All the money that’s supposed to be spent fighting pedophiles are actually spent on SLAPP suits against youtubers exposing the pedophile developers on their payroll
Jill Braff, head of ZeniMax studios, said in the town hall that she hoped the reorganization would allow the division, which also develops Fallout and Doom, to put more focus on fewer projects. “It’s hard to support nine studios all across the world with a lean central team with an ever-growing plate of things to do,”
Why gobble up so many studios to consolidate into a gaming megacorp, then get gobbled up yourself by Microsoft? What’s the purpose of acquiring so many studios and holding onto so much IP if you can’t handle them?
That was my take too. “We’re spread too thin”… Then why the fuck did you buy up all these companies? Sure sounds like they just gobbled up all the good IP to hoard like a dragon on its pile of gold. Or to make sure those IPs don’t make it to Sony exclusives, wish the FTC would hang them by the balls since they’ve basically done opposite of what they promised during the mergers.
Because CEOs are fucking idiots. So many companies do this shit, it’s not just the gaming side. A company starts to grow and instead of keeping with an organic growth they buy companies over and over.
The ousted leadership of video-game developer Unknown Worlds said parent company Krafton Inc. fired them after the executives presented the company with upbeat revenue projections that would have triggered most, if not all, of a $250 million bonus payment, according to a copy of their lawsuit which was unsealed Wednesday.
Former Unknown Worlds Chief Executive Officer Ted Gill and founders Charlie Cleveland and Max McGuire said Krafton sought to delay the release of their new game, Subnautica 2, after realizing they would have to pay that large a sum, according to their complaint. The South Korean game publisher offered the executives a lower payout before terminating their employment earlier this month, the lawsuit alleges.
Gill, Cleveland and McGuire filed a lawsuit for breach of contract on July 10. A representative for Krafton declined to comment on the suit. In a statement to press last week, Krafton said the three studio leaders had “abandoned the responsibilities entrusted to them” and that “the absence of core leadership has resulted in repeated confusion in direction and significant delays in the overall project schedule.”
Krafton purchased Unknown Worlds in 2021 for $500 million, with as much as $250 million more due to be paid in 2026 if the company hit certain revenue targets. The complaint argues that all was well between the two sides until a series of meetings in early 2025 when Gill was negotiating with Krafton about paying bonuses to employees who weren’t eligible under the original acquisition terms. About 40 people employed by Unknown Worlds at the time of the sale were told they would receive payouts, mostly in the six-or-seven-figures, but the executives also wanted to offer bonuses to those who had joined later.
During those meetings, Gill said that their revenue projections for the coming year had been conservative and that with the upcoming releases of the original Subnautica on mobile and Switch 2, they were expecting significantly higher numbers. Subnautica 2 was also expected to be a big hit, with nearly 2.5 million people adding the game to their wishlists on the PC platform Steam.
“After Krafton’s leaders reviewed Gill’s projections and evaluated the anticipated revenue and earnout numbers, everything changed,” they said in their complaint.
The leadership group said that in subsequent meetings, Krafton began pushing for Unknown Worlds to delay Subnautica 2. In the weeks that followed, Krafton employees told Gill they believed the company was trying to get out of paying the earnout, the complaint alleges.
During one lunch meeting, according to the complaint, Krafton Chief Executive Officer Changhan Kim told Cleveland that releasing the game in 2025 “could be disastrous financially and hugely embarrassing” for the company. Krafton later said that had been a mistranslation.
Throughout May and June, the two sides continued to battle as Krafton halted publishing duties such as marketing and adapting the game for local markets, as well as paying vendors, according to the complaint. The former leadership team said that the publisher refused to support the game’s imminent summer release and that Unknown Worlds missed out on “highly valuable” promotional opportunities because Krafton didn’t respond to emails. Gill said he was told by one of Krafton’s top executives that “pulling these resources was a permissible way for Krafton to avoid supporting the earnout,” according to the complaint.
By the end of June, the relationship had deteriorated. During various meetings, Krafton asked the leadership group to accept a lower earnout, according to the complaint. Around the same time, Kim wrote a letter to the leaders, reviewed by Bloomberg, accusing them of “failing to fulfill the responsibilities with which you were entrusted” and saying that Subnautica 2 had faced “slow and underwhelming progress.”
On July 1, Krafton fired the three studio leaders, who are now seeking damages “in an amount to be determined at trial,” according to their suit. Krafton has said it willextend the bonus period until next year, with Unknown Worlds employees able to share in a $25 million payout if revenue targets are hit.
