Subnautica Part 2 - It Does Not Go Well for Idiot Krafton CEO

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:03 Thomas: If you're able to afford to put up the fight, the law can be reasonable. The main key is it's so effing impossible to get there.

0:00:18 Jenessa: They did not loot the company to enrich themselves, steal data to form a competing venture, or sell secrets to a rival. That's the kind of thing the judge would have looked for. And it's not there.

0:00:37 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Opening Arguments. You know, I'm not going to venture an episode number just because I'm not entirely 100% on when this will go out for everybody. For patrons, they're getting this like right away, but this is part two in the subnautica. I'm going to forget all the names of all the stuff. Krafton. Let's see what else we got.

0:00:54 Jenessa: Unknown Worlds.

0:00:56 Thomas: Unknown Worlds. Too many names.

0:00:58 Jenessa: We got a couple of human names, but those are their corporate names. Oh, Fortis are the people who sued. Yup.

0:01:00 Thomas: No, just the entities. Yeah. Fortis. Still so weird about that. I wonder if we're going to find out about more about that story, but still very bizarre, but I can't wait. We got part two. I'm Thomas. That over there is Jenessa, video game expert, apparently video game law expert. How are you doing?

0:01:17 Jenessa: I'm doing pretty good. I'm getting excited for maybe getting to play this game sometime soon.

0:01:22 Thomas: Oh yeah. I mean, and this is, forgive me. I am. Like I said, I'm a specific gamer. This is a huge game, right? I mean, I've heard of it. The subnautica, the first one, lots of people will have played this game, and so I imagine the sequel, I mean are people kind of dying for it sort of thing?

0:01:37 Jenessa: Definitely if you go on the Subnautica Reddit, people are got a lot of feelings about it. I don't know that that's a great metric. I have definitely seen this lawsuit blowing up on a lot of Kotaku, PC Gamer, they're all posting about it, I've seen it in some mainstream places just as a big corporate contracts dispute.

0:01:55 Thomas: Well, sure. I just meant in terms of the game popularity, like it is a popular game, right? I mean, yeah, that's what I was trying to get at. It's just funny. Cause I, you know, like I said, I play video games, but the ones I haven't played, I just do. And I'm so ignorant on. So but I I've heard of this and I know people loved the first one. And so I have to imagine a lot of people are very curious about this lawsuit. Andso today, well, I guess I don'tt know if we're finding out where it ends or anything, cause I don' know what the status of this is, but we're going to find out the rest of the story so far, I suppose.

0:02:02 Jenessa: Oh, oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah. Yeah absolutely yeah yeah most of the rest of the story

0:02:34 Thomas: All right. Well, why don't we go to our usual break, which you can avoid at patreon.com/law. And those amazing folks who are listening right now are patrons. So they already hear this. But the non -patrons who are hearing this now, I've already done this joke on another show, but it's still, I don't know how to divide the timelines. But one way or the other, normies are in the later timeline. And that's no fun. Get on the Patreon. All right, we'll take a break. And then we'll get the rest of the story.

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0:03:06 Thomas: Okay, when we last left our assholes, or our main asshole, Kim, I believe, is the last name, right? Boy, this guy sucks.

0:03:12 Jenessa: Yes yeah pretty much he has used chat gpt to come up with a plan to get out of a contract because his lawyers told him, you cannot get out of this contract. Instead, he has devised his own plan and still somehow gotten the legal department to go along with his new plan.

0:03:35 Thomas: Wow, yeah, good.

0:03:36 Jenessa: It's not going to go well for anybody. Unsurprisingly, no. That company, Fortis, who presumably are the people who negotiated the acquisition, they are somehow the harmed party, the plaintiff here, But they're doing this on behalf of the former shareholders at Unknown Worlds. That's going to be Gil, the CEO of Unknown Worlds, former, just got fired. McGuire, our Unknown Worlds developer, and Cleveland, our unknown worlds creative guy, the three of them who just got July 1, you're going to be fired on July 31. one, we're not even waiting till we're fired. In July, we are going to file this lawsuit. And what they're going to say is this is a breach of contract.

0:03:39 Thomas: It shouldn't. Yeah, huh. You'd think.

0:04:28 Jenessa: Yeah. First of all, we want specific performance of the agreement insofar as we are only supposed to be able to fire these people for cause. You don't have cause. Give them their job back. Second, damages for those violations. So whatever monetary damages have been incurred. And then third, this will be more damages, basically. Breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. Yeah.

0:04:55 Thomas: Oh, yeah. I've seen that a number of places in the different lawsuits we've covered. That's in the Blake Lively one, different places. All right.

