this post was submitted on 17 May 2026
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Yeah, the judge reversed the layoffs and reinstated the Unknown Worlds team, and now they'll get the bonus. But yes very awkward all around.
Something fair and good happening in America? Count your blessings....
OK I didn't see the article mention that. Only that they leaders were fired, and everybody lost the bonus.
I guess it ended OK then?
The judge extended the deadline on the bonus by 9 months (to September).
If Subnautica earns $69.8million in revenue by then, Krafton will need to pay up the full $250million to the team.
https://gamerant.com/subnautica-2-250-million-bonus/
Considering it sold 2 million copies in 12 hours, at $30 each, I'm assuming they're very close to reaching that (if they haven't already).
70 Million in revenue (not profit) for a 250 Million bonus ... all else aside, was the executive who signed that high on coke?
That's correct, revenue, not profit.
The CEO of Krafton was the one who signed the deal. He definitely had buyers remorse which is why he ended up ignoring his lawyers and turning to ChatGPT for advice on how to delay the release of Subnautica 2 and avoid the payout.
No wonder the idiot tried to get out of it what a stupid thing to agree to. Perhaps a change in management might be a good idea, the current CEO appears to be throwing good money after bad.
Personally - I'm not buying the game. Krafton still owns the studio, and they've done nothing to make the situation better. Court mandated remediations aside, krafton tried to abuse these devs and steal what they were owed. They're still working under a hostile parent company and likely will become a skeleton crew in no time.
Best case scenario unknown worlds can use the money to split themselves into a new studio.
It's sad the the gaming industry so often turn toxic. 😒
the game has to sell at least 3M copies for the devs to get the $250M tho
AFAIK this is not true. The bonus is just capped. But every dollar spent is increasing their bonus until they have sold 3M copies.
it also has a bottom. it only triggers when revenue exceeds $69.8 million, so about 2.3 million copies
It does mention:
Gill is the first person named as part of "the three".
I suppose that if you're another development studio working with Krafton, like InZOI, you're probably looking with a lot of suspicion at every move from your publisher now.
Krafton isn't just publishing Inzoi, it founded the entire studio. If you work there you work for Krafton. And honestly it shows in the sloppy product.
I’m not seeing any evidence of that. I looked it up and all I could find was that CEO was reinstated. Do you have a link by any chance? If the original dev team is still there I’d want to support them, if not then I’ll just pirate it
The only ones fired were the 3 co-founders. They were the ones who were set to receive the largest amount of the bonus (they had promised to put most of that back into the company and to share with the development team). The judge ordered that only one of them be brought back and for the deadline on the $250million to be extended by 9 months.
https://www.ign.com/articles/judge-slams-subnautica-2-publisher-krafton-in-victory-for-fired-workers-orders-company-reinstate-boss-and-extend-250-million-bonus