Subnautica 2 has sold 2 million copies in 12 hours, with 9x the players as the first, and at this point I figure that Krafton CEO is already on his second bottle

It's rare, especially in this day and age, to see a genuine comeuppance play out in real time—which is why I'm savouring this particular piece of glee as I'm informed that Subnautica 2 has hit a 2 million copy milestone in just 12 hours, after selling a million copies in one.

Per a press release sent to PC Gamer, "Peak concurrent players across Steam, the Epic Games Store, and Xbox exceeded 651,000, with Steam alone reaching a peak of more than 467,000 concurrent players. This marks approximately nine times the all-time peak concurrent player count of the original Subnautica, which launched in 2018."

As to why this is bad news for Krafton CEO Changham Kim, it's a doozy. Back in July of last year, it was revealed that the entire leadership of developer Unknown Worlds had been gutted.

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Things went to court, where Kim was accused of kicking out the studio's former heads over a potential payout (to the tune of $250 million, if the game reached certain sales targets) that would earn him a "reputation as a pushover and endanger his position as CEO." Krafton was also accused of purposefully delaying the game to avoid the payout window.

During a cross-examination, it was also confirmed that Kim had gone to ChatGPT for advice on what to do: "Now, ChatGPT [is] start[ing] to answer that it is difficult to cancel the earn-out," Kim wrote in a message to Krafton head of corporate development Maria Park.

A judge ordered former Unknown Worlds CEO Ted Gill be reinstated over a "material breach of contract". Basically, Krafton has to pay the money it said it would pay, and "can—and must—act in good faith to navigate their remaining contractual relationship."

Obviously, that hinges on Subnautica 2 doing well. Which it has done. Tremendously.

It's not clear what the exact requirements were for the returned Unknown Worlds leadership to get their payout, but I'm willing to bet that, at the very least, 2 million copies being sold in 12 hours has put them on the right track, if not already well over the finish line.

Now, I'm no cutthroat capitalist businessman, but I do have to wonder out loud if trying to sabotage the launch of a game with a huge amount of hype around it (Subnautica 2 was the most wishlisted game on Steam for a while), spoiling one's working relationship with the people who made it, and dragging oneself to court and being forced to admit you, a big CEO, were relying on ChatGPT for advice—if all of that is worth just paying the money you said you'd pay in a contract you signed.

I suppose it's neither here nor there, but I will eagerly await the news of Unknown Worlds getting their payout with a deep sense of schadenfreude.

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