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 😂

  • rtxn@lemmy.worldEnglish
    33·
    10 hours 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.
    • Folstar@lemmus.orgEnglish
      1·
      3 hours ago

      Good summary. What’s wild to me is reading through this and pondering the frequency of these events. “Someone made an arrogant/stupid business decision” multiple times a day every day. “Someone tried to weasel out and was told that was stupid” also every day. “Went ahead with the plan anyway” - very frequent. “Tried to burn it all down” - all too often. Then we get to the turn where the wronged actually got a fair day in court- far, far less often. Then the villain of our story with $250M on the line somehow didn’t lawyer up enough to get the best justice money can buy - almost seems like fiction at this point and beyond.

    • expr@piefed.socialEnglish
      3·
      7 hours ago

      So… did he use ChatGPT to write the contract in the first place? If so, that would fucking hilarious.