0:05:02 Jenessa: -hmm. Yeah, so it's essentially the first and third one there, those are doubling up on either we get damages specifically because you violated the terms of the agreement or alternatively, you breached good faith, you breach fair dealing implied covenants as opposed to explicit covenents that are in the contract. The specific performance is rather than money, I also want my job back.

0:05:28 Thomas: Oh, OK. So in my T3B experience, I've gotten a specific performance question wrong a time or two. And my understanding is it's pretty rare because that's specific performance. Lawyers obviously know all this. But like to the non -lawyer, it's kind of interesting to think about. Normally, law stuff, contracts, the law just wants to make you whole with money. Just wants to be like, all right, somebody breached something. How much to make it right, essentially. Eventually but sometimes if it's a very specific thing if it'S a very like well no we wanted a performance we wanted in a very Specific and this is where you're gonna have to help me out because this can be confusing to me a little bit but when it's like a kind of an irreplaceable custom thing often in rare circumstances they're like hey judge make them do the thing not just pay do a thing it's interesting

0:06:20 Jenessa: Yeah, Exactly. So normally, like, we don't like the idea of forcing people to do labor for other people. Yeah, that's indentured servitude. We don't Like that. That. Generally, it would be, you know, if I did half the job, you're going to pay me for half the job. You're not going to force me to do the second half of the job. But I could owe you damages for whatever it costs you that I was unwilling, that you had to hire someone else. Maybe they cost more. Maybe you incurred damages while you were trying to find somebody and there was like that big waiting period, you knows, whatever. I could own you something for the breach. But the important point with contracts is almost always in contracts, we are not worried about morals or justice or what's right and fair. It's economic. Contracts are about economics. It is about you made a financial agreement together and you're going to sue me for a breach of the financial agreement. If you want to do something about how they've personally hurt your feelings, there's other for that about the morals and the ethics and the justice of this situation so normally we're just going to say it doesn't matter that it feels wrong or unfair that somebody bailed on a job on you they owe you money whatever it costs you that they bailed out they have a right to bail on a job it's just money everybody breathe sometimes that's not true and so this is a classic example of like yeah you took like my company

0:06:26 Thomas: Right yeah frowned upon yeah right

0:07:51 Jenessa: From me and that feels irreplaceable doesn't it like I don't know that there's any amount of money that would make up for not letting me control my baby, my thing, my love. So that's kind of the angle they're going to come at. On one side, there is that emotional component of there's no company like it. And I would violate a whole bunch of other rules if I tried to just make a competing company, right?

0:08:22 Jenessa: On the other hand, because of these bonuses, if I can't control the company and the success of the company determines the bonuses, we have a problem because I'm a little worried you're going to not do the things that get me the bonus that I contracted for. So we can also approach it from a very economic perspective. They're going say we also need to expedite this because the clock is ticking and the longer we are not in charge of this company, things are only going to get worse. So the judge is going to expedite this in part. He's going to say, look, for that specific performance part, give me my job back. I agree we have

0:08:21 Thomas: Huh right

0:09:01 Jenessa: To rush this. Deprivation of control over a unique asset presented a threat of irreparable harm. There would be no amount of money I could give you that would fix the fact that you were without control of your company while your next game released the thing that was so special to you. Certainly, if that sequel released and sucked, I mean, that tanks your whole asset, right? Yeah. It's huge how well this thing does. Like, any other time might be different, but right now is such a critical point in time.

0:09:28 Thomas: Your brand your yeah a lot of stuff about you

0:09:39 Jenessa: He's going to say, for the money damages, how much were you harmed by what just happened? I don't need to rush that. You're going to go on the regular docket and this will get decided God knows how long from now. Years. Delaware, corporate heaven,

0:09:56 Thomas: What state are we in okay yeah yeah yeah

0:09:57 Jenessa: Delaware. This was filed in July. The date submitted here, which I don't know why this doesn't quite match, is January 9th. They had had a trial in November and then they submitted like some post -trial briefing and some oral arguments after that. The decision was March 16, 2026, after everything started July 2025. That's very fast for a lawsuit.

0:10:26 Thomas: Oh yeah so you're saying they went through the whole trial just on this one question because it was Oh, wow. Okay.

0:10:33 Jenessa: So how much money they're going to get, if any, for everything that went down, we don't know yet. And that's on the regular docket. And that will take a while.

0:10:39 Thomas: Who knows? Yeah.

