Ass of Can Whooping
Gold Member
In what sense of scale does the CEO of Microsoft Gaming earn more than the CEO of the entirety of Sony?
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Nintendo CEO once halved his salary to prevent layoffs, and it worked
- Thread starter ManaByte
- Start date
In what sense of scale does the CEO of Microsoft Gaming earn more than the CEO of the entirety of Sony?
Dr. Wilkinson
Gold Member
Sony is much, much smaller organization in comparison. Hence the lower scale of compensation, even if it might seem bizarre to us on the outside.
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AmuroChan
Member
CEO pay packages are also often tied to stock options, meaning it's hard to compare apples to apples when it comes to the true value of the compensation. Spencer is benefiting from the fact that Microsoft's stock is up 33% in the past 12 months, compared Sony which is down 17%. That's a huge swing between the two companies. So compared to a year ago, Spencer's compensation is substantially higher because of Microsoft's stock performance.
Ass of Can Whooping
Gold Member
That doesn't really matter. If Microsoft was the same size as Sony they'd still be paid more.
Dr. Wilkinson
Gold Member
Maybe
. No way to know that, though. All we can work with is what we have in front of us.
Ass of Can Whooping
Gold Member
Maybe
Yes there is a way. You just need to look at the other american companies that are similary sized
jakinov
Member
This didn't actually happen the way people think it did. This is basically a myth at this point because people combined two separate events and ignored a bunch of details. The quote that's associated with layoffs gets combined with him taking a salary cut. In 2013, he responded to investors about it not making sense to layoff people for short term benefit because you basically need them to do the work still and it hurts morale. He basically still implies they will layoff people for business efficiency. A year later in 2014, the CEO makes a gesture to shareholders to take a 50% paycut for 5 months to atone for the poor performance which is supposedly a common practice in Japan. Not to prevent layoffs, but the two separate events related to layoffs by the same guy were blended together and retold in memes and editorials like this one. To further prove this point, Nintendo would layoff hundreds of people in the same year.
Team Andromeda
Member
Nintendo CEO once halved his salary to prevent layoffs, and it worked—why that's so uncommon today
Nintendo's CEO once took a 50% pay cut to avoid layoffs. Here's why it worked for the video game company, says expert — and why it's not always a perfect fix.www.cnbc.com
Now you understand why Iwata is revered to this day at Nintendo, even crediting him in the Super Mario Movie.
What a pile of utter crap. Nintendo after saying that cut loads of jobs in Europe. Nintendo fans are so gullible
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2014/08/full_extent_of_nintendo_of_europe_job_cuts_becomes_clear
FoxMcChief
Gold Member
Nintendo haters are just as gullible to believe/focus on anything negative about Nintendo. Funny how that works.
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Ass of Can Whooping
Gold Member
We're not just talking about small percentile differences here contirbuted by stock performance. We're talking 10x, 20x, 70x differences. etc.
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Team Andromeda
Member
I'm only saying the reality that after the bullshit move about cutting the salary in Jan 2014 to save jobs. Nintendo cut loads of Jobs in Europe in June 2014 .
Even when you post facts Nintendo fans will say otherwise.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/nintendo-of-europe-cutting-320-jobs
AmuroChan
Member
There's nothing small about stock options. If you are ever offered stock options + small base salary vs a standard annual salary, you always pick the former because stock options have exponential growth potential.
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Ass of Can Whooping
Gold Member
I'm aware of how stock options work. Again. EA's CEO isn't paid nearly 5 times the amount as Sony's because of the stock performance
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AmuroChan
Member
How do you know that? What is his split between base salary + stock options vs Sony's CEO? This is a genuine question.
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Ass of Can Whooping
Gold Member
This is just RSU's. Not stock options.
Dr. Wilkinson
Gold Member
Like, to be fair, this was literally 10 years ago. You really gotta dig up some old stuff to find examples of Nintendo lay-offs, and they certainly don't happen at the mothership NCL in Japan, which is where nearly all research and development takes place, and where the vast majority of Nintendo staff are located.
All examples of regional offices laying off staff are mostly agency workers too, so many of them weren't even Nintendo employees. Yes, still a layoff, but not quite the same thing. Another more recent example would be the minor reorganization at NoA after they closed the California office in Redwood at the end of 2022. But that was a COVID-driven thing. Nothing to do with poor sales or performance, or lack of money coming in.
