| If I were a mid-level manager at Epic, I wonder how I would handle internal politics at this time. So many competing objectives... 1. Focus on producing novel content to keep the game interesting, mixing things up enough over weeks/months, but without killing the core mechanics. 2. Hire lots of new employees, all while knowing that the popularity bubble may burst and they may need to be laid off in the near future. 3. Give bonuses to my employees, who are working their tails off, to prevent resentment. Especially in the over-worked video game industry. 4. Acknowledge that this lucky streak is unrepeatable, and that if the game falls out of popularity, there is likely no one to blame. But when it happens, the demoralization will hit hard and the layoffs are inevitable. 5. All this, while the company reaps huge profits. |
Hah.
I've know a few people on break-away titles(on the level of fortnight for an era) in my time in that industry. In most of those cases the employer or publisher had slipped in some sort of cap in royalties on a per-employee basis. So while their % cut of royalties was in the 7-figures they never saw anything above 6-figures.
Kudos on you for thinking this way but I'd be surprised if most of the people working on Fortnight are seeing more than mid FAANG compensation.