Ex-Employees Reveal Alleged Workplace Abuse At Recently-Shut Indonesian Gaming Company
The animation studio has worked on games such as 'The Last of Us Part 1' and 'Final Fantasy VII Rebirth'.
Former employees of Brandoville Studios, a now-defunct gaming art studio based in Jakarta, Indonesia, are taking to social media to reveal the alleged abuse and exploitation they suffered at the company
Brandoville Studios, a Triple-A game animation outsourcing studio, prided itself in contributing works to renowned publishers of high-profile, high-budget games such as The Last of Us Part 1 and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.
However, weeks after its sudden unexplained closure in August, anonymous postings have emerged regarding the company's toxic working environment, especially centred around one manager, the chief executive officer's wife, Cherry Lai.
A former employee, Christa Sydney, has compiled a Google Drive filled with screenshots of internal messages revealing the abuse she and her colleagues suffered under the management of Lai
These incidents included:
- Verbal intimidation, indoctrination, and shaming of employees in the team's group chat
- Use of inappropriate language, profanities, and frequents threats to fire employees
- Denying employees of leave when sick or a family member has passed away
- Cutting employees' pay or demanding parts of their salary back as a form of punishment
- Encouraging employees to work overtime, including past midnight, weekends, and public holidays, without additional compensation
- Forcing employees to pay for their own courses, work trips, and tools
Christa also detailed her own experiences of alleged abuse from the moment she joined the company in 2019 to when she left in July 2024.
She highlighted many moments of manipulation and mistreatment, culminating to an incident where she had to slap herself 100 times and send proof of it to Lai through a video on WhatsApp.
The company was even called out in 2021 for its exploitative work conditions by investigative video game journalism YouTube channel, People Make Games
The channel interviewed former and then-employees of Brandoville Studios, as well as Malaysian company Lemon Sky Studios. It found how such gaming studios exploit their workers by encouraging them to work 70-hour weeks and not paying them overtime.
Many employees admitted to sleeping and living at the office to meet absurd deadlines.
"You have to do it or leave," said one former artist. "I worked OT almost everyday, between 10 and 30 hours per week."
A Brandoville representative admitted to the YouTuber that they do not pay their employees overtime as their resources are spent on these entry-level artists' training. The company also argued that the extra hours are voluntary and that the employees worked hard at their own pleasure.
According to the video, the employees were only paid between four and five million rupiah (RM1,100 to RM1,400).
The social media posts were written by former employees to warn aspiring artists in the gaming industry that the same leadership is purportedly opening a new company called Lailai Studios in Jakarta.
SAYS has reached out to Lailai Studios for comment and has yet to receive a reply.
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