon referred to the employee's departure as "termination of contract"; news coverage and labour activists used the term "fired" or "lay-off". Several publications reported the protests were instigated from complaints over the game's poor

balance Balance may refer to: Common meanings * Balance (ability) in biomechanics * Balance (accounting) * Balance or weighing scale * Balance, as in equality (mathematics) or equilibrium Arts and entertainment Film * Balance (1983 film), ''Balance'' ( ...

and the fact that a woman was wearing a fully-clothed swimsuit instead of a revealing one in an illustration (which the players erroneously claimed was drawn by said artist); the company stated that the decision had nothing to do with male players' complaints. Project Moon has argued that it reached a mutual agreement with the artist, allegedly owning documents to prove this settlement, and that the artist voluntarily left the company. The artist said in an interview that she was first informed of her dismissal over a phone call at 23:00 on 25 July, and was told to await related paperworks. Project Moon's actions were described by news media as a violation of

labour rights Labor rights or workers' rights are both legal rights and human rights relating to labor relations between workers and employers. These rights are codified in national and international labor and employment law. In general, the ...

and an endorsement of

antifeminist Antifeminism or anti-feminism is opposition to feminism. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, antifeminists opposed particular policy proposals for women's rights, such as women's suffrage, the right to vote, Female education, educat ...

movements. Multiple authors regarded the disputes as a successor to the ongoing

culture war A culture war is a form of cultural conflict (metaphorical " war") between different social groups who struggle to politically impose their own ideology (moral beliefs, humane virtues, and religious practices) upon mainstream society, or upon ...

against

feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

in the South Korean

video game industry The video game industry is the tertiary industry, tertiary and quaternary industry, quaternary sectors of the entertainment industry that specialize in the video game development, development, marketing, distribution (marketing), distribution, ...

since 2016. Yu Seonhui from the ''

Kyunghyang Shinmun The ''Kyunghyang Shinmun'' () is a major daily newspaper published in South Korea. It is based in Seoul. The name literally means '' Urbi et Orbi Daily News''. Columnist Lee Seunghan, writing for ''The Hankyoreh'', commented that the artist should not be held responsible for the retweets, which were made and deleted before she joined the company. He referred to the incident as a "feminist

witch hunt A witch hunt, or a witch purge, is a search for people who have been labeled witches or a search for evidence of witchcraft. Practicing evil spells or Incantation, incantations was proscribed and punishable in early human civilizations in the ...

". Some say company policy advocated ''ex post facto'' criminalization prohibited by the

Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organization or other type of entity, and commonly determines how that entity is to be governed. When these pri ...

. ''Sisain''s Jo Gyeongsuk claimed that Project Moon indirectly enabled harassment towards the artist, and later blamed the artist for it. Jo compared Project Moon and the protesters to the dystopian world of ''Limbus Company''. Project Moon has stated it would take legal actions against those that spread information unfavorable to the company's stance, in order to protect its employees. In November 2023, Project Moon pressed charges against the labour activists that condemned the company, arguing they have committed an act of

defamation Defamation is a communication that injures a third party's reputation and causes a legally redressable injury. The precise legal definition of defamation varies from country to country. It is not necessarily restricted to making assertions ...

and

tortious interference Tortious interference, also known as intentional interference with contractual relations, in the common law of torts, occurs when one person intentionally damages someone else's contractual or business relationships with a third party, causing ...

. The police dismissed the criminal proceeding on 19 July 2024, on the basis that the defendants were found not guilty because their statement of the artist leaving the company after the controversy is not

misinformation Misinformation is incorrect or misleading information. Misinformation and disinformation are not interchangeable terms: misinformation can exist with or without specific malicious intent, whereas disinformation is distinct in that the information ...

Works

References

External links

* {{Project Moon Video game companies established in 2016 Video game development companies