Plenty of us understand it. We are just sick how much these fatcats make while devs work their asses off while being forced to monetize games in grosser and grosser ways.
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Activision spends all of 2018 telling employees to cut costs, then gives $15 million bonus to new CFO.
- Thread starter IDontBeatGames
- Start date
Plenty of us understand it. We are just sick how much these fatcats make while devs work their asses off while being forced to monetize games in grosser and grosser ways.
Nah, at least in the EU it's not uncommon for CEO salaries to be capped by law (France, Germany, maybe some others) and even when they aren't, the ratio is far, faaaar lower than in the US. They're also taxed far higher than in the US, I believe.
Which is to say, yes it does happen everywhere else, but not at this scale, usually.
The vast majority of people would rather your favorite JRPG or indie darling went under vs COD or FIFA.
Heck, I know nobody in real life who would rather FIFA disappear than, say, Bloodborne.
I don't know how hard you work, but I doubt he worked 28,846 times as hard as you
i hate to be the sound of 'reasons' but how much a person is monetary compensated has no correlation with the amount of effort that person puts out.....especially when you quantify effort equates to the amount of time one spent on a given workload.
The CFO main task is to manage finance of the entire corporation. It might not requires the CFO to work in after-office hour crunch like a dev but it's not a cosy job signing papers and point fingers. My CFO is just seated behind me. He probably earns 10x more than me. But i wouldn't want to take his job even for that amount of monetary compensation because of the all BS he had to go through...regulatory dealing with the central bank and other commercial banks not to mention balance the book properly to ensure investors' confidence, etc...implementing carmarck's reverse is probably easier than dealing with this bullshit.
I hope people stop going 'wawa' and scream 'bloody unfair' everytime someone with a title of C & O earn millions. This lack of objectivity ("I work hard and got peanuts, those pencil pushers barely work and earn millions.....this is unfair and we need a revolution!") is disturbing.
I don't think people take issue with the fact they earn more, it's the fact they earn more money in a year than entire families will in a lifetime
If I was given a $15m bonus on my first day at work I'd hand in my notice and retire, I would imagine a large percentage of working people would
It's not "disturbing" that people want to address wealth inequality, the top 1% having more than the bottom 99% isn't something we should just expect the 99% of people to accept because a few people "work really hard" and "deal with banks"
again...how much a person is compensated monetary is depending entirely on the board, investors, etc...
i am a middle-class person myself but the last thing i want is for the rich's head on a stake and make them poorer. Rather, i want the poorer to find ways to be richer.
Is it unfair? Of course it is...but the faster we can accept this, the faster we can move on and make things better for ourselves instead of cry foul and hoping macro-level powers can make things better for you. Nothing is 'fair', it never was, it never is and it never will be.
personal investment, going back to school for further education, setting up a trust fund, setting up a charity foundation, etc.....
having more money doesn't mean just thinking about how to spend money. you must learn how to use money.
Well, how much more than anyone else do you think someone such earn to run such a huge company? And more importantly, how would you ensure that he/she keeps doing that rather difficult job with the set salary if there is no option for him to earn more.
You need year-over-year growth or you lose the ability to attract investors. When you've grown to be one of the world's biggest video game companies ever there's not much more room to grow by simply making more games at the same costs. It's the parasitic nature of being a public company.
I know lol, but i don't have any particular animosity towards the franchises.
exactly..
i can give a definite example of why it is essential to pay people top dollar to stay or join. For example, in the current asian entertainment scene, many top taiwanese and hong kong entertainers are moving to china instead of staying at their native country because the chinese are able to fork out top dollar (sometimes as much as 10x salary than what they are paid at home) and as such, there's a talent drain currently in the taiwanese and hk entertainment scene where the 'leftovers' are really 'substandard' entertainers.
Let it be known that if you are a talent in demand by the industry itself, companies will be always more than willing to fork out top dollars for you as they presumed your output in the company will be worth the money spent recruiting you.
If the people in ERA wants to be angry at sometime, it is not 'sign on' bonus that you should be angry about...but rather 'layoff' bonuses that are paid to disgraced executives like Andy Rubin got from google (sexual harassment complains) or failed executives like Marissa Mayer got from Yahoo (totally fail to rejuvenate Yahoo and bought all the wrong things during her tenure and ultimately result in yahoo selling to verizon).
Companies paying a person top dollar under the prospect that the person can deliver a positive impact to the company is reasonable. Companies laying off a person for failures and yet paying that person a large sum of money...now that's bullshit!
I don't really go in for that - I have enough to get by and that suits me. If I had that kind of crazy money, I'd probably give most to charity.
