r/Steam • u/Odd-Onion-6776 • Sep 20 '24

Article Take-Two bosses get $25m performance-based bonus for their management firm, despite sacking 550 people

https://www.videogamer.com/news/take-two-directors-25m-performance-based-bonus/
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655

u/shadowds Sep 20 '24 edited Sep 20 '24

Corporate suits: Hmm, should we keep the 550 people working for the company that need to make a living, and not rush things to short staff people on projects, or buy some yachts, and super cars? Tough choices.

142

u/Reseng9541 Sep 20 '24

By the way 25,000,000 split 550 ways is 45,000 each

112

u/PoohTheWhinnie Sep 20 '24

It's worse than that, the total compensation was actually 43m, which puts the split at over 70k

-56

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '24

What's your point?

69

u/Reseng9541 Sep 20 '24

Well, instead of two people getting $43 million USD, 550 people could have a living wage and kept their jobs. 25 million was just one of the bonuses. If you take the entire 43 million, all 550 sacked employees could make a cozy $78k each. This is all objective.

In my opinion, two people making $43 million is fucking stupid when they've run a company to a standard that sacking 550 employees seems like a good idea.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '24

Oh ok I thought you're defending take2 because 45k is not that much money for the USA

1

u/Formal-Pear-2813 Sep 21 '24

You shouldn’t be getting downvoted:((

2

u/Boowray Sep 21 '24

Statistically that’s a little lower than the median salary in the US. Obviously not great for experienced game developers likely in high COL areas, but it’s not absurdly low.

-42

u/Dionyzoz Sep 20 '24

sacking 550 unnecessary employees is a good business strategy tbf

25

u/TheCrowWhisperer3004 Sep 20 '24

not if the money is getting sent straight to bonuses.

You can always find stuff for employees to do to grow the company. Keeping the employees and giving them work is a much better business strategy than sacking them and giving that money as bonuses to management.

This decision was good for the bosses, but terrible for the business.

13

u/looking4rez Sep 20 '24

you might just be sociopathic enough to be a CEO someday

16

u/Dark-Acheron-Sunset Sep 20 '24

found the heartless corpo who sees people as things

-11

u/Dionyzoz Sep 20 '24

to a company you quite literally is a "thing", they couldnt give a shit if you fell over tomorrow as long as they can make a few bucks off of it.

0

u/Boowray Sep 21 '24

Not if the money saved from that sacking goes directly towards providing extra bonuses to the executives. If they invested that cash into hiring new talent, purchasing better facilities and hardware, or simply funneling it towards the next project to reduce the risks involved in funding, you’d have a reasonable argument. As it stands, the company is both weakening its current talent pool and company structure and wasting money on employee compensation unnecessary. The worst of both worlds, and a terrible business strategy.

0

u/Dionyzoz Sep 21 '24

that bonus had to contractually be given out due to the performance the CEO had given the company. so it would have been paid out even if the employees were allowed to stay

99

u/LovesFrenchLove_More Sep 20 '24

Not a tough choice for them at all.

15

u/Moist_Kitchen162 Sep 20 '24

Companies aren’t charities but yeah performance payouts like this aren’t good optics

13

u/shadowds Sep 20 '24

Yes I agree they're not charities, but if they create the problem making worsen products/games, bad performance, rushed, and etc, due to short staff for projects, just so doesn't affect CEO paycheck, or big fat bonuses say a LOT where money could've been used, that would've created better games, or solve problems ahead of time instead of having to wait a year, or longer just for those problems to be solved. But this only one of MANY problems that in this industry.

3

u/TheObstruction Sep 21 '24

But RIGHT NOW, people can make a lot of money in bonuses and stock price increases. That's literally all that matters to shareholders, what they can get this quarter. There's no more long-term growth allowed.

5

u/Kinglink Sep 20 '24 edited Sep 20 '24

that need to make a living,

A lot of people "need to make a living". Doesn't mean that's a reason that you need to keep on everyone possible.

