Former Subnautica 2 devs accuse Krafton CEO of using AI to "brainstorm ways to avoid paying" $250 million bonus

The former leadership team of Subnautica studio Unknown Worlds has accused Changham Kim, the CEO of South Korean parent company Krafton, of using ChatGPT to find ways to avoid paying out a $250 million bonus to the developers after they were fired earlier this year.

The details:

• Earlier this year, it was announced that several members of Unknown Worlds’ leadership team, including the studio’s founders, would be leaving the developer. This came after Subnautica 2 was delayed, which, according to the former employees, was done against the studio’s wishes and subsequently meant that the publisher no longer had to pay out a $250 million bonus to the team, which was later denied by Krafton.
• In new legal documents stemming from the lawsuit between Krafton and the fired employees (via Game Developer), it’s claimed that CEO Kim had grown dissatisfied with the contract agreed upon between the studio’s leadership and the publisher, which was signed when Unknown Worlds was acquired in 2021. As a result, it’s alleged that Kim and the studio’s new CFO, Richard Yoon, had turned to ChatGPT to find ways out of paying any bonus mentioned in the contract. When asked by the former employees about the ChatGPT conversations, Krafton allegedly refused to send over any of them, later claiming that they “no longer exist.”
• It’s alleged that the CEO went on to create “Project X,” which is described as a “secret task force” that originally aimed to make a “deal” with the founders over the payout, but if all failed, would attempt to execute a “takeover” of Unknown Worlds. It’s said that when negotiations failed between the two parties, this led to the leadership being ousted and replaced by Krafton’s new executives.