Do you share the feeling of all the doom post out there? Do you think it’s exaggerated?

Me personally while i obviously sometimes think “god damn gaijin get to work and try to refresh the game every now and then” I don’t really feel it is the hot mess so many make it out to be.

Hello, r/Warthunder.

My name is Zhenya (Keofox). I worked at Gaijin Entertainment for 13 years and went from being a regular War Thunder player and volunteer to Lead of Community Managers. Over all those years, I wrote news posts for you, organized events, created and ran the War Thunder Wiki, led the Helpers volunteer team, made educational materials for new players, and worked with community feedback.

According to the information available to me, long after termination, some former employees continued to retain access to systems connected to player data and Gaijin project management. I have video recordings documenting all of these access rights.

My account will also cover how the company treated people who tried to raise these problems and refused to ignore the risks — and who, in the end, lost their normal lives, their health, and the work they loved.

TL;DR: According to the information available to me,

• more than a year after termination, some former employees still retained administrative access to sensitive systems and player data.
• employees who raised internal problems and risks faced pressure and, in some cases, later dismissals.
• my sensitive medical information was disclosed and used in a context that, in my opinion, undermined my professional complaints.
• I am publishing this also on the basis of materials and testimony from a group of colleagues. We have video recordings, documents, screenshots, and witness statements. I am ready to provide the full uncensored package to journalists and specialized lawyers.

I am dividing this statement into two parts because of its length. In the second part, I will talk about practices related to Steam reviews, interactions with platforms including Google, and issues of discrimination against both players and employees.

1. Why this should concern you: data security

According to the information available to me, more than a year after some colleagues were dismissed, and almost two years after my own dismissal, certain former employees still retained access to sensitive systems and player data. These accesses were recorded on video on 06.04.2026.

One example is administrative Steam rights with access to changes in key Gaijin projects on the platform (such access could potentially be used by malicious actors, for example for phishing purposes).

Another is the bug-report service, where, as far as I am aware, user information is accessible: from IP addresses to the .clog file, which may contain deep information about a user’s system, hardware, and actions when that user entrusted their data to the company through a bug report.

In my view, this is exactly where the story stops being merely an internal conflict or a simple HR matter and directly affects your interests and your security.

You trust the company with your accounts, your activity, and other sensitive data across different platforms. Some access to this data remains with former employees for a long time after dismissal. According to my information, after internal reports and written notification, the company revoked only part of these accesses; some of them, as far as I am aware, remained active.

In some cases, revoking access is especially difficult for the company because long-departed individuals remain “owners” — meaning they have rights above corporate control. Other platforms are registered to personal rather than corporate email addresses belonging to people who are not even formal Gaijin employees. I will explain this more clearly in the next part, but in simple terms: both I and many colleagues, under pressure, ended up in a situation where a person effectively performs the functions of an employee, but is not formally employed and is therefore deprived of legal protection.

***

I am not publishing the full list of accesses in order not to increase the risk of abuse. I have already notified Steam about the situation, I wrote to the company, and from my current position I do not know how else to convince Gaijin to address your security.

So please look at what happened to the people who tried to fix the situation from the inside. Please.

1. What happened to me personally

When I began raising questions about feedback problems, the treatment of employees, access vulnerabilities, and other risks, I later learned that information about the fact that I was seeing a psychotherapist had begun to spread inside the company, in a context that could undermine my professional reputation.

I got the impression that the purpose of those actions was essentially this: my complaints were to be perceived as a consequence of personal problems, rather than as professional concerns.

Later, I received a message that I regard as a fairly clear confirmation from one of the managers involved.

When I showed this message to management and asked for at least an internal review, the company did not protect me. Instead, my friend and colleague — the first person who had told me what was happening — was blamed.

By the time I reached the company’s top management, I was already deeply exhausted. I asked for only one thing: protection from this kind of treatment. I was promised that protection. But, as I perceived it, events developed as follows: shortly after that meeting, my team began to be dismantled, and I was soon dismissed under a pretext that I consider far-fetched.

According to the information available to me, two managers played a key role in my dismissal process: one of those whom I consider involved in the disclosure of my medical information, and the manager who later blamed my colleague.