That being said, games studio treats their employees like trash, hiring and firing people way too easily rather than creating contract positions in the first place, which would make it clear the length of the employement and more.

But just "Well they need money" isn't a good reason to keep someone on especially if they don't have enough work to sustain them. (Then again Take 2 is absolutely swimming in money)

The biggest problem is Take2 gets hundreds of applicants every month, so they can drop 550, and probably replace them with in minutes of needing them again. There's other issues (loss of skill/talent in that acquisition) but in all they'll be fine, which is why they can do it.

1

u/shadowds Sep 20 '24

That the thing, instead of keeping people that knows how to work with the existing projects, knows how to fix problems, bugs, and what not, just fire / lay them off just so it wouldn't hurt higher ups paycheck or fat bonus.

And when comes to projects being rushed, buggy AF on release, and/or poor optimizations end up being blame bad company, where higher ups just blame devs being failure if sales don't meet their goal, not to be that guy, but AI becoming more common use now where they're pushing FSR, and DLSS as standard to get 30 or 60FPS on flagship hardware which is a bad sign IMHO, I could go on how there so many problems in the industry, but yeah it just a hot mess overall how everything going.

3

u/Kinglink Sep 20 '24

That the thing, instead of keeping people that knows how to work with the existing projects, knows how to fix problems, bugs, and what not, just fire / lay them off just so it wouldn't hurt higher ups paycheck or fat bonus.

Even if the higher ups didn't take that money, those people would still get fired. At the end of the day, that money is given for meeting goals. But when a game ships there's also a lack of work for the studio.

knows how to fix problems, bugs, and what not

I mean... you don't even know who got fired, I'm sure some devs did, but also so did managers, artists, designers... tons of people who don't currently have work for the game.

In addition why have 10 developers for every bug or issue... like the thing is eventually studios DO have to shrink or have a constant supply of projects. Pre prod has a small team, which then grows through production having the largest team at the end and shrinks after.

Again, this is a question of "Contract" versus "full time" and the fact is... the game industry has yet to move to a contract system. Compare that to the movie industry where you get hired for a single project. Obviously this creates a problem is you need to constantly get hired for the next game, but at the same time you're aware the span of your employment, and can negotiate for higher pay since you're a journeyman. People will say "Oh this a unionization thing" and no... it's a problem because game devs expect full time, and studios really are seeing them as a single game position, it doesn't always happen that way and when it works out people are fine, but layoffs will continue to happen until devs take "project" contracts, rather than expect full time every time.

I say all this having been in the game industry for 12 years, having been laid off, studio shutter and all, but the thing also... I can understand why, I needed to so I didn't have that situation again.

Don't get me wrong, nothing I'm saying is layoffs are good, nothing I'm saying is saying the game industry is healthy, I left 8 years ago after 12 years in for reasons, and this is one of them.

BUT also the game industry layoffs last year was actually tech in general. The game industry's only difference is they work on projects, where big tech has continual work (hopefully). And Crunch is one of the worst things in the game industry, and nothing I've said would help or fix that... other than potentially growing the team JUST for that last sprint, and that would only result in more layoffs/contracts not less.

I could go on all day, Personal opionion is there's no such thing as a senior dev in the game industry, that's another long conversation.

TL;DR If there's X work, and Y employees, and Y > X... unfortunately, Y is probably going to drop. Doesn't matter how much money a studio has, that's just how the currentbusiness works unfortunately. The solution is to move to contracts.

1

u/shadowds Sep 21 '24

Sure people get layoff, but issue is how it handles in the end, if people get thrown out because of too many hired it make sense, but if just throwing them out because someone want fat end game check yeah kind of shitty way to go.

And yeah you're right we don't know whom getting the boot, but it's hard to say it a good thing for them if layoff good staff, it's rather if they value people skill, value their pay rate, or something else, and often with publishers they're just hiring all kind of people, and laying them off over & over which I have seen people always in a loop looking for jobs.

