Kraftonthe publisher behind games including InZOI, PUBG: Battlegroundsand the coming Subnautica 2offers its employees years of payment to quit their jobs after publicly committing to developing AI. Krafton is said to have just posted a record quarterly profit for the year, and buying out the contracts of current employees is likely a move aimed at pushing those financial numbers even higher.
Founded in 2018 as a holding company and parent company of developer Bluehole Studio after its Battle Royale game PUBG: Battlegrounds recorded huge player numbers, Krafton has made several major business moves in recent years. The South Korea-based company has founded or acquired subsidiaries that include Unknown Worlds Entertainment, Tango Gameworks, InZOI Studio, Striking Distance Studios, and several studios primarily dedicated to developing mobile games.
Krafton offers its employees a lot of money to quit
Amid its ongoing success, new information says Krafton is now offering blanket buyouts for current employment contracts in an apparent attempt to reduce the size of its workforce. This news comes just weeks after CEO Kim Chang-han gave a speech announcing that Krafton would become an AI-first company. As reported by BusinessKorea, an internal announcement at the company on Nov. 12 offers all employees the option to leave their jobs in exchange for months to years of pay based on how long employees have worked there. These reported numbers indicate that an employee with less than a year of service is entitled to six months' pay, while an employee with 11 or more years of service at the highest end can collect three years' pay in exchange for quitting.
This news also comes just as Krafton has announced record quarterly operating profits of 1.052 trillion Korean won, or roughly $717.7 million. It also comes amid an unresolved wrongful termination lawsuit Subnautica 2presented by Unknown Worlds founder Charlie Cleveland, former CEO Ted Gill and former CTO Max McGuire. These former employees allege that Krafton fired them to avoid paying them $250 million in owed performance bonuses. Meanwhile, Krafton alleges that these former employees improperly downloaded several files that serve as the blueprints for Subnautica 2 before departure and have filed a separate lawsuit accusing them of dereliction of duty.
Another of Krafton's big projects, life simulator InZOIhas also faced heavy criticism for its use of AI, which includes the in-game creation of 3D printed objects from 2D images and the generation of custom textures based on players' text input. The game was released into early access in March, and while Krafton has continued to support it through additional DLC, InZOIThe initial player count dropped dramatically a week after the early access launch, falling from more than 87,000 peak daily concurrent players on Steam to less than 4,000, and the latest daily numbers now show roughly half of that number signing up.
- Date founded
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March 26, 2007
- Head office
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South Korea
- Known for
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PUBG (PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds)
Source: BusinessKorea
