If you weren't aware, a legal battle has been unfolding between Unknown Worlds, the developer of Subnautica 2, and its parent company and former publisher, Krafton, in what appears to have been a bit from Krafton to avoid paying Unknown Worlds a $250 million performance bonus relating to the launch ...

According to The Korean Economic Daily, citing insider sources, Krafton has now been forced to pay out that bonus, which equates to $3.12 for every $1 every month that Unknown Worlds surpasses $69.8 million in revenue, with an upper limit of $250 million. This amounts to around 35% of Krafton’s operating profit in 2025, which may explain why Krafton fought tooth and nail to avoid paying the sum.

Subnautica devs have maxed out their bonuses already 😂

  • CosmoNova@lemmy.worldEnglish
    16·
    29 days ago

    Looks like Krafton negotiated insanely bad bonus conditions and terms for themselves here. Are they adrenaline junkies or am I bad at math because it looks like they have to pay much larger bonuses than they made revenue so far.

    • Err(()).unwrap()@lemmy.worldEnglish
      29·
      29 days ago

      That entire situation was ridiculous. The major points:

      • Yes, that contract was stupidly favorable to Unknown Worlds. It was negotiated by none other than Chang-ham Kim, CEO of Krafton.
      • Kim later realized that and wanted to back out of the contract because it would’ve made him look like a pushover. He employed the help of ChatGPT, which told him that it was a stupid fucking idea.
      • He went ahead with the plan anyway. He fired Unknown Worlds’ three co-founders for made-up reasons and appointed Steve Papoutsis as the CEO
      • He tried to sabotage the game’s development by disrupting communication between Unknown Worlds and other departments, to push the early access launch beyond the window where the 250M could be earned.
      • Obviously it went to court. Krafton tried to change the story about the reason the co-founders were fired based on information that they discovered afterwards (they kept backups of documents, which Krafton argued was industrial espionage), but the judge was having none of that chicanery.
      • During discovery, the ChatGPT logs and some conversations were revealed that personally implicated Kim.
      • The court ruled in Unknown Worlds’ favour. The judge ordered Ted Gill to be reinstated as CEO (the other two co-founders chose not to return) and the bonus window to be extended by several months to account for the time that they didn’t have conrol of the company.
      • As a last fuck-you, Papoutsis prematurely announced Subnautica 2’s early access launch. Gill had no idea about the state of development.
      • Subnautica 2 then went on to be a massive success, Krafton has joined EA and Activision in the doghouse, and Chang-ham Kim is now known to be both a pushover and a fucking idiot.