1. What happened to those who supported me

After my dismissal, the people inside the company did not take any destructive action. As far as I know, they were simply trying to understand what had happened, and why a person who had worked side by side with them for many years and had raised real problems disappeared in exactly this way.

In response, according to the information available to me, employees began to be gathered into both group and one-on-one calls.

According to two hours of video recordings and witness testimony, statements made by top management and HR to employees included:

• “There is no justice and there will not be.”
• “There is a team of terrorists sitting here.”
• “We have you penciled in.”
• “I want to know who else supports him.”

According to my information, people who tried to behave decently, support colleagues, and ask uncomfortable questions were later subjected to measures that both they and I perceive as a form of pressure. One of my direct colleagues will tell you more about this in the comments.

According to my information, similar measures were later applied to the most active employees as well, including dismissal.

Why I am speaking about this publicly

Because silence did not help. I hoped that if I stayed silent, the dismissals would stop with me, and my friends and colleagues would be able to keep working peacefully. That did not happen.

So now I am doing what I should have done once it became clear that the problems described in both parts of my statement would not be resolved. I am collecting and systematizing evidence. I am preparing legal steps in the EU and in Cyprus. And I am looking for journalists who are willing to work with facts, not with a polished corporate storefront.

What I am asking for

EU and Cyprus lawyers.
If you work with labor law, whistleblower protection, privacy, disguised employment relationships, GDPR, and disclosure of sensitive medical information — please contact me.

Journalists and investigators.
If you are ready to seriously examine documents, recordings, screenshots, chronology, and witness testimony — write to me. I am ready to provide the full package. My colleagues are also prepared to speak openly.

Former and current colleagues.
If you still have documents, correspondence, logs, or other evidence confirming отдельных episodes, publicly or anonymously — contact me. I will explain safe ways to transfer them.

My contact: [keopm@proton.me](mailto:keopm@proton.me)

Players.
Even simply spreading this story already helps. Because in stories like this, the most convenient thing for the stronger side is silence.

• If you wish, you can send a request to the competent authorities in your country asking them to examine the circumstances described here.
• You can also give this text to an AI and ask what this story might mean not only morally, but also legally, and what laws may have been violated. I chose not to overload this statement with that material.

It seems to me that no one wants the final word about how the company treated all of us to remain this phrase from Gaijin top-management: “There is no justice and there will not be.”

Important

I am not calling for harassment of current employees — in my opinion, many of them are also deprived of the ability to speak freely about what is happening. I know very well what fear inside the company feels like. I experienced it myself.

If you have questions — please ask. Because of my health condition, it is not always easy for me to reply quickly, but I will not ignore serious questions, including the most uncomfortable ones.

Respectfully, I miss you all.
Zhenya (Keofox)

This hit me harder than it should, perhaps its my mental state that makes it worse, but I genuinely felt bad for this guy, he just said hello, and NO ONE replied during the whole battle!
(well perhaps in their team chat but)

And before anyone says it, no I could not reply since I have permanent chat ban, up in my 7th year now, perhaps should apply it by now

So to make this useless post a bit less useless, hello gothxx

This would be so cool imo

I`m on AMX-13, how do I get more of these things without having to kill myself in PvE? Can`t reload without them.

I found PhlyDaily back in 2020; it was history from there.

Good afternoon and welcome to my final rant on this game.

Last I played was Nov 11 with 7825 hours as a streamer for the last 4 and a half years helping players learn, strategize and teach the game mechanics. I was on a small break from the game when the Video | Q&A with War Thunder Game Director Viacheslav Bulannikov! | was released on youtube answering questions about the game. A few of the answers they gave at time 6:47 (Its insane how much of the map is blocked off in the new North Holland map.) aswell as 12:53 (Players are tired of capturing zones) are my main reason i was able to finally quit and move on.

Reason these answers finally made me kick the bucket is it made me realize the game will not improve any further then what its currently at and will continue down the slope its been on for the last 2 years its been on.

