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Kotaku: Despite Huge Sales, Borderlands 3 Developers Are Getting Stiffed On Bonuses

Fabtacular

Fabtacular

Member
Jul 11, 2019
4,244
Kadin said:
I guess it can be interpreted that way but that's not what I took from it. Simply that it was a step that had to first be met, not that it hasn't as of yet.
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I think it would be useful to walk through the math on this.

Let's make the following assumptions:
  • Borderlands 3 sold-through 7.5m copies
  • The ASP for each copy was $36 (remember, the 5m units in the first weeks was sell-in, not sell-through: https://www.thegamer.com/borderlands-3-sales-not-what-2k-said/ so while the game is nearing 8 million units sold, the good majority of those were likely on sale at far below $60)
  • Platform holders take an average of 30% of the gross
  • The royalty hurdle is $140m
  • In exchange for financing the game, Take-Two keeps 75% of the profits, giving 25% to Gearbox as a royalty
  • Gearbox's royalty is then split 40% to the employees
This is all very high-level and subject to a lot of assumptions, but I'm guessing it's probably in the ballpark.

That gets us to $4.9m in bonuses to be split among the participating employees.

So now assuming that everyone who worked on the project shares equally in that (and that's a big assumption, since generally the most highly-compensated employees receive outsized portions of the revenue share), and if you had 200 people working on the game everyone is getting a check for $25k. After taxes, that's $16k and far from the "buy a house" money that the people who worked on Borderlands 2 got.

I think that this is far more likely what's happening than Gearbox changing any kind of deal they made with their developers.
 

Deleted member 18944

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IMCaprica said:
Gearbox is officially done. They've finally pissed off the "I'll still buy it to support the devs" people who come out of the woodwork whenever someone says the word "boycott".
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Done from whose perspective?

The games industry, from both management and consumer sides, do not give a fuck about developers to the degree that things change quickly, drastically, and for the direct benefit of the mental and physical stability of developers.

Gamers will continue to buy games from studios who fundamentally believe that Crunch is a requirement to develop games, and management will continue using that system to perpetuate the culture of it.

We exist in a catch 22 for all of it too, so there's not a clear way to support the devs in a way that also communicates to management that they need to stop treating their devs like shit.
 

Deleted member 51848

Jan 10, 2019
1,408
Unfortunately the system just pushes more people into it for these companies to exploit.
 
Kaeden

Kaeden

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Oct 25, 2017
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Hobbes said:
Done from whose perspective?

The games industry, from both management and consumer sides, do not give a fuck about developers to the degree that things change quickly, drastically, and for the direct benefit of the mental and physical stability of developers.

Gamers will continue to buy games from studios who fundamentally believe that Crunch is a requirement to develop games, and management will continue using that system to perpetuate the culture of it.

We exist in a catch 22 for all of it too, so there's not a clear way to support the devs in a way that also communicates to management that they need to stop treating their devs like shit.
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On that last part, that's what I have the hardest time with . A lot here are saying 'fuck Gearbox I'm never supporting them again' which does in fact hurt the developers themselves, in addition to the suits of course. How do you support the devs that are making far less without continuing to contribute to the higher ups? I absolutely love the Borderlands games and bought 3 because I want to see more, but shit like this just makes it so hard. Sure I can just stand up and say I'm not buying any more, but that doesn't help the actual hundreds of people who put in so much time and effort. Maybe in the long run it can, but it hurts them in the here and now.
 
punkFish

punkFish

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Mar 30, 2020
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shame. you think randy would learn a thing or two by now, but he just keeps making himself look like a fool. he should do one of his magic tricks and just vanish so someone more competent can take his place.
 

Deleted member 18161

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Com_Raven said:
BGS open world games are actually much cheaper than many others I think, due to being more systemic and less content heavy. The next GTA on the other hand probably has a good shot at being the most expensive game ever (at least #2 after Star Citizen), though they will still be profitable.
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Good point. I can't wait to see what a next gen GTA looks like although I doubt we'll see it until 2024 lol.
 