One main point of contention between the founders and Krafton was whether the game was ready for release this year under the company’s early access model, which allows outsiders to play the game and submit feedback. Presentation slides from Krafton reviewed by Bloomberg, which included quotes from the company’s internal testers, argued that Subnautica 2 lacked content and didn’t feel innovative enough.
The lawsuit alleges otherwise. Pre-release tests involving hundreds of users “drew high marks and confirmed that the game was ready to meet those lofty expectations," it said.
Developers at Unknown Worlds speaking to Bloomberg said they believed the game was in good shape, as did some external parties, who asked to not be identified. One developer at a separate company who played Subnautica 2 and requested anonymity because they signed a non-disclosure agreement told Bloomberg they enjoyed the game and that it “seemed way more robust” than other titles in early access.
The other point of contention was the roles that Cleveland and McGuire played at the studio. In public statements and in documentation reviewed by Bloomberg, Krafton accused the two founders of neglecting their duties because they were minimally involved with the development of Subnautica 2.
In their suit, the founders said that Krafton was aware of their new roles and that Cleveland had spent a large amount of time working on a Subnautica film, which Krafton had asked the studio to develop.
Didn’t know Krafton was Korean. Now it all makes sense. Corporations in Korea are even worse than US corps. They hold so much power. Korea is basically a Cyberpunk country. On the other hand they shouldn’t have sold their soul to the devil. Like that deal was definitely too good to be true. Like half a billion + a quarter billion in bonuses for an indie studio. That’s probably more than the company made in their lifetime.
Before the Krafton acquisition, Unknown Worlds Entertainment has produced Natural Selection 2 (the first was a Half Life mod, not sure it counts), which sold 300,000 copies, Subanutica sold “over five million” at a $30 price point, and I can’t find any sales numbers for Below Zero, but for back of the napkin math let’s say it sold about as well as Subnautica at ~5 million copies, again at $30.
So both Subnautica and Below Zero grossed $150 million. Subtract the 30% that Steam takes, and you’re left with $100 million, so $200 million between those two games would have been the net take.
Meanwhile, Moonbreaker happened, and I have no sales figures for that.
Everybody talks about what a massive hit Subnautica is, and while it is a successful game, Stardew Valley sold 40 million copies. Subnautica 2 stood a good chance of being a solid commercial success with tons of 2 hour Youtube video essays about how it compares to the original. It was never going to make $750 million. Even if it outsold Subnautica and Below Zero combined at double the price. Add in merch, Peeper plushies, T-shirts, ball caps, they were talking about a movie…Subnautica 2 was going to make a good chunk of that but wasn’t going to make it all.
As far as I can tell, they never intended to pay that $250 million bonus, it was probably offered in bad faith as incentive to sell the studio, and when it looked like they were actually going to pull off the conditions Krafton broke the contract in order to break the contract.
If I get my way, Krafton will never do business in the United States again, and since I’m a vengeful asshole that likes doing brain surgery with a backhoe, I’d probably ban Samsung, Hyundai, Kia, Toyota, Sony, Nintendo and Honda, and half of those aren’t even Korean.
I think the data shows that advertisement is super effective, not that people prefer to be advertised. If people preferred advertising over a better product then games like Balatro, Vampire Survivors etc. literally couldn’t be successful, because those games had effectively zero marketing budget. Their success came from word-of-mouth because the game itself was great.
Lots of obvious astroturfing going on regarding this. I’ve seen this news everywhere from Slashdot to Reddit with people sucking Microsofts dick. It’s either that, or people are too young to remember the bullshit Microsoft pulled … since forever basically. People aren’t going to benefit from this merger. Microsoft is patient. Embrace, extend, extinguish is their strategy. 10 year agreements are nothing for them to wait out.
And it’s the same with every merger – “This will bring more competition, blah blah blah”, then merger goes through and half the people are fired, half the rest are rolled into existing systems, and some empty shell of the previous company just wanders along with no real spirit any longer.
I’m not happy with the state of consolidation in every market under the sun, but I’m sure as shit happy Bobby Kotick is finally going to fuck off and I’m happy I’ll be able to play activision games on gamepass. When gamepass inevitably enshitifies I’ll just get rid of my subscription.
Yeah I can see that. Nadella brought new energy and almost made MSFT look cool, but years later we can see how MSFT is basically gobbling up everything in every domain.
Update: Why am I being downvoted? Did you all forget that MSFT has acquired LinkedIn, GitHub, Mojang, Bethesda, ABK and 49% stake in OpenAI all under Satya? Each one of those are massive acquisitions.
Microsoft are far, far, far from being close to the leader in the market even with ABK on their books, so your FUD makes no sense. Pretty much no one in the entire industry is against the acquisition apart from their main competitor, Sony, who are the market leader and abuse that position every day of the year to pull content away from Microsoft.