Oh of course nothing is fair, and for my age I'm probably better off than people, but just because something isn't fair that doesn't mean we can't at least want things to be fairer, even if the means to make that happen are unclear
People can't really make things better for themselves because most people need to dedicate 60% of all their waking hours to working for someone else. Sure they can engage with the system and work their way up or start their own business, but that only helps them, it doesn't do shit for the other 99% of people stuck giving up all their time so they can afford basic services
I don't have all the answers, and even if I did, it's not really up to me
A system where those in power pay people to generate more than they're paid so the excess can be handed off to others isn't really going to benefit the majority though, more so as time goes on and the rich horde more and more
Maybe it's the best economic model we have, maybe it's not
The main problem is those with wealth naturally invest in politics and the media, because that allows them to dictate policy and dialogue, and you'll never get people with huge sums of money promoting anything that would hurt them, and anything that would address wealth inequality would clearly hurt them
In the UK all of our press is owned and controlled by 5 billionaires, and all of them help fund the best funded political party in the UK, who happen to be in power, and all learn right and would aggressively attack and ridicule anything to the left of their own views
I feel like people are only angry because the do not take the time to see all perspectives. They just see that guy who earn top dollars and thinks he's bathing in the money. Well, that's not how it works. Put yourself into that position, imagine the responsibility, the pressure and basically working all day long. And then there is this small thing called wealth tax. I dunno how it's in the US but I know that here in Europe the state makes it quite difficult for you to just stash you money in a big bank account so you got to keep investing it - which of course comes with the risk of loosing it again.
People should really stop seeing being CEO with rose tinted glasses. I'm not in the position to judge on just how much money one can make (but this is probably largely determined by market and competition) but it has to be top dollar. Otherwise I doubt that anyone would do that for a longer period of time.
Even if it's exaggerated, although I feel more than 3 million dollars as a bonus is sick, this just shows that all the talk about "MT are necessary for devs" is bullshit, the only ones getting benefitted from that greediness is top execs and investors.
The thing is Blizzard wants to cut costs, but they are heavily monetizing his games, so is clear who is getting shafted here, and is not the guy that at worst is getting $3.5 million and at best $15 million, are the programmers that people here defend as the ones being benefitted from these practi
The thing is Blizzard wants to cut costs, but they are heavily monetizing his games, so is clear who is getting shafted here, and is not the guy that at worst is getting $3.5 million and at best $15 million, are the programmers that people here defend as the ones being benefitted from these practi
I wanna see the receipts.
Poor extremely wealthy people not being able to buy a second luxury house...
You do realise that most people deal with the bolded already right, hard work and stress isn't something only the mega rich deal with
And yeah the rich are taxed, but In the UK the top rate of tax is 45% so of that 15m, he'd still be getting close to 8m, which is again, a sum pretty much anyone in the UK and US could retire on immediately
I'm not personally mad this guy was given $15m, it's not his fault he's in that position and if someone offered me $15m I would of course take it, I just think a system where that is the norm is probably not working for everyone in society as best it could
So you criticize a system without having any kind of solution... Great...
You'd be surprised to know that the rich horde rather little. All the billions you learn that Bill Gates and Tim Cook have... This is not on their bank account. It's liquid money that is in the market. Investment. The real money hordes are... me and you. The little people. The money you keep on your bank account for hard times? Unlike the billions of Gates that is of no use for the economy. It just sits there. And now accumulate all these small saving of everyone and then imagine the amount of money that is of absolutely no use to the economy whatsoever. Spoilers: It dwarfs the money all the rich have.
Just think about all that for a minute or two.
Bank of England - money creation in a modern economy. I suggest you give it a read.
I could make way less than that work and live very comfortably.
I'm sorry , that's just bullshit, the amount of crap i have to deal with as an engineer, the amount of knowledge i had to aquire over the years is no slouch either. Knowing that the guy running finances is earning 50x more than me when his knowledge might not be on par with mine and those of my colleagues makes me sour.
I'm sorry if that hurts your feelings, but it is what it is. These guys (CFO,CEO) don't deserve to earn 50x or more than an engineer, anyone that studied anything related to it knows this. Even engineers shouldn't earn much more than a regular worker, even though we have huge responsabilities.These fuckers, when shit goes south don't pay for it, just change companies and that's it. That's the reality in my country. Basically they get paid huge amounts of money for some sort of responsability that they then ditch when shit hits the fan. What is sad, is people like you defending this sort of crap.
sigh...this is one of the reasons why poor people will remains poor......not just because of macro-economical predicaments & situations (which they can't control obviously) but also the lack of objectivity and formulate their entire rationality based on personal emotions (Which they can most definitely control).
You can be upset and dissatisfied about your monetary status & social standings without being angry at 'the other side'...you know....
I'm angry at poor, or not, people trying to explain to me the sad tale of people who make milllions of dollars every year, with false narratives.
Poor people remain poor because we buy this false idea that this is normal and this is how things should work.
For your first point, yes. I criticise sexism, racism and homophobia too, I also don't have the solution to solving those social problems, but from your perspective if you don't have an answer to the problem it's best to just shut up?
