A mobile studio made its colleague a DLC character to secretly pay for their prosthetic arm

videogameschronicle.com:

A Russian mobile game studio turned one of their colleagues into a DLC character so they could help pay for a prosthetic arm following an accident.

Andrey Kvasov was working for Pixonic in an IT support role when, in November 2019, he was involved in a huge crash on holiday in the Dominican Republic, in which a lorry crashed into a tourist bus.

Andrey lost his arm in the crash, as well as a finger on his other hand and an ear. Despite all this, he returned to work just four months later, at which point he was asked if he wanted to appear in the studio’s flagship mobile game, War Robots.

“Ever since I was a child, I dreamed of becoming a character in a computer game,” Andrey wrote in a recent post on Russian forum Pikabu.

“So when, on my first day in the office after the accident, my colleague Karina came up to me and said: “Listen, Andrey, don’t you want to be a pilot? We can rethink your story and somehow put it into the game?” I didn’t even consider refusing.

Andrey’s character was added as a pilot in the game in summer 2021. The details of his accident weren’t shared with the game’s community, and his character’s profile simply said: “Dedicated to Andrey Kvasov. Andrey, you are a cool pro who is a pleasure to work with.

“Faced with something that would break many, you did not just stay strong, but maintained a positive attitude and inspired us all.”

The character had a robotic arm, and a backstory which was designed to show that people could still function in the workplace even after their abilities had been altered.

“In the story, I am a veteran of the DSC faction who went through many battles,” Andrey explained. “In one of the battles I covered a friend and almost died. I was rescued by my comrades but lost an arm. Despite