DeadlyVenom

DeadlyVenom

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Apr 3, 2018
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Fabtacular

Fabtacular

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Jul 11, 2019
4,244
Kadin said:
So because it happens in 'basically every business ever', that means it shouldn't be talked about and brought up in context like this? Maybe you're fine just saying 'shit happens' but this shit doesn't fly with a lot of people and needs to be highlighted when it happens.

I say the above because you started this conversation accusing the article of clickbait, btw.
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I think it's clickbait because it gives the impression that the company decided they didn't want to pay bonuses to developers on Borderlands 3, even though it was incredibly successful. But instead, it looks like the formula-based bonus system that was in place was not altered. Instead, the inputs ended up being such that it paid out less that what the developers expected. Had the headline been "formula-driven bonus system in-place at Gearbox for years ends up paying bonuses on Borderlands 3 significantly less than were paid on Borderlands 2" we wouldn't have a thread on Era about this.

Additionally, I would tend to disagree with the idea that any bonus paid to Randy Pitchford altered these bonuses whatsoever. First off, from Take Two's perspective, there's no way they're letting him take a $12m bonus as part of the game's budget. Secondly, given that the bonus pool appears to be paid out of gross royalties paid to Gearbox, and Gearbox expenses (like executive salaries) appear not to be subtracted from the money out of which the bonuses are paid.
 
makonero

makonero

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Oct 27, 2017
9,655
Fabtacular said:
I think it's clickbait because it gives the impression that the company decided they didn't want to pay bonuses to developers on Borderlands 3, even though it was incredibly successful. But instead, it looks like the formula-based bonus system that was in place was not altered. Instead, the inputs ended up being such that it paid out less that what the developers expected. Had the headline been "formula-driven bonus system in-place at Gearbox for years ends up paying bonuses on Borderlands 3 significantly less than were paid on Borderlands 2" we wouldn't have a thread on Era about this.

Additionally, I would tend to disagree with the idea that any bonus paid to Randy Pitchford altered these bonuses whatsoever. First off, from Take Two's perspective, there's no way they're letting him take a $12m bonus as part of the game's budget. Secondly, given that the bonus pool appears to be paid out of gross royalties paid to Gearbox, and Gearbox expenses (like executive salaries) appear not to be subtracted from the money out of which the bonuses are paid.
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"Clickbait" is a dismissive derogatory term. Stop using it when you don't even know what it actually means.
 
-Tetsuo-

-Tetsuo-

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IMCaprica said:
Gearbox is officially done. They've finally pissed off the "I'll still buy it to support the devs" people who come out of the woodwork whenever someone says the word "boycott".
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Breh 90% of the people that bought this game know nothing about this or any of the other shit Gearbox has done. 95% know and don't care .
 

Deleted member 59126

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Aug 10, 2019
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What a horrible action by a deplorable man... And the timing couldn't be any worse.

My heart goes out to those developers and their families.
 
elyetis

elyetis

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Oct 26, 2017
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Reminder that somehow we were told that not supporting their game because of randy was unfair to the other devs working on the game.
 

Deleted member 2620

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consumerism can't fix this, we have a system in place that naturally creates these catch-22 situations.

as in every other case, the best move for fans who care about the well-being of those who make the games that they like is to encourage the developers to unionize, and to get those with a platform (like Schreier) to help. and to continue to spotlight shitty owners.
 
chrisypoo

chrisypoo

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Oct 27, 2017
3,457
Buckle said:
Is Randy Pitchford half man and half rat?
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Let's not insult rats by comparing them to Randy here.

Why are there still people who support this company? We've known that Randy's a sub human piece of shit for a while, this is not news.....stop supporting the company. Vote with your dollar people. More and more bad news and articles come out regarding this ass hole, people bitch about him, and then they go out and buy the next game he hypes up. Vote with your wallet if you want change. I haven't bought a Gearbox title in years, and I don't intend to.
 