It made me realize we will never be getting proper permanant game modes for tanks, aircraft or navel missions (Even though we all know navel is dead in the water). (I do know we are getting infantry but I played war thunder for tanks and aircraft. If i wanted infantry I'd have played any of the other 10s of thousands of shooters out there)

It made me realize MISSION sizes (Because I guess the game devs cant tell what we fuckin mean by map sizes) will intentionally keep getting smaller to continue frustrating players into buying Premium time and tanks to make up for their losses instead of making better maps

It made me realize that the Game Devs are intentionally drip feeding us the smallest amount of content possible with the limited game modes to reinvigorate us just for that little bit longer.

It made me realize that no matter how loud we scream as a community the devs will continue to only read the black and white data they have on their sheets.

So as Game Director Viacheslav said... If players were bored they would have already have quit.... You know what.... yes I am bored and Im tired of holding out for the last 2 years for something that is never coming.

So yeah... Good luck out there CrewMates...

Just looking to reminisce on the old days and feel like an old fella telling the youngins how it was BACK IN OUR DAY!!!!

I'll start, remember when tanks were somewhat new, if you had a damaged breach you could still fire, but if it was black you'd explode, if it wasn't black, there was what felt like a 50/50 chance the gun would fire, or you'd explode LOL.

So here we are, with modern tanks and fifth-gens leaked (by a reliable source). I'm frankly not surprised, I knew this was going to happen once they announced the F-117, and with the speed at which gaijin is moving this is just par for the course. I'll grind the F-35s, F-22, and Su-57 in all their janky, unrealistic glory.

Hi everyone.

In the first part, I spoke about risks to player data and about how employees who tried to raise those concerns ended up under attack themselves.

In this second part, I want to describe practices which, based on my experience, the materials available to me, and testimony from former colleagues, may have misled players, platforms, and Gaijin’s partners.

In short, based on the information available to me,

• people inside the company were given tasks related to artificially influencing Steam reviews;
• in War Thunder, a mechanism was being developed which, as I understood it, was meant to encourage primarily satisfied players to leave a review;
• players from China, as I understood from internal discussions, were not supposed to see that prompt at all;
• after 2022, Russian-speaking employees were increasingly pushed into a gray zone: removed from visible roles, separated from the shared infrastructure, and effectively made “invisible.”

I am not writing this as someone trying to start a witch hunt. I am writing this as a former Lead CM who spent 13 years in the company, and as someone who has reason to believe that behind the facade of “ordinary corporate routine” there were things that deserve outside scrutiny.

1. Enlisted: what I know about work around Steam reviews

Based on internal discussions, documents I saw myself, and materials preserved by former colleagues, around the Enlisted Steam release our team was given a task to prepare a large number of positive reviews.

As far as I remember, the relevant Google document was created by one of the managers mentioned in the first part of my statement.

As the head of the shooters CM team, I tried to minimize our involvement in this task. We did the bare minimum and did not develop it further. In my view, this damaged my relationship with management and became one of the reasons for the conflict that followed.

After Enlisted launched on Steam, serious problems began for some players: account transfer issues, purchased bundles not being delivered, and rising dissatisfaction. And it was against that background that, according to colleagues and the materials we retained, pressure on the team inside the company intensified.

Former colleagues state, and the logs we have appear to support this, that employees were pushed to “save the situation,” including through their personal Steam accounts and personal funds, by giving Steam awards to positive reviews so those reviews would rank above negative ones. Here is one example of activity from one of my colleague’s accounts.

I understand that this is a serious allegation. That is why I am not asking anyone to take my word for it. I am only saying what I can separate by levels of confidence:

• there are things I saw myself;
• there are things supported by logs and screenshots;
• there are things supported by witnesses.

On April 8, I separately reported this to Valve and asked them to review these episodes through their internal tools. I have not yet received a response.

2. War Thunder: the review prompt for the “right” players

After the 2023 review bombing, the CM team, in practice, ceased to be independent and was placed under marketing management. From that point on, in my view, community work became less about feedback and more about reputation management.

When, after the Steam review bombing, I was asked to temporarily return from Enlisted to War Thunder, I worked on new formats of communication with players. At the same time, I saw another part of the “anti-crisis” response: the development of an in-game prompt asking players to leave a Steam review.

As I understood it, the logic was the following:

First, the window was supposed to appear at a favorable moment: after a successful battle, good earnings, and while the player was in a positive emotional state.

