CD Projekt Red executives will still be walking away with millions of dollars in bonuses, despite a rough Cyberpunk 2077 launch that saw the game riddled with bugs and removed from console storefronts.
That's according to the latest newsletter from Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, who revealed that five of CDPR's board members are set to earn combined bonuses of $28 million—with co-CEOS Marcin Iwiński and Adam Kiciński receiving $6.3 million (24 million zloty) each. In comparison, employee sources told Bloomberg they'd received anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000, depending on seniority. Those figures track with CDPR's annual financial report, which estimates the company brought in $562 million last year.
That's a 500% increase over the previous year, with Cyberpunk selling over 13.7 million copies. But employees told Bloomberg they were expecting more, and may have gotten more if the game had been delayed to fix the countless known issues plaguing the game.
That CD Projekt's very bad week following the CP2077 launch doesn't seem to have affected big bonuses for its board members isn't a great look. In an investor call last week, Kiciński was asked whether it was appropriate for executives to still take these huge bonuses—the co-CEO responding that its bonuses had always been tied to profits.
"We earned this money and the company earned this money, of course, but more net profits, more bonuses," said Kiciński. "So well, we have results, we get bonuses, and that’s the contract we have."
Excessive payouts for games industry bosses have come under increased scrutiny in recent years. This week, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick agreed to have his salary and bonuses halved, after facing strong criticism for his excessive income. Bloomberg's sources did mention that CDPR is looking to increase rates for the lowest-payed employees at the studio (including testing) to bring them in line with industry standards.
