# Project Moon

Project Moon (Korean: 프로젝트문) is a South Korean video game developer headquartered in Suwon. Founded in 2016, it developed works such as Lobotomy Corporation, Library of Ruina, and Limbus Company.

## History

Project Moon was founded in November 2016, headquartered in Gwanggyo New Town in Suwon. 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 like The Cabin in the Woods and SCP Foundation. The development cost had been funded through a crowdfunding campaign launched on Tumblbug in 2015. The finalized project, Lobotomy Corporation, entered early access on December 17, 2016, and was released in April 2018.
The developer's next game was Library of Ruina, first released on 28 May 2020 as an early access title and officially published for Microsoft Windows and Xbox One 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 ₩2,000,000,000 in Project Moon as a proposition of Gyeonggi Content Agency's investment fund established in 2017. The developer participated in Tokyo Game Show since 2022; it spoke in an interview that it desired to focus on expansion to other businesses like publishing of literatures. The developer released a free-to-play game Limbus Company for Windows, iOS 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 retweets of topics such as a protest against molka crimes and abolishment of the abortion law, some of which they claimed had derogatory insults toward men. They argued these are a proof that the artist sided with radical feminist associations, such as a defunct Megalia. There were review bombing 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 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 and an endorsement of antifeminist movements. Multiple authors regarded the disputes as a successor to the ongoing culture war against feminism in the South Korean video game industry since 2016. Yu Seonhui from the Kyunghyang Shinmun regarded the Project Moon case as an example of the Korean industry disproportionately prioritizing male players at the expense of female ones. Yu also reported several other cases where video game companies scrutinized female developers' social media and rebuked them over it. 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", and an abnormality where a company policy advocated ex post facto criminalization prohibited by the Constitution. 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 and tortious interference. 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.

## Works

| Year | Title | Platform(s) | Notes |
| 2018 | Lobotomy Corporation | Windows | Early access in 2016 |
| 2021 | Library of Ruina | Windows, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch | PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch versions published by Arc System Works |
| 2023 | Limbus Company | Windows, iOS, Android | |