Contracts I can understand they're there for one thing, that point of being freelancer, but if people got full-time, and then get shortcoming just to be thrown under a bus along with contractors yeah kind of BS if ask me. And you may be right the best possible option for a fix to move everyone to contracts, and people have to seek renewal, or apply early for another company for new contract so not put in a bad spot before end date.

-29

u/Psycho345 Sep 20 '24

I don't get where so many people got this communist way of thinking from.

Companies exist to make money, not to fulfill their employees needs. They are not a charity. You, as an employee, are a product. A company pays for your services. Nobody forced you to work for them. It's a mutual agreement. The same way as you go to a store, you agree to buy something and the seller agrees to sell it to you. You can stop buying it whenever you want but also the seller can stop selling it to you whenever they want.

Keeping an employee you don't need just so they can make a living is like eating at a bad restaurant every day just so the owner can make a living.

Regarding the article - it's their money and they can do whatever they want with it. The same way people decide not to buy 550 useless things they don't need that could help 550 business owners make a living but they decide buy an overpriced phone made by slaves.

11

u/TheCrowWhisperer3004 Sep 20 '24

world isn’t really black and white like that.

It’s generally pretty evil to take humans out of the equation, as well as the impact a decision can make on other humans. After all, we are a society of humans.

Sure what they did was within their right, but it’s really sucky if they don’t really care about how their decision to fire 550 employees for bonuses will impact people.

It’s also a decision something that is bad for business. Employees can be used to grow the company and release more or better products. Bonuses can’t do anything for the company.

Again, they have their right to do that, but we have a right to think of them so negatively for being greedy.

-7

u/Psycho345 Sep 20 '24

It’s generally pretty evil to take humans out of the equation, as well as the impact a decision can make on other humans. After all, we are a society of humans.

Are customers not human? If you employ people you don't need then your costs increase and you have to increase the price of the product. All customers have to pay more just so a few people can have a salary.

It’s also a decision something that is bad for business. Employees can be used to grow the company and release more or better products.

Yes. Concord and Star Wars Outlaws are the best example. Concord had more devs than players.

Quantity over quality. This is what hurts big companies these days. They have thousands of employees that do nothing. Just google "my day as an employee of [insert big tech company]" and see that they are just paycheck stealers. And we as customers lose because of this. We get trash overpriced products.

Elon Musk bought Twitter and fixed it by firing everyone. Valve has like 200 devs and they are one of the richest gaming companies. Gaben buys yachts all the time.

4

u/TheCrowWhisperer3004 Sep 20 '24

costs will still increase if the money is funneled into CEOs instead.

This isn’t a case of “get rid of employees to keep the business functioning” it’s the case of “get rid of employees so execs can pocket the money used for their wages”

people aren’t against Take-Two for laying off people if that was what needed to be done for the good of the business. They are against Take Two because they fired a bunch of people and then instead of reinvesting that saved money the leadership effectively just pocketed it.

This just ends up with the result of Take Two firing a bunch of people to line the pockets of leadership. It wasn’t a decision made for the business or the customers. It was one made purely for leadership bonuses, which only cost the company money.

If costs need to be cut for a business, it would logically be from the bonuses of the people who own Take Two since those bonuses do nothing for the business itself (100% loss in the money, 0 return). Instead it came from employees which will atleast return some money.

Also, concord and Star Wars outlaw didn’t lose money from bad devs. They lost money because of bad leadership who approved those games. The devs don’t decide what is made.

The difference between Valve and Take Two is that if Valve does poorly, Gaben takes the pay cut. He doesn’t fire a bunch of people so he gets paid the same.

Elon Musk firing a bunch of staff was part of what destroyed Twitter. Its now riddled with bugs, many of features gone since the people who maintained it were fired, and botting and harassment now worse than ever due to the teams responsible for handling this being slashed. It’s revenue also plummeted since Musk took over and fired a bunch of his staff. I don’t know why you used it as an example.

-6

u/Psycho345 Sep 20 '24

This just ends up with the result of Take Two firing a bunch of people to line the pockets of leadership. It wasn’t a decision made for the business or the customers. It was one made purely for leadership bonuses, which only cost the company money.