Back in 2014 when this minor reorganization took place at NoE, Nintendo was in the midst of losing hundreds of millions of dollars per year due to the Wii U business, and Iwata and the executive staff all took salary cuts. Had they not done that, very uncommon layoffs like this numbering in the low hundreds would have been more like in the thousands. Nintendo very rarely ever does lay-offs, and even more than that, any other company experiencing $200 million losses 3 years in a row would've laid off way more than this.
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Team Andromeda
Member
Like let's be fair I was responding to an article saying how Itwata-san took a pay cut to save jobs in 2014, only to cut jobs in 2014
Nintendo never made a loss in 2014 that was in 2012. But I get it, one can't call out Nintendo. I'll also look over the brutal Nintendo cuts in the UK in 1995 . Don't tell us , Nintendo was losing money ..
Woopah
Member
I don't think anyone is saying that Nintendo has never laid anyone off in their history. Just that they have had a limited number of layoffs in recent years.
Team Andromeda
Member
AGAIN!!!! .
I was responding the the pay cut talk in 2014 to save jobs, only to layoff 320 in the same year.
FoxMcChief
Gold Member
Woopah
Member
Which I agree is a completely fair comment. But no one is saying you need to "look over the brutal Nintendo cuts in the UK in 1995."
Team Andromeda
Member
I only talked about that move since a member talked of Nintendo making losses, which wasn't the case in 1995 or 2014 really
digoutyoursoul
Member
Iwata got some stern criticism for the Wii U and the software releases or lack of . “Please understand “ meme etc
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bender
What time is it?
And that 320 number would have been larger if not for the pay cut. It's seems like you are fighting one extreme view of the circumstance with the opposite end of the spectrum.
Woopah
Member
I just looked up their 2014 annual report and it has them making a 225 milion dollar net loss for the previous fiscal year.
Team Andromeda
Member
Yep, not 2014
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Dr. Wilkinson
Gold Member
Europe, man.
.My only point, and maybe it's not a good one, is that you have to dig pretty deep to find examples of Nintendo doing lay-offs anywhere even near the scale of other companies in the games industry. Both in modern times, and dating back to the 1990s. They seem to be very few & far between, and when they do happen, they are relatively small in scale, and usually just ending contractor assignments early, rather than laying off salaried employees.
I also think Nintendo seems to go out of their way to avoid having to do lay-offs in the first place, by exhuasting other means first. Rather than with most companies, using videogame publishers as prime examples, lay-offs seem to be the first and only option before cutting executive pay, bonuses, etc. Very short-sighted, in my view to do snap lay-offs after one bad year. It's unfortunate.
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HerjansEagleFeeder
Member
Still kinda miss this guy. What a legend.
Dr. Wilkinson
Gold Member
3 straight years of operating losses from FY'12 - FY'14. What am I missing, here? Do you have data that contradicts these losses? Even if you look at FY'15, they just barely got out of the hole and eeked out a tiny little profit. Even that year, they essentially just broke even and made no money.
The Switch took Nintendo's profit to a 7-year high — and it's just the beginning
A year after launching the Switch, Nintendo's operating profit increased six-fold.
www.businessinsider.com
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Dr. Wilkinson
Gold Member
It's mostly just symbolic gesture, to be fair. A few hundred thousand dollars to one person, for a company that generated $8 billion in one year, and that was during a really bad year (2013) where they had a $457 million operating loss. It looks good and the optics are good, as the person (people) at the top to fall on the sword and take a temporary pay cut. But it's not like it makes a material difference to the books.
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Woopah
Member
This. It is a symbolic gesture and didn't actually save any jobs.
MrCunningham
Member
Interesting. Are layoffs all that bad in the game industry? I not asking like I already know the answer.
I just mean, that the game industry has been in this cycle of making large AAA game after AAA game, and the staff for those large games generally tend to balloon up near the end, which leads to major layoffs. Most of those people who get laid off, generally tend to put in a resume to a different studio, and get hired on some other large AAA game.
It seems like it becomes a series of resolving doors of game developers who jump from project to project. I'm pretty sure a lot of game devs don't even see a game through to the end. It seems like that is how it has been for the last decade when it comes to big AAA publishers. But I could be very wrong.
