‘Deadrop’ Game Players Claim Refunds After Dr. Disrespect’s Studio Closes

Following the studio’s recent closure, disgruntled fans of the discontinued shooter game Deadrop have started claiming refunds for early access passes through their banks and credit card providers.

Players have mobilized in game studio Midnight Society’s abandoned Discord server to spread information on how to successfully chargeback their purchases.

Deadrop was the vertical extraction shooter developed by Midnight Society, co-founded by controversial streamer Dr. Disrespect—who was later kicked out of the company due to allegations of inappropriate conversations with minors.

The game spent almost two years in early access, after the studio initially sold Founders Access Pass NFTs on Ethereum scaling network Polygon. Following that initial sale, the studio later sold $25 Tower Key passes (which weren’t NFTs), and eventually Drivers Keys for $20-30 apiece, which would unlock future in-game items of varying rarities.

Once Midnight Society shut down at the end of January 2025, much of what users thought they’d spent money on was no longer going to be delivered.

For example, the Tower Key purchase promised a free battle pass available upon the launch of the game’s first official season, which is no longer going to happen, leading some buyers wanting a partial refund. And those that bought a Drivers Key claim to have never received the in-game items at all.

Pseudonymous gaming content creator JustAverageJay, simply known as Jay, shared receipts with Decrypt showing that he spent $449.80 on Deadrop Drivers Keys throughout October 2023, because he wanted to eventually flex the items in alongside his son, who also played Deadrop.

On top of this, Midnight Society pledged that legendary items, obtained through the Drivers Keys purchases, would later be tradable on its marketplace. As such, Jay said he piled up on them, anticipating that they’d be heavily sought after in the future—akin to what is happening with early access skins on the pre-mainnet black market for Off the Grid.

“What we paid for was never in the game. We never had access,” Jay told Decrypt. “So, they scammed us—took our money for products [that they] never had to give us because the game was never released.”

Jay isn’t alone in this, with a group of players gathering in the Midnight Society Discord to discuss how they can get a refund. Former Discord moderator, the pseudonymous Caramel, has taken the mantle and claims to have assisted 11 people so far in securing refunds. He said that this is done by contacting your bank and telling them the product was never delivered.

Caramel shared receipts of three bank reversals from Midnight Society totalling nearly $390 for Drivers Keys. He says that there are “many many more” in the works to get refunds.

“I don’t want the community that I helped build over the last 4 years to be out [of] hundreds, if not thousands of dollars,” Caramel said.

After popular streamer Dr. Disrespect, aka Guy Beahm, was dismissed from the game studio, players were unsure where the game would go—or if it could succeed without him.

Midnight Society co-founder and creative director Quinn DelHoyo told Decrypt in August 2024 that the game’s development hadn’t “skipped a beat,” and claimed that the “fully featured game” would release in fall 2025. This planned launch would have included the Season 0 battle pass that Tower Key buyers were anticipating.

Just over three months after terminating its relationship with Beahm, Midnight Society confirmed last September that “significant” layoffs took place, after the news spread via ex-employees’ social media accounts. But a leaner team wasn’t enough to save the studio, with Midnight Society officially shutting down four months later, leading to Deadrop being discontinued.

One player that asked to remain anonymous provided Decrypt with correspondence from American Express approving a $25 chargeback for a Tower Key, because Midnight Society did not respond to the bank’s queries on the case. This player admitted that they only anticipated a partial refund, but was happy to take the full $25.

Jay, on the other hand, is struggling with his refund due to paying via a local credit union rather than a big, established bank. At first, the union rejected his claim due to the transaction being more than 90 days old, pushing him to contact the merchant.

However, this is an avenue that many players had already gone down to no avail. It appears that no one is monitoring the Midnight Society accounts, with no response from any of their email addresses and the Discord chat largely running free of supervision.

Midnight Society did not respond to Decrypt’s request for comment, nor did former studio head Robert Bowling.

Jay called up his credit union to explain the situation further, adding the detail that others in the community had already secured successful refunds. Now, he claims, his credit union is on his side and is pursuing a way to refund his nearly $450.

“I’m very hopeful I’ll get my money back, but realize it’s a long shot—so I’m not holding my breath,” he told Decrypt. “I’m self-employed, so it’s a huge deal if I can get that money back. It would give me a little more breathing room financially.”

While Jay and others cross their fingers for a refund, users in the Discord continue to criticize Midnight Society and its founders. Chargebacks aside, users are outraged that the studio’s website says that its community events are still occurring every week, that merch is still buyable, and that the game’s NFTs are still tradable on OpenSea.

One wallet bought 13 Founders Passes on Monday, perhaps hoping for a second life for the now-shuttered game.

“Not offering money back when you can’t deliver on what it is that you offered initially—that’s a pretty cut-and-dried example of the wrong thing to do here,” former Midnight Society Discord moderator and community member Arctix told Decrypt. “They haven’t offered a solution, and transparently, I don’t have faith that they ever will.”

Edited by Andrew Hayward