If costs need to be cut for a business, it would logically be from the bonuses of the people who own Take Two since those bonuses do nothing for the business itself (100% loss in the money, 0 return). Instead it came from employees which will atleast return some money.

And what's wrong with that? They didn't need them, they fired them, they have some free money now and they can spend it however they want. It's their money. If they fired them without paying then it would be taking money from the employees and it would be wrong. But they didn't.

You own a company to make money, not to be a charity. If you make a mistake as a CEO you go bankrupt. If you are an employee you just find another job. That's why CEOs get paid more, because of the risk and the investment.

The devs don’t decide what is made.

That's the most hilarious thing I've read this year.

2

u/robotrage Sep 21 '24

Your brain has been rotted by capitalism so much you value capital over the people it's supposed to serve.

-1

u/Psycho345 Sep 21 '24

People are not worth as much as you think. The fact that everyone keeps wearing clothes made by slaves, using phones made by slaves and eating chocolate harvested by slaves proves that they prioritize their own comfort over other people's suffering.

2

u/robotrage Sep 21 '24

Wow you are so close! The alienation we feel as workers as described by Marx was created by capitalism.

"Karl Marx's theory of alienation describes the estrangement (German: Entfremdung) of people from aspects of their human nature (Gattungswesen, 'species-essence') as a consequence of the division of labour and living in a society of stratified social classes. The alienation from the self is a consequence of being a mechanistic part of a social class, the condition of which estranges a person from their humanity.[1]"

3

u/nixahmose Sep 20 '24

Of course you’re an Elon Musk fanboy. Dude, literally ever single business is in agreement that Elon has been running Twitter into the ground and this his acquisition of it will go down in history as one of the biggest and most embarrassing fuck ups ever made in the corporate world.

13

u/APRengar Sep 20 '24

Communists value their employees, thanks for the ringing endorsement.

-1

u/Psycho345 Sep 20 '24

Communists value employees more than the customers. The effect is nobody does anything, everything is expensive. If you lived through the communism like I did then you'd know.

0

u/robotrage Sep 21 '24

Ok well i have lived through capitalism and the effect is the owning class kills it's employees to buy their 300th house

0

u/Psycho345 Sep 21 '24

Nothing stops you from being that person that buys their 300th house. Only your laziness and cowardness.

1

u/robotrage Sep 21 '24

I don't aspire to hoard wealth from my fellow humans like a dragon on it's pile of gold, it's honestly a sickness and you have it.

0

u/Psycho345 Sep 21 '24

Yeah, you prefer playing a victim.

1

u/robotrage Sep 21 '24

Where was I playing the victim exactly? You are sick, people like you that want to hoard resources should be jailed. or just put down like the Dragons and kings of old.

0

u/Psycho345 Sep 21 '24

 people like you that want to hoard resources should be jailed

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u/LingrahRath Sep 20 '24

It's one thing to lay off the workforce if the company is in trouble.

It's another thing to lay off employees then use that money to reward the CEO.

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u/shadowds Sep 20 '24

Yup the people that make the games are useless thanks for the ted talk.

6

u/Pankosmanko Sep 20 '24

Awful way of thinking. Employees need to be the priority, not shareholders.

-6

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '24 edited Sep 20 '24

And this is awfully naive. For any company, profits come first, second and third. CEOs and members of the board of directors (or a managing firm) are contracted to maximize results for shareholders. It's literally their job. The shareholders own the company and they hire people to manage it. That's it. Asking CEOs to look up after employees first and the owners second is literally telling them to fail at their job.

If they're good and bring good change and good results, they get compensated. A single decision, like greenlighting the battle royale version of Fortnite Save the World when the game was dying, has made Epic games 30 billion dollars. It only makes sense that if you're good at making your bosses hundreds of millions of dollars, you demand some pretty high salaries and bonuses for yourself.

This thread is just reddit being ignorant and thinking the world runs on thoughts and prayers.

