Free Fire was once a well-known survival shooting game with an extremely large player base across many countries worldwide. Among them is the Vietnam server, one of the servers with a huge number of players. In the past, Free Fire was a source of pride for Vietnamese gaming when reached a billion-dollar revenue milestone worldwide.
However, Free Fire is also among the games that have received significant backlash from the community. From turning this survival shooting product into a more pay-to-win model to being condemned by players for its event practices… Not only that, Free Fire is also being condemned by players for its handling of prize money after the tournament ended. Specifically, this player reflected in a post from April 15 on a Free Fire community group as follows: “I was banned for 6 months after my team reached the top 18. (Anyone intending to become a professional player should read this) I posted in the group but it got deleted. I ask for a few shares from kind friends.
The tournament has been ongoing since December before Tết but I still haven’t seen the prize money sent, while other teams have received theirs from ages ago. 3 million *** is not much, but it tarnishes the reputation of a big, popular game that is poorly managed… promises come and go, from this month to the next…
The chat box created by Garena has 4 admins, 2 have left, and the other 2 only respond to *** messages. I thought it would be better, but it turns out to be a mess. They keep promoting this and that, but it all turns out to be nonsense *** After the tournament ended, they handed me this sign to make it look good… the chickens are almost rotting but the “money” is still nowhere to be seen.
I can’t hold it in anymore, only now I dare to speak out… if I don’t say anything, it will just stay quiet like this and never send it.
So tired of this!”
According to the images this player posted, it seems that this is the Spring 2020 Survival Arena tournament of Free Fire, with a prize value of 3,000,000 VND for the player’s team. Of course, in general, the process of organizing eSports tournaments in Vietnam often means that prize money rarely reaches players immediately, as it must go through certain mandatory procedures according to legal regulations and the policies of each publishing company.
However, according to these players’ reflections, other teams competing in this tournament have received their prize money. But this player’s team has not, even though the amount is not large. More notably, this player reported that their posts in the official Free Fire community group in Vietnam are frequently deleted and even they are blocked from this group entirely.
This story quickly garnered sympathy from many other players. However, it is important to note that this is still one-sided information. All the grievances mentioned above are reflections from one side of the player. Therefore, the information presented may not be entirely accurate. Thus, we still need to wait for an official response from Garena regarding this issue, at which point everything will be clarified.