ABK will operate like they do currently, just like Bethesda do, only now they have Microsoft money and backing.
The only people that this deal is bad for are people who only play on PlayStation consoles. Everyone else benefits.
You said nothing will change. They will be part of the microcrap veil and will follow their ways of doing things. Like not hire people and only contract for 18 months then get in new contractors to pick up where the recently fired left off… Like what happened at 343i.
At this point anyone selling a company to a bigger studio is just either ignorant or greedy. It’s almost a given that they’ll just crash it into the grounds. Acquisitions and mergers might be like the eighth deadly sin. Everyone loses.
Who cares? It’s the audiences fault for assuming that prior performance is an indicator of future performance. Let the founders cash out. Buyers get rich because audiences think quality will be maintained post acquisition. How often does that really happen though?
Yeah I mean, I have a hard time being too sympathetic to people who unnecessarily sold their company. There is no reason to do it. If you need money, you can always get investors to get a minor stake or something.
According to the article the old leadership wanted to share the bonus with the whole development team of around 100 people. I don’t think the motivation of the team will be great now that the publisher pushed the bonus in unreachable distance. Fucking assholes can’t even stand by their own promises.
According to the wiki page… “In May 2024, Take-Two announced it would shut down Intercept Games but continue to update Kerbal Space Program 2 under the Private Division label.”
I wonder how will they manage that logistically. They are firing every single developer from IG. Who exactly in Private Division is going to be doing the updating? I suspect they will just brush a little of the code that is ready, then completely abandon the product in a year or so.
Warner bros has no idea how to media anymore. They forgot about looney tunes characters. They cancel their movies after shooting before release. They do t make dlc for games that sold like hotcakes. All they did was patent the nemesis system. what the fuck are they doing?
im super on the fuck unity train right now but like, real normal people work there that need employ and have families to support. I hope unity changes course due to public sentiment but i don’t really think that death threats forcing an office closed are going to be the way to invite that change
I think it’s more the “find employment” thing, not the “piece of shit” thing. Tech companies have been doing massive layoffs recently so the market is flooded with people looking for jobs when fewer places are hiring.
Tech companies have been doing massive layoffs recently
A. Sort of big, not recession-inducing.
B. Intentionally done by the larger companies to price-fix the tight job market so they don’t have to pay so much.
I hope they do. But for now I’d rather them not all lose work overnight, nor do I want all of the indie devs getting blindsided by these changes to unity to have to give up on, port, or delist their projects. I want unity to change for the better more than I want them to crash and burn. But I do think this will serve as an awakening for some segments of the industry to not put all their eggs in one basket with a company as greedy as unity. I hope Godot takes off in use, or Epic keeps using fortnite money to make unreal an attractive development platform and continues to be a good steward of it. That’s wishful thinking though, given the current state of unity lol
The second I heard the heard the firings happens and the rumors behind why I removed the game from my wishlist. And as more slowly comes out it makes Krafton look worse and worse
If they can prove breach of contract they can maybe get their IP back. Wishlists are a huge deal for if they want to shop the game around to other publishers.
Let’s be honest. Soon, Subnautica 2 will be on the front page of Steam, likely for a month or more. People who have no idea any of this is happening, nor care will buy it up in droves and in six months, none of this will matter, and you’ll all have likely pirated it by then anyway.
The investigation found that Barrett called lower-level female employees attractive, asked them to play truth-or-dare and made references to his wealth and power within the studio, suggesting that he could help advance their careers, according to two people familiar with the case.
In a statement to Bloomberg News, Barrett said that throughout nearly 25 years at Bungie, “I feel that I have always conducted myself with integrity and been respectful and supportive of my colleagues, many of whom I consider my closest friends. I never understood my communications to be unwanted and I would have never thought they could possibly have made anyone feel uncomfortable. If anyone ever felt that way about their interaction with me, I am truly sorry.”
Uh…
That might hold water if it was just casual flirting (though you should seriously be trained at any company near that scale that even that with anyone in your “chain of command” puts them in a really bad spot). But not for (alleged) open quid pro quo.
Seriously, I just finished my annual “preventing harassment’ training and there’s a whole section on power differential and how just asking puts employees in a bad spot. Just…don’t.
It’s one thing to say “your hair looks nice today, Susan.” I don’t think 99% of people would take that as anything beyond an innocent compliment.
Asking to play truth or dare is another thing entirely, and I have a sneaking suspicion that the guy saying that, probably isn’t going to just be complimenting Tina’s earrings
bloomberg.com
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