Chief Executive Officers in the gaming industry raked almost $1 billion in 2020 according to a new report. Robert Kotick of Activision Blizzard topped the list at $154,613,318. Kotick earned more than any other CEO by a fairly wide margin apart from Robert Antokol of Playtika who earned a staggering $372,008,176. The total across the board came to over $842 million.
The report by Games One dives into the details of CEO compensation. This gives total, hourly, and relative pay. Games One referred to the publication of this dataset as “democracy in action.” The survey was intended for “anyone who wants a better understanding of games industry dynamics.”
Total pay for the purposes of the report consists of “salary, bonus, stock, benefits — all of which have a tax ramification for the CEO.” Executive compensation usually takes this form to reduce the amount of income tax paid by the person in question. This holds true across all industries. The principle is that income tax can only be levied on actual pay as opposed to something like stock options. Perks are typically charged to the company.
“Boards of directors believe that there is competition for chief executive officers and they must meet or exceed the standard comparable compensation in order to retain that CEO.” The result is that pay packages just keep getting bigger and bigger over time. The report forecasts that "executive compensation will continue to rise.”
The biggest earner apart from Antokol is apparently Kotick. This despite the months of controversy over workplace abuse and various forms of mismanagement. Workers have been walking off the job in protest over poor pay while Kotick rakes in as much as 1,560 median employees. By way of comparison, the CEO of Take-Two, Strauss Zelnick, makes as much as 252 median employees.
The full list of CEO compensation packages can be found below.
- Lars Wingefors, Embracer Group; $162,293 (total compensation) and $81 (hourly average)
- Claude Guillemot, Guillemot Corporation; $185,004 (total compensation) and $92 (hourly average)
- Hannes Wallin, Fractal Gaming; $238,447 (total compensation) and $119 (hourly average)
- Adam Foroughi, AppLovin; $409,462 (total compensation) and $204 (hourly average)
- Darcy Taylor, East Side Games; $418,473 (total compensation) and $295 (hourly average)
- Alex Nichiporchik, TinyBuild; $419,460 (total compensation) and $209 (hourly average)
- Anton Gauffin, Huuuge Games; $470,800 (total compensation) and $235 (hourly average)
- Kati Levoranta, Rovio; $535,722 (total compensation) and $267 (hourly average)
- David Braben, Frontier Developments; $581,516 (total compensation) and $290 (hourly average)
- Carl Cavers, Sumo Group; $685,495 (total compensation) and $342 (hourly average)
- Abramo Galante and Raffaele Galante, Digital Bros; $712,560 (total compensation) and $356 (hourly average)
- Alain Falc, Nacon; $727,739 (total compensation) and $363 (hourly average)
- Dmitry Kozko, Motorsport Games; $737,672 (total compensation) and $368 (hourly average)
- Yves Guillemot, Ubisoft; $925,314 (total compensation) and $642 (hourly average)
- Marcin Iwiński, CD Projekt; $1,032,536 (total compensation) and $516 (hourly average)
- Adam Kiciński, CD Projekt; $1,054,090 (total compensation) and $527 (hourly average)
- Frédéric Chesnais, Atari; $1,124,870 (total compensation) and $562 (hourly average)
- Frank Sagnier, Codemasters; $1,267,155 (total compensation) and $633 (hourly average)
- Andrew Day, Keywords Studios; $1,299,104 (total compensation) and $649 (hourly average)
- Joshua Wilson, SciPlay; $1,635,171 (total compensation) and $817 (hourly average)
- Juergen Stark, Turtle Beach; $2,275,770 (total compensation) and $1,137 (hourly average)
- Andrew Paul, Corsair; $2,796,433 (total compensation) and $1,398 (hourly average)
- Shuntaro Furukawa, Nintendo; $2,839,072 (total compensation) and $1,419 (hourly average)
- Hajime Satomi, Sega; $2,949,168 (total compensation) and $1,474 (hourly average)
- Yosuke Matsuda, Square Enix; $4,169,594 (total compensation) and $2,084 (hourly average)
- Stéphane Roussel, Gameloft; $3,673,362 (total compensation) and $1,836 (hourly average)
- Jørgen Madsen Lindemann, Modern Times Group; $4,309,571 (total compensation) and $2,873 (hourly average)
- David Baszucki, Roblox; $6,775,108 (total compensation) and $3,387 (hourly average)
- George Sherman, GameStop; $7,609,754 (total compensation) and $3,804 (hourly average)
- Owen Mahoney, Nexon; $8,311,079 (total compensation) and $4,155 (hourly average)
- Nick Earl, Glu Mobile; $8,633,871 (total compensation) and $4,316 (hourly average)
- Debbie Bestwick, Team17; $10,242,642 (total compensation) and $5,121 (hourly average)
- Min-Liang Tan, Razer; $10,457,000 (total compensation) and $5,228 (hourly average)
- Taek-Jin Kim, NCsoft; $15,620,773 (total compensation) and $7,810 (hourly average)
- Strauss Zelnick, Take-Two Interactive; $18,111,761 (total compensation) and $9,055 (hourly average)
- John Riccitiello, Unity Software; $22,001,733 (total compensation) and $11,000 (hourly average)
- Frank Gibeau, Zynga; $32,003,768 (total compensation) and $16,001 (hourly average)
- Andrew Wilson, Electronic Arts; $34,715,802 (total compensation) and $17,357 (hourly average)
- Andrew Paradise, Skillz; $103,321,052 (total compensation) and $51,660 (hourly average)
- Robert Kotick, Activision Blizzard; $154,613,318 (total compensation) and $77,306 (hourly average)
- Robert Antokol, Playtika; $372,008,176 (total compensation) and $186,004 (hourly average)