Former Gaijin Entertainment Employee: The Company is in Disarray, and Fired Developers Retain Access to Internal Systems for Years
Former Gaijin Entertainment Community Manager Yevgeny Kononenko (also known as Keofox) wrote two lengthy posts on Reddit criticizing the authors of War Thunder. He alleged issues with data security within the company, discrimination against Russian-speaking employees, and manipulation of reviews on Steam.
War Thunder
Below are the key points.
- Kononenko recalls that he left Gaijin Entertainment in the summer of 2024 after nearly 13 years of service—this was not his decision. Shortly before his dismissal, he began raising issues within the company during internal discussions, after which management allegedly damaged his reputation. Rumors circulated among the staff that Kononenko was seeing a psychotherapist and that his condition was affecting his work.
- According to the former community manager, company leaders generally dislike those who ask inconvenient questions.
- One of the problems identified by Kononenko is that laid-off employees may retain administrative rights on Steam for years, as well as access to bug-reporting services. Part of this is because developers sometimes use personal, rather than corporate, email for system access.
- After February 2022, Kononenko claims, the situation for Russian-speaking employees at Gaijin Entertainment worsened significantly. This was due to the company's desire to distance itself as much as possible from Russia. Specifically, they removed many employees from the staff, hiring them as contractors instead, even though their duties remained the same. Russians were forced to work remotely from computers located in Europe, forbidden from even mentioning their real location during work calls, and largely isolated from the rest of the company's infrastructure. This impacted the pace of work and the quality of games.
- It is also reported that Gaijin Entertainment repeatedly artificially inflated its games' ratings on Steam. For example, in 2024, they released the shooter Enlisted not too successfully on the platform. To "save the situation," developers were encouraged to use their personal accounts (and funds) to award Steam points to authors of positive reviews.
- Another example of review manipulation, cited by Kononenko, relates to War Thunder. At one point, the game included a pop-up notification asking players to write a review on Steam, which only appeared in presumably positive situations—after a player's victory in a match, receiving a good prize, and so on. Furthermore, the notification was configured so that gamers from China, typically more critical and prone to mass negative reviews, would not see it.
Kononenko admitted that he initially did not intend to publicly disclose the situation at Gaijin Entertainment but later realized that silence would not solve the problems. He now plans to consult with lawyers.
Gaijin Entertainment itself did not comment on the words of its former employee.