The Subnautica 2 community was shocked in July when it was announced that Unknown Worlds co-founders Ted Gill, Charlie Cleveland, and Max McGuire had all left publisher Crafton. Since then, we've learned that the primary reason for this was the massive $250 million bonus payout the co-founders and other employees were due to receive.
The co-founders' subsequent lawsuit revealed much more information, with the Crafton co-founders abdicating their responsibilities, while the original devs are still adamant about bonus payments. New filings in the legal action now reveal that Crafton also advised ChatGPT on how to avoid paying bonuses.
Krafton may have asked ChatGPT for help in the middle of the Subnautica 2 bonus issue
The filing states that Crafton was looking at various ways to avoid or reduce payments owed to co-founders and the studio (thanks, Kotaku). “The smoking gun documents show that Crafton was looking for ways to 'cancel earnings' and that its secret 'Project X' was designed to either 'deal' in earnings or execute a “take over”. When the founders did not agree to Crafton's demands related to earnings, Crafton decided that a 'take over' would be the 'easy' way.
The filing continues that the publisher even went so far as to ask an AI chatbot for help on the issue. “[CEO, Kim Chang-han] He turned to artificial intelligence to help him think of ways to avoid paying earnings. ChatGPT also advised that 'earnings will be difficult to cancel'.
Crafton denied the allegation in a statement to Kotaku, saying, “No. The claim is simply a diversion from his own efforts to destroy evidence, such as Charlie's reminder to other key employees (Max and Ted) to delete anything 'incriminating' from their own ChatGPT accounts.”
Coincidentally, Crafton recently announced that it was becoming an “AI First Company,” and offered compensation to employees in exchange for voluntary resignations. In the midst of all this, Subnautica 2 released its first developer update when the original story broke, however, all the comments on the video are about the $250 million payout.
