Neople Employees Strike Over Bonus Cuts Despite Record Revenue from DNF Mobile

DNF Mobile (Credit: Neople)

Neople, the Nexon Korea-owned studio behind Dungeon Fighter Online and First Berserker: Khazan, has been dealing with a company-wide strike since the end of June.

It kicked off with a three-day general walkout on June 26, and now various departments are continuing the strike in rotation — a detail first reported by South Korean outlet ThisIsGame.

You’d think a studio with one of the highest-grossing IPs of all time — Dungeon Fighter Online has pulled in around $22 billion in lifetime revenue — would have some pretty happy employees. But that’s not quite the case. Despite the massive success, staff at Neople are speaking out about unfair pay and cuts to their annual incentive bonuses.

According to ChosunBiz, the spark behind the strike was a big reduction in the annual “GI” incentive — a bonus that’s tied to the performance of newly released games. In 2024, Neople actually posted record-high revenue of about $951 million, thanks largely to Dungeon Fighter Mobile launching in China. Still, the GI bonuses handed out this year were only about two-thirds of what employees got last year. Management claims the delay in the game’s Chinese launch caused this drop, even though the final release went quite well.

That didn’t sit well with workers. On top of the bonus cuts, Neople’s union says the studio racks up more overtime than any other Nexon Korea subsidiary, and burnout is becoming a serious issue. All in all, they estimate that recent changes have cost employees around 80 billion won — roughly $58 million — in reduced compensation.

In response, Neople management says its bonus system is performance-based, not a simple profit-sharing model. They say teams were already rewarded throughout development via “milestone incentives,” and that non-executive employees received bonuses equal to about 15% of the company’s 2024 operating profit.

A company spokesperson shared, “Equal distribution of rewards is not compatible with the nature of our industry. However, we are exploring ways to enhance transparency in the bonus system and ensure long-term, sustainable growth with our employees.”

Interestingly, this is believed to be the first official labor strike in South Korea’s gaming industry, highlighting growing tensions between developers and publishers in an era of skyrocketing revenues but widening pay gaps.