ATVI Facing a Potential Lawsuit While New CFO Dennis Durkin Rakes in $15M Worth of 'Awards' - MMOR

SBFord

ATVI Facing a Potential Lawsuit While New CFO Dennis Durkin Rakes in $15M Worth of 'Awards' - MMORPG.com News

Amidst troubling times at Activision-Blizzard, the company's new Chief Financial Officer Dennis Durkin has scored $15,000,000 in "awards" for taking on the position full time. Durkin took over the CFO job after Spencer Neumann was fired prior to taking the CFO position at Netflix.

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SBFord

Oy vey...honestly........February's investor call for Q4 2018 is gonna be wild.

Annwyn

Activision is looking more and more like a deadbeat husband. I don't know the company structure of AVTI, but it's time to break up this unhealthy relationship.

cheyane

What crap is this?

Arskaaa

drama just dont stop

timeraider

In before people thought 2018 would be the worst year for big gamepublishers and developers.. here comes 2019!

DMKano

d_20

Glad I don't have money here. Would not touch. Good luck to those die-hard fans, though.

BizkitNL

Blizzard should follow Bungie's example and just frikkin leave.

Margrave

Glad I don't own that stock

Daranar

What I love is all these idiot investment firms calling ATVI a 'Buy' now because it's become so cheap compared to where it was. Yeah, because they can't make a good decision to save their life. And now apparently they can't even hold onto their games. It's only a buy if they stand a chance at the success they once had: Unlikely.

azarhal

BizkitNL said:

Blizzard should follow Bungie's example and just frikkin leave.

They can't. Bungie wasn't owned by Activision, they had an exclusive publishing deal with them that they cancelled (it ended in 2020 anyway).

Blizzard were never independent, their ownership moved from publisher to publisher until Activision bought them.

vegetableoil

Many people got angry? sure, but every other big corporation has the same exact problems. If you put your money in any banks, then they have the exact same structure of payment where the top executive got paid millions, and they fired the lower one. I would be more worried about the banks than blizzard. If you google bob iger the ceo of Disney, the compensation would make your eyes rolled.

Alverant

Well, now we know what those microtransactions was going towards.

SplitStream13

Shit, what do you actually study to get appointed CEO of those IT mastodonts and get a sign in bonus so big that it's going to last you a lifetime It's crazy, you cut actually talented people (and pay the rest the minimum salary for the region) to hire some guy and give him a base salary that's probably 10 times the senior workers in the firm, that actually helped make it. Call me a commie all you want but that's just some corporate bullshit right there. Same shit with Amazon, pay salaries so low that your workers qualify for the coupon program. Buy a general goods chain stores and do not accept these coupons while your CEO is the richest goddamn person to have ever walked the planet .... profit?

gervaise1

azarhal said:

BizkitNL said:

Blizzard should follow Bungie's example and just frikkin leave.

They can't. Bungie wasn't owned by Activision, they had an exclusive publishing deal with them that they cancelled (it ended in 2020 anyway).

Blizzard were never independent, their ownership moved from publisher to publisher until Activision bought them.

As you say they "can't". Activision and Blizzard came together in a merger in 2007 - so tatally different than the publishing deal AB had with Bungee. I suppose it would be possible for "Activision Blizzard" to sell Activsion or Blizzard or King. Or to do a stock split creating two (or even three) companies to "unlock investor potential". Can't see that being for the better though.

gervaise1

vegetableoil said:

Many people got angry? sure, but every other big corporation has the same exact problems. If you put your money in any banks, then they have the exact same structure of payment where the top executive got paid millions, and they fired the lower one. I would be more worried about the banks than blizzard. If you google bob iger the ceo of Disney, the compensation would make your eyes rolled.

Other companies doing it doesn't make it right of course.

A lot is said about "if we don't pay $X we won't get Suzie or Fred". Now whilst Suzie would clearly be worth it   what makes Fred $15M better than a Bill say? If they simply promoted someone from within that would be $15M saved for starters

Dauzqul

These days will soon be over. The tools given to Indy devs today are absolutely fantastic. Within the next 5-10 years, you will see AAA-looking stuff coming from the Indy crowd.

