The three claimed, however, that Krafton had betrayed them by firing them right before delaying Subnautica 2, a move they allege was designed to deliberately prevent its Early Access release, and avoid it selling well enough to trigger a $250 million bonus for the development team.
No wonder the idiot tried to get out of it what a stupid thing to agree to. Perhaps a change in management might be a good idea, the current CEO appears to be throwing good money after bad.
The CEO of Krafton was the one who signed the deal. He definitely had buyers remorse which is why he ended up ignoring his lawyers and turning to ChatGPT for advice on how to delay the release of Subnautica 2 and avoid the payout.
Personally - I’m not buying the game. Krafton still owns the studio, and they’ve done nothing to make the situation better. Court mandated remediations aside, krafton tried to abuse these devs and steal what they were owed. They’re still working under a hostile parent company and likely will become a skeleton crew in no time.
Best case scenario unknown worlds can use the money to split themselves into a new studio.
Earlier this year, publisher Krafton was accused of ignoring a court order by announcing to staff that the game was releasing in May, despite such a decision seemingly being the responsibility of the newly reinstated CEO Ted Gill.
Gill is the first person named as part of “the three”.
I suppose that if you’re another development studio working with Krafton, like InZOI, you’re probably looking with a lot of suspicion at every move from your publisher now.
Krafton isn’t just publishing Inzoi, it founded the entire studio. If you work there you work for Krafton. And honestly it shows in the sloppy product.
I’m not seeing any evidence of that. I looked it up and all I could find was that CEO was reinstated. Do you have a link by any chance? If the original dev team is still there I’d want to support them, if not then I’ll just pirate it
The only ones fired were the 3 co-founders. They were the ones who were set to receive the largest amount of the bonus (they had promised to put most of that back into the company and to share with the development team). The judge ordered that only one of them be brought back and for the deadline on the $250million to be extended by 9 months.
I sure haven’t, and won’t. If that’s what their leadership wants, I won’t touch it with a 10 foot pole. There are many other games, I don’t need to play this particular one that badly.
Kinda shitty for the site to phrase this as an allegation; it is exactly what the court found occurred, so there’s no risk of misstating or libel exposure.
Disgusting if true.
What do you mean if true? They went to court and produced the ChatGPT logs that Krafton CEO used to strategize how to get out of paying the bonus.
And people buy it in record numbers anyway? 😬
Yeah, the judge reversed the layoffs and reinstated the Unknown Worlds team, and now they’ll get the bonus. But yes very awkward all around.
Something fair and good happening in America? Count your blessings…
OK I didn’t see the article mention that. Only that they leaders were fired, and everybody lost the bonus.
I guess it ended OK then?
The judge extended the deadline on the bonus by 9 months (to September).
If Subnautica earns $69.8million in revenue by then, Krafton will need to pay up the full $250million to the team.
https://gamerant.com/subnautica-2-250-million-bonus/
Considering it sold 2 million copies in 12 hours, at $30 each, I’m assuming they’re very close to reaching that (if they haven’t already).
70 Million in revenue (not profit) for a 250 Million bonus … all else aside, was the executive who signed that high on coke?
No wonder the idiot tried to get out of it what a stupid thing to agree to. Perhaps a change in management might be a good idea, the current CEO appears to be throwing good money after bad.
That’s correct, revenue, not profit.
The CEO of Krafton was the one who signed the deal. He definitely had buyers remorse which is why he ended up ignoring his lawyers and turning to ChatGPT for advice on how to delay the release of Subnautica 2 and avoid the payout.
Personally - I’m not buying the game. Krafton still owns the studio, and they’ve done nothing to make the situation better. Court mandated remediations aside, krafton tried to abuse these devs and steal what they were owed. They’re still working under a hostile parent company and likely will become a skeleton crew in no time.
Best case scenario unknown worlds can use the money to split themselves into a new studio.
It’s sad the the gaming industry so often turn toxic. 😒
the game has to sell at least 3M copies for the devs to get the $250M tho
AFAIK this is not true. The bonus is just capped. But every dollar spent is increasing their bonus until they have sold 3M copies.
it also has a bottom. it only triggers when revenue exceeds $69.8 million, so about 2.3 million copies
It does mention:
Gill is the first person named as part of “the three”.
I suppose that if you’re another development studio working with Krafton, like InZOI, you’re probably looking with a lot of suspicion at every move from your publisher now.
Krafton isn’t just publishing Inzoi, it founded the entire studio. If you work there you work for Krafton. And honestly it shows in the sloppy product.
I’m not seeing any evidence of that. I looked it up and all I could find was that CEO was reinstated. Do you have a link by any chance? If the original dev team is still there I’d want to support them, if not then I’ll just pirate it
The only ones fired were the 3 co-founders. They were the ones who were set to receive the largest amount of the bonus (they had promised to put most of that back into the company and to share with the development team). The judge ordered that only one of them be brought back and for the deadline on the $250million to be extended by 9 months.
https://www.ign.com/articles/judge-slams-subnautica-2-publisher-krafton-in-victory-for-fired-workers-orders-company-reinstate-boss-and-extend-250-million-bonus
I sure haven’t, and won’t. If that’s what their leadership wants, I won’t touch it with a 10 foot pole. There are many other games, I don’t need to play this particular one that badly.
Do we know how they got their hands on those chatgpt chat logs?
OpenAI produces them once the laywers subpoena them.
I assume the judge told openai to hand it over?
Kinda shitty for the site to phrase this as an allegation; it is exactly what the court found occurred, so there’s no risk of misstating or libel exposure.
Yes, if you are unfamiliar with the situation, like I was, it isn’t 100% clear IMO.