I just mean, that the game industry has been in this cycle of making large AAA game after AAA game, and the staff for those large games generally tend to balloon up near the end, which leads to major layoffs. Most of those people who get laid off, generally tend to put in a resume to a different studio, and get hired on some other large AAA game.
It seems like it becomes a series of resolving doors of game developers who jump from project to project. I'm pretty sure a lot of game devs don't even see a game through to the end. It seems like that is how it has been for the last decade when it comes to big AAA publishers. But I could be very wrong.
Woopah
Member
Hiring contractors for a particular project and then having them leave at the end is very normal.
Laying off 100s of developers at a time is less normal. Or at least, 2024 had been particularly bad for it so far.
Alexios
Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
Nintendo is famous for extreme employee retention rate before and after this (even within Japan), this was ingrained to the company by people like Iwata, which the shitty trolls that nobody will remember and their close circle will probably celebrate when they die try to smear after their death and inability to defend themselves in retarded ways, equating studio closures and the layoffs of up to thousands of people at a time by the likes of Microsoft and Sony to unrelated office/branch restructures (and ignoring when alongside the layoffs there are rehirings/turning of other temps/contractors to full time employees etc.). Obviously the actual money difference alone didn't save dev jobs, he saved dev jobs by taking real personal responsibility for the issues to shareholders and the world while maintaining the company's integrity and structure and leading it to the good times ahead
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Dr. Wilkinson
Gold Member
Ehh I'd have to give that to a creative, like Miyamoto or something. Iwata was an engineer and a business guy, through and through. Charming, clever, thoughtful, yes.
Certainly compared to any other CEO in the videogame industry, he is inspirational, but compared to who? All other CEOs were/are boring and no one even knows their names, for the most part.
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MrCunningham
Member
I don't want to say that 'layoffs are good' because lack of job security is never a good thing overall.
The hundreds of layoffs generally tend to not look good. But to me, it seems like many of these larger game projects just bloat with overhead of hiring a lot of developers to just get a project done in a reasonable time frame, then most of those people will just move on to another studio to work on some other big AAA game. But I guess that's what ourtsourcing is for in most cases.
But overall, it is a strange trend to hear x-company (not even a games company) brag about having record profits, while in the background you hear about massive layoffs.
Dirk Benedict
Member
He would give them a golden shower while simultaneously receiving his golden parachute, then charge his employees for the golden showers.
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Woopah
Member
That can happen, but isn't mostly what we have seen. When you scale up for a particular project its a lot easier to hire contractors than full time employees.
MS cut 1,900 because of acquisition synergies, rather than projects finishing. Likewise the Zenimax studio closures were the shutting of whole teams, not just getting rid of bloat.
Likewise the Sony layoffs didn't only impact studios that had just finished games.
Braag
Member
Yeah maybe one CEO halving their salary wont change everything but CEO and all the higher ups with massive salaries taking little less would help.
When we had lay offs the CEO and the whole executive team took 1 month off work without pay in hopes of saving more money.
Spukc
always chasing the next thrill
My bet is that 300 of em where influwankers
Dr. Wilkinson
Gold Member
Yeah it saves money. Saving $1 would be saving money. My point is it doesn’t materially impact the finances of the company. Not at the scale of a company like Nintendo, circa 2013 with $8 billion in annual revenue.
MrCunningham
Member
OK, that is an interesting phrase. Maybe, like a re-organisation of teams?
I would have thought that some groups/ teams' get laid off when they job on a project is done, and most are rehired for future projects; doing the same job. I don't really know.
Oh yeah, contractors do play a big role in AAA development. With 'middleware' development companies that would do a lot of assistance. Not saying that outsourcing is bad.. it's necessary for large scale projects...
Woopah
Member
Basically ABK had different departments like Finance, HR, Marketing, Legal etc. Then they get bought by Microsoft.
But Microsoft already has its own Finance, HR, Marketing and Legal departments, so it doesn't need all these extra people from ABK and gets rid of a bunch.
That wasn't the reason for all 1,900 layoffs, but for some of them.
It makes sense for contractors, not employees.
Imagine laying off a bunch of people and having to give the severance pay, then later on spending a bunch more money on hiring the same people all over again. It would a huge waste of money.