Forsaken82

Forsaken82

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Oct 27, 2017
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Rocketz said:
Stop supporting Randy Pitchford
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it's made clear in the article from the sources that these employees were going to make 6 figures from bonuses alone. They are STILL receiving bonuses, but just not nearly as much as stated in the article (also, how much less is ALSO not stated in the article). Is Randy still a piece of shit if instead of 100k in bonuses, they only receive 50k? 25k? A lot of people would LOVE bonus checks of that size.

Hell, even if it was a paltry 5k i wouldn't be complaining. How many of you even GET bonus checks?
 
Dark Ninja

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Oct 27, 2017
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Keep in mind too this is usually only for employees if you worked contract or temp you don't get anything. Usually you get paid overtime as contract but employees work salary which is what the bonuses are supposed to make up for or exceed.
 

slothrop

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If it's profit-sharing, and the devs indeed get the percentage of profit that was negotiated, I mean I'm not sure what else could be done here. Its a reasonable compensation structure, just very high variance. This would be more of a disappointing thing than a burn down the company thing.

I'll agree it was deceptive recruiting to indicate specific values for profit-sharing. This is a bad practice common across the tech industries -- startups typically over value their stock options which usually end up diluted or valueless, which is a related problem.
 
Mr_DyZ

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tmkn said:
yeah idk why employees would make investments with money they don't have
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Randy sucks and it's a dick move, but yea, basing future financial decisions off of the potential at a juicy bonus seems.... weird?

Especially the times we're in now. Lots of companies are removing merit increases, reducing/eliminating 401k matches, and getting rid of bonuses altogether.
 
fanboy

fanboy

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Oct 27, 2017
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Wanted to buy this but hard pass after this. Probably wont buy anything from gearbox ever. Nevermind, they would never give me my brothers in arms 4. Fuck randy
 
doemaaan

doemaaan

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Oct 27, 2017
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Oh NO, man. NO. I really don't wanna hear this. Especially with my B3 devs. I get so much value out of this game... no, series! What a shit thing to do to them.
 

slothrop

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I guess what in people's minds would have been a more fair bonus structure in this case? I mean the profit you're dishing out is the profit, you can't really just will more of it into existence. Is the thinking that they should have changed the comp structure to be more than 40% to employees once projections weren't met? Maybe, I could see that argument. If you want your percentage to slide like that though then really what you want to do is negotiate a flat bonus or a floor.

They could have gone harder on the leaning into profitability over what ever they spent money on, but cost-cutting typically has it's own set of problems that are negative to employees...

I think this really sucks for the employees but it's just... standard risk in this type of compensation structure so it's not in it's face utter travesty like crunch and other problems we hear from the industry. This will happen in ANY company with profit-sharing if they miss profitability forecasts
 
Kaeden

Kaeden

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Forsaken82 said:
it's made clear in the article from the sources that these employees were going to make 6 figures from bonuses alone. They are STILL receiving bonuses, but just not nearly as much as stated in the article (also, how much less is ALSO not stated in the article). Is Randy still a piece of shit if instead of 100k in bonuses, they only receive 50k? 25k? A lot of people would LOVE bonus checks of that size.

Hell, even if it was a paltry 5k i wouldn't be complaining. How many of you even GET bonus checks?
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How is that even a comparison though? They were (according to the article) given expectations of a certain amount and clearly it fell short. Because the amount is a lot to many, doesn't change the fact that they didn't get what they expected. Other people getting or not getting bonus checks is irrelevant.
 
Bunzy

Bunzy

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Nov 1, 2018
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you know it's definitely wrong to tell employees one thing and do the other. Maybe it's corona virus related and the company has to get a little lean for a bit, even if that's the case you state to your employees that they will get the compensation somehow but it will be at a later date. I mean give them some peace of mind or confirmation that they will still get full compensation.

I'm not saying it's shady for sure because I dont know what went down and it's hearsay, but it's hard not to believe it when Randy is involved. Dude just happens to be involved in a lot of shitty things
 
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