Two million seems reasonable. It bugs me when Jill Brandt or whatever her name was is at the helm and a company performs terribly and she walks away with a bundle, but it was cheaper for Mattel to handle her that way than firing her and dealing with a lot of legal crap.
I think Take 2 was close to insolvency back when BC3K was released, and Take 2 knowingly released a defective product that didn’t work and should have been sued. It’s one thing to release a game with bugs; it’s another to release a game you know won’t even run. That was the clearest case of fraud I’ve seen a game company engage in. They were desperate for the cash though.
After that they made a hard right turn and begin investing in distrubution rather than creating their own games in-house, and guess what? It’s been a spectacular success for them, and you can blame that success on the “suits” at Take 2. Sure, they got a bit lucky with GTA – I’d argue that the game business is unpredictable enough that it takes a bit of luck from time to time until you’re a monster like EA and can throw enough titles at the market and reasonably expect some to be hits.
And look what they’ve been doing since GTA – buying up development houses. We’re yet to see if that’s wise or unwise, but after paying $40M+ for the Max Payne IP, they’re snapping up development houses with promising IP for under $10M I’d guess. If they’re making good guesses and are a bit lucky again, they may have another Max Payne-ish success story and own the IP outright.
Considering the Take Two growth (and RB still being a bastard who has probably mended his ways), I’d say they deserve it.
They bought out those devs I think, so, they’ve already got their share of the pie.
At the end of the day, its all good. Gamers win. They made games that a TON of gamers wanted to play. And the gamers in turn rewarded them for that. Everybody wins.[/quote]
Screw giving this exec a $2M cash bonus - give him $2M in stock instead and tie his ass to a two-year vesting schedule. Even ATI knows better here: witness Dave Orton’s amazing stock promissory note.
And since I’m of the firm belief we’re in minute 13 of Take 2’s 15 minutes of fame (what exactly do they have in the wings when GTA runs out of steam? These are the nimrods that gaves us such amazing classics as Monkey Hero and Ball Breakers), this would both reward his performance and give him double-extra incentive to warp their Warhol time to at least 20 minutes.
As for his salary - no problem there - success should be rewarded. But of course, I suspect if they didn’t reward the GTA team accordingly, they’ll be up for grabs shortly and Microsoft has warm, open arms for such people. Game devs are much too slow to anger for their own good, but once spurned, it’s buh-bye.
I know I long for the day of $2M bonuses. Only then will I be able to afford to pay $150,000 to have expert magicians put hexes on my various enemies (and make no mistake, my enemies are legion!). Or purify the lands of my estates by the pouring of blood from hundreds of cows.
I think we all hold forth to achieving that dream. The American dream. Gold plated houses. Rocket cars. “Pleasure Engineers”. And so forth.
After a long day of taking the advice of my subordinates, I need to lay back in my tub of baby seal oils and relax.
And that hard earned lifestyle doesn’t come cheap. Those who complain should stop being jealous and simply become executives of Take 2 themselves. Sheesh, they’re a sign up sheet in the lobby for crying out loud.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, my kids need me to take them to see the Fantastipotomus. She only sings twice a day.
>>> And since I’m of the firm belief we’re in minute 13 of Take 2’s 15 minutes of fame (what exactly do they have in the wings when GTA runs out of steam? <<<
Plenty. I would not bet against this company. In fact, I’ve recently bought a LOT of stock.
So as an employee of a partner of Take 2, you’re either doing insider trading and the SEC will likely kick your ass for it if you made any of this decision based on non-public information (and they seem to operate on a fanatic guilty until proven innocent philosophy these days) or you’re dangerously concentrating your money in your effective employer’s stock. God help you if it’s the former, and best of luck if it’s the latter - risk is directly proportional to return after all.
Call me skeptical about trusting past results as a predictor of future performance as I suspect perfect execution is already priced into this now overhyped stock. Ergo the only place it can really go on its own is down. But of course, I could be wrong. There’s always a greater fool out there.
After all, if I were in charge of Take 2, all of my future titles would revolve around licensing the career works of Adam West and William Shatner post Batman/Star Trek so that tells you what I know
