It should be against the fucking law to skip out on paying employees (period), especially during the holidays.

It should be illegal -- and of course it is... Red5 is in California, so the rules for wage claims are spelled out here

That said, as somebody who has watched people go through this exact process for unpaid vacation after being laid off by a now defunct game company I won't name, simply demanding money from a company doesn't mean you'll ever see a dime when the employer is heading into bankruptcy.

There's also the possibility that some of these people feel locked into a bad situation because they haven't found other work and they're trying to ride out the storm until things work again--that was me about 13 years ago when some contract job paid up 10 months late. It's usually junior people who feel the crunch, and it's tough to burn the bridge with the people you work for when you can't find something else.

Keep in mind that Red5 is the company that allegedly spent millions of dollars on a gaming tour bus that never worked and a filming studio that mostly produced a few live streams. It isn't shocking that it's having financial difficulties now after digging that hole, and I wouldn't have touched a job application there with a ten meter pole; that said, sometimes people have limited options and I hope everyone affected can recover quickly.