The fight between Krafton, the Korean company behind games like TERA, PUBG, and inZOI, and the founders of Unknown Worlds Entertainment (developers of Subnautica) continues even outside of court.
This morning, Krafton shared two files with the press. One of them is the sworn testimony of Unknown Worlds founder Chris Cleveland in the Delaware court, and the other is a document written by Cleveland as 'litigation help' while he prepared for the legal battle. Cleveland himself submitted the document into evidence, and now Krafton has underlined that several of his comments demonstrated racist views toward Korea and its people, as well as the unwavering conviction that the Korean developer would ultimately be seen as the 'villain' of this story. Here are a few excerpts:
Korea - they are the Joe Pesci of countries. Charming until they're incredible nasty. It goes to 11 quickly. No filter.
It can be emotionally draining dealing with this, especially as male westerners. [Korean, seems to be implied] Males might be more problem-solvers and bring less emotion - they're biological reasons for this. Making games is about problem solving.
Korea has been surrounded by enemies who want to kill them. They are fighters. It's small and nasty. Every year some big film star commits suicide because of sex, drugs, or something, hounded by press.
Delaware will say this is a bunch of sadistic Korean assholes (like Samsung - John Pleasance). They've cast as out as villains and it's done.
Delaware? Oh, they're fucked. You don't even need a Korean lawyer. History will remember that Krafton was bad. Even the Reddit crowd hates them because of Dark and Darker.
We’re playing the house’s money and we’re the home team. We don’t need to worry about these guys or our reputation. History will remember that Krafton was bad.
In the testimony, Cleveland admitted to saying last year that Unknown Worlds was no longer a place he really wanted to work at, and also that he was 'semi-retired' and only working on the Subnautica movie in some capacity. For their part, Krafton noted that he is now instead looking at being reinstated, and Cleveland replied that he is 'fired up now'.
It all started on July 2, when Krafton removed the original Unknown Worlds studio leadership (Charlie Cleveland, Ted Gill, and Max McGuire). The fired founders claimed the company purposely delayed Subnautica 2 to avoid paying them a $250 million bonus, but the South Korean developer eventually replied that it was them who wanted to rush an unfinished version of the game out to get the payment, after neglecting their duties.
Since then, accusations have flown left and right. Just two days ago, it came to light that Krafton CEO Changham Kim had asked ChatGPT if there was some way to avoid paying the three their big bonus. This came just days after the South Korean developer announced its shift toward being an 'AI-first company'.
Today's is likely to be one of many chapters in this controversial story. Stay tuned as we continue to cover it. For the record, Krafton did share a tidbit today about Subnautica 2's ongoing development:
We have made incredible progress in the past few months, and we are excited to share with all the Subnautica fans.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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