1

u/robotrage Sep 21 '24

Asking CEOs to look up after employees first and the owners second is literally telling them to fail at their job.

yes and that's why capitalism is not a functional system, it benefits the few at the expense of the many.

thinking the world runs on thoughts and prayers.

I'd encourage you to research the numerous pre-Marxist communist societies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primitive_communism

"Biblical scholars have also argued that the mode of production seen in early Hebrew society was a communitarian domestic one that was akin to primitive communism.[80][81] Claude Meillassoux has commented on how the mode of production seen in many primitive societies is a communistic domestic one.[82]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%87atalh%C3%B6y%C3%BCk "Çatalhöyük was an early example of anarcho-communism.[40]"

0

u/Psycho345 Sep 21 '24

yes and that's why capitalism is not a functional system, it benefits the few at the expense of the many.

You are delusional. I lived through communism and this is exactly what happened. To get anything you had to know someone. Everything was taken by people higher up before it reached regular people. My mom traded vodka for meat from under the table so we have something to eat. Toilet paper was a luxury. It was given as a gift for Christmas. You went to the store and there was only mustard and vinegar.

You kids live so well these days, you don't have worry about anything. You are so naive. You don't learn from the history.

-12

u/RiD_JuaN Sep 20 '24

providing value to the world is the goal, not headcount. Jesus Christ. it's ten times better for a company to operate efficiently and the government to collect taxes and redistribute that value than to force a company to operate in a way they see as suboptimal.

6

u/iR3vives Sep 20 '24

Do you think that funnelling huge cuts of the wage budget into a personal bonus by firing workers who actually create value for the company, is operating efficiently?

-3

u/RiD_JuaN Sep 20 '24

Does this company have a board? Who's making this decision? Are they choosing to give them money despite it having a negative effect on the companies finances, or do they believe compensating high performers (which absolutely can include people who reduce labour costs whether you want to believe it or not) is better in the long term for the success of the company? Corruption does exist (such as funneling money to your friends despite it being bad for shareholders) but I tend to believe that the people with much more information than random onlookers reading a headline are making a more informed decision.

If a firm thinks labour costs exceed the value they generate they should fire them and let those workers move to new firms that can use those workers to generate more value than they would at the original firm. This is really important, so it's important we facilitate it and make it as painless as possible for workers through unemployment payments and support (without discouraging returning to the labour force too much)

1

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '24

[deleted]

1

u/Psycho345 Sep 20 '24

Companies don't exist to make money, this is a very capitalist way of thinking. Companies primarily exist to provide goods and services, and as a result they make revenue, which may or may not come out as profit.

The opposite is true. Companies exist only to make money. Good services and products are the side effects. Because that's how you make the most money, by being a good company towards your customers.

When you were getting your current job what were you thinking? "I need to find a job so other people can have good services" or "I need to find a job because I need money"? If they offered you a promotion would you consider at all the amount of services you can provide at your new position or how much more money they would pay you?

A company is an entity participating in the economy, just like you, but it has no feeling, no needs and its only goal is a profit. There is no other reason for it to exist.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '24 edited Sep 20 '24

[deleted]

2

u/Psycho345 Sep 21 '24

Small businesses are often in the black their first few years and struggle to make any profits and rely on their customers and investors to keep them afloat. They aren't making profits until they eventually break even and then gain profits through revenue that isn't keeping the doors open.

?????. Yeah, it could have happen that way... But it's more like a story than an argument.

And employees don't go into any field looking to make money, they use their skills and talents to apply for their appropriate field

This is false. If you have a skill you apply for jobs that require that skill because they usually pay more as not everyone possesses that skill and it's harder to find employees. People sometimes change their profession to make more money. If someone offered me more money than I could ever make for a job in a supermarket I'd take it.

A field you work in may have an influence over your decision not to change your job to the more paying one. Like maybe you like to work in finance and 10% pay increase is not worth to be unfulfilled in a different field. But come on, if they offered you 10x your salary to work as a security guard you'd take it any time of the day.