Pixels to Paychecks: Inside the Salaries of Gaming Company CEOs
Exploring executive compensation in turbulent times
Cover-Credits:
AFK Gaming
“EA CEO Secures $25 Million in FY2024 Amidst Hundreds of Layoffs”, “EA CEO Secures $25 Million in FY2024 Amidst Hundreds of Layoffs”, “EA's top execs earned $60m in last fiscal year, despite company layoffs”: These are only a few of the headlines from just last month after Electronic Arts revealed how much it is paying its top executives in its annual report and proxy information. EA CEO Andrew Wilson secured $25 Million USD as compensation despite the company having laid off countless developers, a situation emblematic of a larger narrative that seems ripped from the plot of 'Parasite'.
Interestingly, it is not just Wilson who took home a hefty paycheck. Bobby Kotick of Activision, for instance, reportedly received $500 million from the Microsoft takeover of Blizzard, although his compensation at that time was under a million dollars. CEOs are often compensated with equity in order to align stakeholder incentives when the company performs well.
While a CEO is the highest-ranking executive role and is responsible for the company's overall strategy, direction, and vision, the substantial compensation packages of gaming CEOs have raised eyebrows recently. These reports have fueled comparisons between the earnings of employees and top executives within the same companies.
Beyond the fame and glory that accompany the role of a CEO, there lies a persistent debate within the gaming industry and beyond: Should CEOs or employees receive higher pay? This ongoing discussion often feels like the classic "chicken or the egg first" conundrum.
With so much dialogue around the million-dollar cheques drawn by gaming CEOs, we dug into the various avenues through which they get paid while examining the ratio between a company's earnings and the salary awarded to its CEO.
Companies we looked at for this analysis include Tencent, Nintendo, EA, Garena, Roblox, Krafton, CD Projekt Red, Square Enix, Embracer Group, and Ubisoft along with Activision before it went private.
