Following their courtroom clash, developer Unknown Worlds is now listed as Subnautica 2's publisher rather than parent company Krafton.
  • Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11 hours

    Gill doesn’t have to launch the game until September 15 to be eligible for the $250 million bonus at the center of the lawsuit.

    Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier reported last year that, should Subnautica 2 meet the necessary revenue targets to trigger the bonus, a portion of it will be shared among some of Unknown Worlds’ staff.

    I’m half-expecting the share given to employees to be a couple million tops and fans to turn on both sides, just to put the cherry on this crap sundae of a scandal.

    • inclementimmigrant@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9 hours

      The original deal was that 90% went to the three execs and 10% went to the workers.

      So I would say feel free to hate all of them already.

      • rainwall@piefed.socialEnglish
        6 hours

        25 million over about 250 employees, so maybe 100k each, although not likely to be evenly split.

        About in line with what happened when Minecraft sold to Microsoft. Shitty redpill notch makes 4 billion, decade long employees that made Minecraft into a succeas make 6 figures at best.

        I would not turn it down of course, but the imbalance does chafe.

    • Doc_Crankenstein@slrpnk.netEnglish
      1 hour

      I have been a fan of Subnautica since before items had textures and they were still playing with terrain manipulation.

      I absolutely refuse to buy Subnautica 2. I will be pirating it.

      • Drasglaf@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        3 minutes

        A shame, really, but this is the way. Subnautica was one of the best games of the past decade for me and I was really looking forward to the sequel, but I’m not willing to spend a cent on it after all this shitshow.

      • badgermurphy@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2 hours

        Yeah, but it’s complicated like an ant colony–incredibly complex and nuanced, but tiny, inconsequential, and easy to ignore.

        I got one whiff of that dumpster fire and thought, “You know what? I’m going to check out some of the near-infinite other entertainment options available to me in the Information Age and give that whole thing a miss.” I’m sure a significant portion of other people interested in the game came to a similar conclusion, which can’t be ideal for their sales goals.

        • sem@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          2 hours

          But what if it is like subnautica 1 or 2 but with a new map? Then it would be fun.

    • Fafa@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9 hours

      Why? The developers get the money when sales reach a certain threshhold, as far as I know it…

      • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 🇮 @pawb.socialEnglish
        55 minutes

        They’ll be paid either way. They make the sales, they earn the bonus. They don’t make the sales, they’ll probably be awarded the bonus plus punitive damages from the lawsuit they basicslly already won since it’s very apparent the publisher sabotaged the development of the game specifically to not have to pay the developers the bonus in their contract.

        The court is literally waiting to see what happens with the sales before deciding a verdict.