The Subnautica 2 community was quite shocked to hear last July that Unknown Worlds co-founders Ted Gill, Charlie Cleveland, and Max McGuire had been fired by publisher Krafton. Since then, we have learned that the main reason for this is the massive $250 million bonus payout that the co-founders and other employees will receive.
The co-founders' subsequent lawsuit revealed more information, and while Krafton said the co-founders abdicated their liability, the original developers were adamant that it was still about bonus payments. Krafton also contacted ChatGPT about how to avoid paying bonuses, according to new filings in the legal proceedings.
Krafton may turn to ChatGPT for help with Subnautica 2 bonus issues.
The filing states that Krafton is exploring various ways to avoid or reduce the payments owed to its co-founders and studios (thanks to Kotaku). “According to the smoking gun documents, Krafton was looking for ways to de-monetize, and the secret ‘Project
The filing goes on to say that the publisher even asked an AI chatbot for help on the issue. “[CEO, Kim Chang-han] He turned to artificial intelligence to help him brainstorm ways to avoid paying his income. ChatGPT likewise advised that ‘demonetization would be difficult.’” Krafton reportedly later refused to create the chatbot records, claiming they no longer existed.
“No,” Krafton said in a statement to Kotaku, “this claim is simply a distraction from Charlie’s own efforts to destroy evidence, such as reminding other key employees (Max and Ted) to delete ‘incriminating’ items from his ChatGPT account.”
Coincidentally, Krafton recently declared itself an ‘AI First Company’ and offered compensation to employees for voluntary resignation. Meanwhile, Subnautica 2 has released its first developer update since the original story broke, but all the comments on the video are about the $250 million payout.