As to the point they don't horde wealth:
https://www.cnbc.com/2014/11/19/rich-hoard-cash-as-their-wealth-reaches-record-high.html
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/apr/07/global-inequality-tipping-point-2030
If that is not hording wealth, at what point would you say it is? Also lol at all the money the little people have (1/3) being more than the money the rich have (2/3)
Maybe cite some sources because it sounds like your talking nonsense
Having responsibility for your wife and kid at home and actively making decisions that concern thousands of people are completely different things.
So? You would not even get a chance to get into a position like that with this thinking. You ever wonder why none of those CEOs retire after such a paycheck? Because you have to be such a person to even get into a position like that.
I guarantee you would not do that job for even a week let alone for the time being needed to get a 15 million bonus.
Weeeell I, on the other hand, think that he would ace it raising profits 72,4 percent aaaand doing a 3 day workweek while raising salaries 20 percent. Man, he would be an awesome CFO!
If they cared about the destiny of thousands of people, the wouldn't need incentives in the millions so the company knows for sure they will do a proper job.
Oh god, you're entirely right.
I feel so ashamed, how could i not think about the poor rich people. The only individuals in this world that works hard, so much pressure, so much judgement. It makes you wonder what everyone else is doing, those lazy poor fucks. Work harder!
I would, and it's a signing on bonus, I'd accept the job and hand my notice in first thing on my first day, then walk away with enough to retire on, even after tax
I love this narrative where you think these people are superhuman superheros and only they can handle these jobs and so they deserve to be paid thousands of times more than everyone else
If that's your fantasy, that's cool, you do you, but the reality is there are thousands and thousands of people in the world who could do that job to a good standard
I'm probably not one of them, but that doesn't mean this bellend is the chosen one
Yeah, well, they do that now that profits aren't as good as they expected. We do not know how much salaries and such have improved when Activision was growing...
Didn't Lehman Brothers Exec walked away with millions and millions after doing such a terrific job? Give me a fucking break.
It's a well know fact you can't have empathy for others without being paid millions and millions of pounds
I mean, these people would still rather cut 5,000 jobs than reduce their £4.5m basic pre bonus salary
This is not a problem with capitalism but the fakt most US companies don't have a union in place that fights for the employees. Fighting for them to get a piece of the pie and not loose their jobs.
Company I work for pays their employees (everyone of them) record high sums. last year Porsche paid every cleaning lady they have 9111€ in bonuses. As long as they do so I have no problems with the CEO making millions. It's also nice working while having to cut cost when you know it'll make the company profit that you'll benefit directly with a higher sum in bonuses.
Everything else is fucked
Company I work for pays their employees (everyone of them) record high sums. last year Porsche paid every cleaning lady they have 9111€ in bonuses. As long as they do so I have no problems with the CEO making millions. It's also nice working while having to cut cost when you know it'll make the company profit that you'll benefit directly with a higher sum in bonuses.
Everything else is fucked
Oh please there's always people defending this fucking shit.
OF COURSE being a CEO or CFO is a hard job and comes with massive responsibility. But it is not worth 100X the work of a creative at the company.
I thought you were heading down this rabbit hole but chose to give you the benefit of the doubt until now.
Poor people aren't poor because they can't control their emotions. Get some fucking perspective.
Money begets more money. Donald Trump isn't a good businessman. He would have made more money investing the momney his father gave him in an unmanaged stock index fund. He has a history of failing business. He is incredibly emotional and led by his feelings.
What poor house has he ended up in? The sodding White House.
If you have money it is easy to generate more money.
If you have no money it is almost impossible to raise yourself out of destitution. The fallacy that poor people are only poor because they lack the willpower is a stupid and repugnant lie. One that has been used to justify literally sterilizing poor people in the past.
People are angry about this because of the enormous disparity in wealth. The are so many studies that show that the less gap between rich and poor, the happier a general population is.
Please remedy yourself of these wrong headed views.
Tell that to the Audi CEO who got to prison for shit the VW higher ups did. In Germany ,for example, a company can't be sued (not a legal body) only the CEO directly can be. He is legally speaking in charge and shoulders all of the responsibility.
I mean, there are plenty of professions where people actually risk their lives - fire-fighters, etc. - and while I appreciate that occasionally CEOs do find themselves in front of a judge, it's far from the norm.
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The Activision CFO isn't overpaid with respect to common industry sign up bonuses for execs at his level.
Activision and Blizzard devs are not underpaid compared to the industry average.
So from whence comes this horseshit that exec level salaries have to be slashed before trying to cut costs and reduce inefficiency?
This silly 'greedy Activision' Meme needs to die ASAP.
Activision and Blizzard devs are not underpaid compared to the industry average.
So from whence comes this horseshit that exec level salaries have to be slashed before trying to cut costs and reduce inefficiency?
This silly 'greedy Activision' Meme needs to die ASAP.