Subnautica 2 Publisher Allegedly Asked GPT to Find Way Out of Paying Cofounders (kotaku.com)

Unknown Worlds’ fired cofounders allege Krafton engineered a takeover to avoid a $250 million earn-out tied to Subnautica 2 sales, and newly filed pre-trial documents claim the publisher ran a secret “Project X” to either renegotiate or execute a takeover when earnout talks failed. The filings cite internal messages and — most notably — allege Krafton’s CEO consulted ChatGPT to brainstorm ways to avoid paying the earnout; plaintiffs say Krafton later refused to produce (and then claimed the chat logs no longer exist). Krafton denies the narrative, accuses the founders of destroying evidence and neglecting studio duties, and says leadership changes were made to protect Subnautica 2’s development (now slated for 2026). The dispute also ties to studio morale and alleged last-minute justifications for the firings, with Unknown Worlds claiming the publisher only raised release-delay concerns after it feared the payout. For the AI/ML community this case highlights practical and legal issues around enterprise use of generative models: LLMs can be used in high-stakes strategy, but their outputs and prompt records raise discoverability, retention, and evidentiary questions. If AI-assisted discussions are treated as corporate communications, organizations must audit, preserve and produce chat logs; deleting them can spawn spoliation claims. The episode underscores governance needs—prompt/version tracking, access controls, and policies for using LLMs for legal or financial advice—because model limitations and ephemeral logs can complicate litigation and compliance.