The news just keeps getting worse for web3 game platform Gala Games. Most recently Dutch game developer Gamedia has shared its story on working with the company.
In an official statement from Gamedia, which is the developer of tank brawler Spider Tanks and other titles, the team reveals a deteriorating partnership tainted by unfulfilled promises, failed revenue payments, unwillingness to cooperate, and bullying.
The initial collaboration began in early 2021, when the web3 games industry was green and Gala was seen as one of the most promising platforms in the space. Gala offered Gamedia funding, promotion, and publishing support for PC brawler Spider Tanks, while Gamedia would provide development milestones. However, fairly soon Gamedia grew concerned over Gala’s unfulfilled marketing commitments and shifting priorities.
While Gamedia “took up responsibilities like Spider Fridays, making trailers or organising events to compensate for Gala Games’ lack of resources for marketing and community engagement, Gala Games aggressively expanded into unrelated industries like film and music, spending millions on fruitless celebrity partnerships, jets, and real estate,” it states.
Continuing to experience delays in required features, support, and revenue payments, Gamedia says it made numerous attempts to address its concerns with Gala, who remained unresponsive and showed no willingness to realign and move ahead in a sustainable way.
Then by 2023, Gala announced its token fork and burn to introduce a reissued Gala v2 token. With this Gamedia says its “publisher responsibilities – such as user acquisition for Spider Tanks – were suddenly gated behind an “eat what you kill” principle”, where Spider Tanks players ended up on the losing side, being held “responsible for coughing up again what they had already contributed”.
This led Gamedia to withdraw from further investment into the game, citing Gala’s alleged mismanagement and attempts to profit from their IP. To this, Gala has responded with legal action, public defamation, and efforts to acquire their IP.
As Gamedia puts it: “Since then, Gala Games has publicly defamed us in an attempt to shift blame for their shortcomings. In their efforts to eliminate us, they have resorted to legal action and sought to unjustly take our intellectual property to further their own agenda. They have tried to portray us as opportunistic, greedy, and evil—a mere projection of their own behaviour”.
However Gala’s behaviour hasn’t just impacted Gamedia and its Spider Tanks community. The developer testifies to a pattern that’s affected multiple partners and internal teams. Other third-party developers are reportedly involved in legal disputes with Gala, while Get Plucked developer VOX is facing termination and accusations of lying, and the Mirandus team – once Gala’s signature game – was accused of being noncooperative and slow, and eventually fired.
Moreover, Gamedia claims that “all of Gala Games’ co-founders, many shareholders and many employees have been fired, bullied away, or sued”, with Gala said to be justifying its actions as being “for the greater good”.
The news seems to follow a similar pattern of activity. For example, Gala justified its 2023 token fork and burn as a way to “enhance burn mechanisms, security enhancements, and future upgradeability”. Later it transpired it was done in light of the ongoing lawsuit between Gala co-founders Eric Schiermeyer and Wright Thurston, to ensure the tokens Thurston was alleged to have stolen would be worthless.
In addition, last week it was revealed that Gala’s president of blockchain Jason Brink had formally left the company, taking with him a group of employees, to set up a new entity reportedly to support Gala from the outside, although in the light of these allegations a move which seems more like leaving a sinking ship.
A day later, Gala was hit by a $240 million exploit, by a hacker who later returned the funds, something that has only sparked more questions about the company’s structure.