Take a look at the Unity asset store. Amazing volumetric lighting, terrain tessellation, optimization tools, superior models, etc. Engines are so easy to use now.

MisterZebub

Well hell, I have it on good authority that I'm a life wrecking idiot, how do I sign up for a job like this?

Mendel

Security fraud?  Do these guys think they are operating a crowdfunded startup?

Kyleran

vegetableoil said:

Many people got angry? sure, but every other big corporation has the same exact problems. If you put your money in any banks, then they have the exact same structure of payment where the top executive got paid millions, and they fired the lower one. I would be more worried about the banks than blizzard. If you google bob iger the ceo of Disney, the compensation would make your eyes rolled.

Except, is Disney or any big banks struggling with mismanagement issues like Activision / Blizz appears to be?

MisterZebub

Kyleran said:

vegetableoil said:

Many people got angry? sure, but every other big corporation has the same exact problems. If you put your money in any banks, then they have the exact same structure of payment where the top executive got paid millions, and they fired the lower one. I would be more worried about the banks than blizzard. If you google bob iger the ceo of Disney, the compensation would make your eyes rolled.

Except, is Disney or any big banks struggling with mismanagement issues like Activision / Blizz appears to be?

Well Wellsfargo certainly stepped on their own dick a while back and they still seem to be doing just fine.

Kyleran

MisterZebub said:

Kyleran said:

vegetableoil said:

Many people got angry? sure, but every other big corporation has the same exact problems. If you put your money in any banks, then they have the exact same structure of payment where the top executive got paid millions, and they fired the lower one. I would be more worried about the banks than blizzard. If you google bob iger the ceo of Disney, the compensation would make your eyes rolled.

Except, is Disney or any big banks struggling with mismanagement issues like Activision / Blizz appears to be?

Well Wellsfargo certainly stepped on their own dick a while back and they still seem to be doing just fine.

Wells Fargo appears to be the Blizzard equivalent in the banking industry, regularly shooting themselves in both feet.

parpin

i do not understand, they guy got 15m award for just starting the job?? i though you have to do the job for a year at least and if you are good then they will award you?? how come he got 15m award before doing the job, what if he sucks and can not do the job?? they already gave him 15m for nothing, i do not understand this article.

Sovrath

parpin said:

i do not understand, they guy got 15m award for just starting the job?? i though you have to do the job for a year at least and if you are good then they will award you?? how come he got 15m award before doing the job, what if he sucks and can not do the job?? they already gave him 15m for nothing, i do not understand this article.

It's not uncommon to get a starting bonus for a job.

A friend of mine was given 10k as a starting bonus (clearly not a C level executive).

Why do people get these bonuses? Well, to attract top talent of course. Especially if these candidates can be courted by other companies.

Why not promote from the inside?

Promoting from the inside can be great but it's not always feasible. If no one on the inside has been prepared for such a role then a company will seek to find someone from the outside.

another reason is if they require a different "point of view" someone who will bring fresh ideas or who will change the company culture if they need it.

Torval

parpin said:

i do not understand, they guy got 15m award for just starting the job?? i though you have to do the job for a year at least and if you are good then they will award you?? how come he got 15m award before doing the job, what if he sucks and can not do the job?? they already gave him 15m for nothing, i do not understand this article.

$11M of those incentives are tied to performance and are rewarded in the form of a certain kind of stock. So, it's not all up front, just about $3M is a direct signing bonus with $900k being the annual salary. The article details that.

The issue being ATVI is awarding a fat signing bonus after revenue and stock prices have fallen and the company is issuing cost-cutting layoffs. It's never good PR when your company lays off worker bees while lining executive pockets. Companies do this regularly, but try not to get noticed doing it in this situation. ATVI is in the news so they got noticed, now they have to deal with that fallout. It's all a game of money, power, and politics.