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‘Subnautica 2’ Leaders Say Krafton Sabotaged Game Over Payout [new events in the Subnautica 2 story] (www.bloomberg.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/games@lemmy.world
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You know that personal film project they claimed one of the founders was distracted by? It was a Subnautica film they asked him to make.

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[–] 93 points 1 year ago (13 children)

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.

Yeah, this is clearly the publisher trying to get out of paying the full bonus.

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  • [–] 60 points 1 year ago (12 children)

    When I first heard about the firings and the delay to the game I thought "This doesn't sound plausible. Are they really going to ruin their investment and effectively kill the company to supposedly save a quarter of a billion. That would be unbelievably stupid". But with every subsequent nugget of information it's getting increasingly clearer that they, Krafton, actually are unbelievably stupid. They're pretty much guaranteed that if Subnautica 2 gets released (and that's assuming Subnautica 2 is in a good enough position to be released) the studio will shutter as all the talent will move on and all the money Krafton spent acquiring the studio is thrown in the wind. They're not even going to save the quarter billion because the delay means they're going to be paying at least 6 months wages for minimum effort work because I doubt anyone at that studio is willing to put in the effort after being cheated out of their bonus.

    Even if it's all so obvious I still find it hard to believe the publisher is THAT stupid. But that's the world we live in, where people get to make idiotic decisions because they're greedy as fuck.

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  • [–] 27 points 1 year ago

    Yeah in the world where EA exist and Xbox close down a studio that just launched a successful game and also fire bunch of people and shutting down lot of project, this doesn't sound far fetch at all.

    I guess the lesson the first game trying to teach is to never believe any giant corporation.

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  • [–] 23 points 1 year ago

    They paid for their expertise, even offering a bonus that was clearly less than whatever their projected profit would be, and then tried to squander it because they didn't listen to their expertise.

    Publishers in all kinds of industries are risk adverse to the point of not trusting whoever they made deals with to follow through. This is totally on brand for publishers!

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I mean, the publisher seems to be pretty stupid, because...how did they figure that $250 million?

    There are two entries in the Subnautica series, Subnautica and Below Zero. Subnautica has sold "over 5 million copies" at a retail price point of $30. So that's $150 million in gross revenue. For this back of the napkin math I'll assume that the "over five million" and the number of copies sold at a discount come out in the wash. 30% of that gross revenue is going to immediatley go to Steam or whatever other platform, so the company got $100 million in net revenue before their own expenses like rent and power bills gets at it.

    I cannot find sales figures for Below Zero, but it sells for the same price point and I don't think it could have possibly sold more than Subnautica did, so let's figure another $150 million gross, $100 million net.

    Subnautica as a franchise netted its studio ~$200 million across the launch of two games selling ~10 million copies.

    And Krafton had agreed to pay out a $250 million bonus for reaching a certain revenue target in 2025, which they were on track to do given the announced early access launch.

    Just to put them in the black for that bonus, Subnautica 2 would have to sell better than both previous games put together at a higher price, and that doesn't touch the purchase of the studio, operating expenses, or the dump truck of cocaine that must have been involved in these financial decisions.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I didn't want to think they're completely incompetent so I decided to do some digging. That $250 million is actually part of their acquisition deal. Krafton technically bought Unknown Worlds for $750 million. $500 million was paid up front and the extra $250 million was due for 2026 if Unknown Worlds met the performance clause. That $250 million has nothing to do with the sales of Subnautica, it's part of the buyout.

    This could mean they were always going to try and stiff Unknown Worlds. It also means it's probably less about the people working at Unknown Worlds getting stiffed and more about the leadership expecting a payout that was agreed upon.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    "“This doesn’t sound plausible. Are they really going to ruin their investment and effectively kill the company to supposedly save a quarter of a billion"

    You should see the documentary about the making of Lego Island: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bG55COe_f8I

    A wildly succesful game, so what did the publisher do after having released a wildly succesful game and having the team that made it under their wings? Fire them all and try to weasel out of the promised bonuses.

    It was standard practice 30 years ago, and it still is...

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    Standard practice has been to fuck over the developers after release. They haven't released Subnautica 2 yet. They're screwing the developers over before they've cashed out the game. That's the part that made it implausible in my mind.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    It's ready for prerelease it seems, and very playable. Sounds like they already have what they need. They're just taking a little headstart :p

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago*

    We don't know the exact state of the game but what we know is that it's early access ready. If previous Unknown world games are of any indication it's still 2 years away from final release. They might make some money back with early access but it will be negatively reviewed under the pretense that it will not be properly finished. The release is already guaranteed to take a financial hit.

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  • [–] -3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I doubt anyone at that studio is willing to put in the effort after being cheated out of their bonus

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but most of those 250 million were going to the three people that were fired, not the actual workers. I stopped caring about this issue when I learned that, seems like just rich people bickering to me.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago

    That's according to Krafton and we know they will bend the truth to create a narrative. But even if it's true I still think Krafton are the assholes here. I'm less concerned when people in positions of power don't get their position enabled bonuses, but Krafton is also taking away whatever bonus the actual workers were originally promised.

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