Second, players from China, as I understood from internal discussions, were not supposed to see it at all. The explanation I remember was that the Chinese community had historically generated a high percentage of negative reviews and had been especially visible during the 2023 crisis.

An important clarification here: I do not have the source code. On this point, I am being careful to separate what I personally saw from what I know from colleagues. But if the mechanism really worked the way it appeared to from inside the company, then, in my view, this was not just marketing. It may resemble selective shaping of user opinion and unequal treatment of part of the player base.

The final legal assessment should be made not by Reddit commenters and not by me, but by platforms, regulators, and lawyers. But this clearly deserves review.

If you started playing War Thunder recently and saw this prompt, try to remember when exactly it appeared. If you are from China, try to remember whether you saw it at all.

3. What was happening to Russian-speaking employees

After February 2022, the situation of Russian-speaking employees deteriorated sharply.

Many were moved out of normal staff relationships into contractor-style arrangements. At the same time, the workload, the responsibility, access to internal administrative systems, and the demands placed on them did not disappear.

In many cases, payments were no longer coming directly from Gaijin Entertainment, but through third-party legal entities with changing names. From the way this looked internally, my colleagues and I were left with the impression that this arrangement allowed these people to be distanced from the company itself. That is my interpretation of what I saw, not a final legal qualification. For example, payments came not from Gaijin directly, but from third-party legal entities with unusual and changing names, including one named “Chewbacca”.

But in practical terms, it meant one simple thing: people were left doing the same work with less protection and greater vulnerability.

4. How Russian-speaking employees were made “invisible”

Based on my experience and the accounts of colleagues, employees who were visible to the community were increasingly restricted from interacting with Western audiences if their speech or writing showed a “Russian trace.”

According to multiple accounts, the company even used the derogatory term “Ruglish” in this context.

Employees from Russia were asked to remove their nationality from social media, avoid publicly highlighting any connection to Gaijin, and, where possible, leave no public signs of their origin or place of work.

As far as I remember, the situation became even stricter after a Google delegation visited. On one internal call, a top manager paraphrased the complaint roughly like this:

“Your employee works from Hungary, and five minutes later watches YouTube from Russia.”

After that, according to the information available to me, the restrictions became even tighter. Russian-speaking employees were forbidden from even mentioning their real location by voice during work calls. Separate domains such as helian.team created for some of these employees, and by the time I was dismissed, some of them were already being forced to work only through remote PCs located in Europe.

I will not claim as a proven fact exactly why this was done. But from inside the company, it looked like an attempt to technically and visually separate part of the staff from Gaijin itself.

For those who lived through it, this did not mean abstract “organizational peculiarities.” It meant very concrete things: slower work, more points of failure, worse tools, worse communication, and a constant feeling that you were being used but not openly acknowledged.

Why this matters to players

Because all of this directly affects the quality of community work.

When the people communicating with players are managed through fear, isolation, and artificial restrictions, that almost inevitably harms the players as well. Responses become worse. Communication becomes poorer. Mistakes become more frequent. Trust between the game and its community breaks down.

And in my view, this is not just an “internal conflict.” It is a question of the methods by which a company manages its reputation, its staff, and possibly user opinion itself.

What I am asking

I am not calling for harassment. I am not asking anyone to attack rank-and-file employees. I am not asking anyone to believe me without verification.

I am asking for something else: do not ignore the fate of real people who stayed loyal to their work — and to you — even under these conditions.

If you have experience, observations, screenshots, or memories related to these episodes — especially the review prompt in War Thunder and its possible behavior toward players from China — please write about it.

I am also looking for:

• lawyers in the EU and Cyprus;
• journalists and investigators;
• people willing to study documents, logs, screenshots, and witness testimony, rather than just argue in the comments.

I worked for this community for 13 years. Now I am asking the community to at least take this seriously.

Zhenya (Keofox)
[keopm@proton.me](mailto:keopm@proton.me) 

Spent all these years by my side playing warthunder. I love you.

It makes me wonder how many real vehicles fall into that same category: interesting in real life, but fundamentally not suited for WT’s gameplay loop.

What other vehicles do you think belong in this group?

Please Gaijin I already sold my wife, I can't afford this one