{"id":1657,"date":"2026-03-17T21:38:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T21:38:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/?p=1657"},"modified":"2026-03-17T21:38:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T21:38:18","slug":"a-gaming-ceo-asked-chatgpt-how-to-avoid-paying-a-250-million-bonus-it-didnt-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/?p=1657","title":{"rendered":"A gaming CEO asked ChatGPT how to avoid paying a $250 million bonus. It didn’t work"},"content":{"rendered":"

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When Changhan Kim, CEO of the South Korean gaming company Krafton, decided he needed a way out of a costly acquisition deal, he didn\u2019t call his lawyers\u2014he opened ChatGPT. The result is one of the most striking cautionary tales about AI-assisted decision-making in corporate America, and it ended with a Delaware judge ordering the company reverse everything it had done.<\/p>\n

A Delaware judge found Kim used ChatGPT to engineer the removal of Unknown Worlds Entertainment\u2014the indie studio responsible for the underwater survival game Subnautica\u2014CEO Ted Gill from the company to dodge a $250 million bonus payout.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFearing he had agreed to a \u2018pushover\u2019 contract, Krafton\u2019s CEO consulted an artificial intelligence chatbot to contrive a corporate \u2018takeover\u2019 strategy,\u201d Delaware\u2019s Court of Chancery Vice Chancellor Lori Will wrote in a ruling on Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2021, Krafton, the publisher behind the global phenomenon PUBG: Battlegrounds, acquired Unknown Worlds Entertainment for $500 million. As part of the deal, Krafton agreed to pay an additional $250 million earn-out bonus if the studio\u2019s hotly anticipated sequel, Subnautica 2, hit certain sales targets. The contract also guaranteed that Unknown Worlds would remain independent, with cofounders Charlie Cleveland and Max McGuire, along with Gill, retaining operational control\u2014and only being removed for cause.<\/p>\n

Usually, it\u2019s a good thing to hit and even exceed sales targets, but for Krafton, trouble started when their own internal sales projections showed Subnautica 2 was well on track to trigger that payout. When Maria Park, Krafton\u2019s head of corporate development, told Kim a \u201cdismissal with cause\u201d would not rid the company of its $250 million bonus obligation without exposing the company to \u201clawsuit and reputation risk,\u201d Kim looked toward an AI chatbot for guidance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kim, spooked by what he privately called a \u201cpushover\u201d deal, bypassed his own legal team and turned to ChatGPT for help. When the AI chatbot responded that the earnout would be \u201cdifficult to cancel,\u201d the ruling read, Kim didn\u2019t accept the answer. He pushed further\u2014and the chatbot obliged with a detailed, multi-stage corporate takeover strategy dubbed \u201cProject X.\u201d<\/p>\n

Project X<\/p>\n

ChatGPT advised Kim to form an internal task force to renegotiate the earnout or force a studio takeover; if negotiations failed, to \u201clock down\u201d Steam and console publishing rights and control over the game\u2019s code; to frame the entire conflict as being about \u201cfan trust\u201d and \u201cquality\u201d rather than money; and to prepare systematic legal defense materials while logging all communications. The chatbot even suggested drafting a public-facing message to win over Subnautica fans\u2014a message Kim then asked ChatGPT to write. It backfired spectacularly, alarming the gaming community and heightening suspicions that something was deeply wrong at the studio.<\/p>\n

Throughout this process, Kim\u2019s own team warned him the strategy was dangerous, but Kim pressed ahead anyway. Cleveland, McGuire, and Gill were all removed from their roles without what the court determined was legitimate cause.<\/p>\n

Krafton website reading \u201ctemporarily offline.\u201d<\/p>\n

Krafton<\/p>\n

Will found Krafton had improperly ousted the Unknown Worlds leadership, and noted company executives are expected to exercise independent human judgment\u2014not outsource good-faith decisions to an AI. Gill has now been ordered reinstated as CEO, with the authority to bring back the cofounders. The earnout period has been extended to account for the disruption.<\/p>\n

Neither Krafton nor Unknown Worlds responded to Fortune\u2019s requests for comments. As of Tuesday morning, Krafton\u2019s contact page was \u201ctemporarily offline.\u201d<\/p>\n

#gaming #CEO #asked #ChatGPT #avoid #paying #million #bonus #didnt #work<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Changhan Kim, CEO of the South Korean gaming company Krafton, decided he needed a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[245],"tags":[3212,3851,2397,585,2665,1918,3849,713,1408,3852,3850,845],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1657"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1657\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}