0:10:44 Jenessa: But the fact that you want specific performance to get your job back, I will decide that for you quickly. Basically you know it still took months that's fast for civil contract dispute stuff yeah this was quick they say we want our job back the reply from crafton we had no choice the early release was going to be so bad later replies

0:10:52 Thomas: Interesting. Yeah, sure. Definitely. No. Oh, were you asking me?

0:11:23 Jenessa: They start to say well the real reason we fired you is those role changes and the fact that you downloaded this confidential information the judge is going to approach all three of these things did any of those justify what you did uh the rules we're going to apply here before we get to do you get specific performance specifically the first thing is as the plaintiff you are going to have to show number one the existence of a contract that's easy number two breach of an obligation imposed by that contract basically basically, you fired us not for cause. Part's going to be pretty straightforward. And three, resultant damage. Krafton is going to have to defend against that. So if they prove that by preponderance of the evidence, Krafton will have to come back and say, no, no. We did fire you for cause or they're otherwise entitled to assume the operational control. There's some other reason and this was okay.

0:12:16 Jenessa: Everybody stipulates what's the for -cause thing. We had all those other reasons, right? And like nobody's alleging they committed a felony or anything like that. On that list, we both agree the thing that's disputed is an intentional act of fraud or dishonesty in connection with his or her duties or in the course of his or his employment with the company. That's the thing we're fighting about. Did that happen? How is Krafton going to argue that happened? Of course, they can argue in the alternative. They can advance multiple rationales for this. And they're going to give us two. What was my rationale for the termination? How am I going to argument that I did for cause fire you? Because that's really the heart of the dispute here, right? Nobody's saying there's no contract. Nobody's saying you weren't harmed, we did fire you for cause. Number one, you engaged in intentional acts of dishonesty to keep Crafton in the dark about Cleveland and McGuire's abandonment of their roles. No, right? So first of all, Gil kept doing his job, but they're going to say he covered for Cleveland and Maguire when they weren't. And they're gonna say Cleveland and Mcguire abandoned Subnautica too. Remembering that Cleveland was mainly focusing on like doing a film or movie adaptation of Subnautica. And Maguire was doing that project on like, oh, you know, we're hearing a lot from kids with autism

0:13:43 Jenessa: And adults with autism. I don't really understand, like helped some. I mean, I am neurodivergent and love this game. I do not quite know that it helped me with the symptoms, but I enjoyed it. So whatever that is. So it was like Subnauta adjacent. It was not direct development, but they did make the prototype that got everything going again. They made employment decisions.

0:14:08 Thomas: Well, and most importantly, that seemed from what you said, this seemed to kind of be endorsed. Yeah.

0:14:11 Jenessa: That is going to be the fundamental problem, isn't it? Exactly.

0:14:14 Thomas: It doesn't really seems to me, it doesn't really matter what else was happening or, or any other opinions about what they're doing. If Crafton was like, yeah, sounds excellent. Awesome. Great plan.

0:14:26 Jenessa: Critically, this required an intentional act of dishonesty. That didn't happen. This was regularly communicated formally and informally, internally, publicly. It's all out there. The judge says whether Cleveland or McGuire violated an unwritten expectation by working fewer hours is not before me you didn't ask me that yeah like that's not my job to tell you that this was the amount of hours they had to work in order to not intentionally dishonestly like what no you told them this was cool you can't come back later

0:14:47 Thomas: He's not even alleging that. Okay. Are you telling me the judge is ruling now?

0:15:07 Jenessa: Oh no I'm paraphrasing this

0:15:10 Thomas: Well, I know, but like you're, I wasn't sure which phase are we in? Are we in, you're talking about the case or are you talking about this was a result of the case. Okay, okay. Number one, no.

0:15:17 Jenessa: Is the judge's ruling yeah so he's going to go through number one no number two no yeah

0:15:25 Thomas: After that, there's apparently more stuff. No, just on like count one or, ah, okay, abandon their boy. Okay.

0:15:29 Jenessa: Yeah yeah so crafton's first attempt to say they did act with intentional dishonesty and here's how we know they abandoned their roles the judge says no

0:15:39 Thomas: Gotcha.

0:15:39 Jenessa: Even if they did which is not a question I am really equipped to answer here you knew about it I don't know what you wanted from any of this the second part they they allege what was also intentional and dishonest, the downloading of confidential unknown world's information. Now, always keep in mind, just because you wrote it, just because it's your product, if you work for a corporation, the corporation owns it, not you.

0:16:10 Jenessa: Most of the time, that's how your contract is written. So always be careful if you are are making something on your work computer, on company time. Like, there's a good chance you have signed away your intellectual property rights. Be very careful before you start moving that stuff around for personal purposes. Read your contract. And the judge is going to say to that, yeah, the data downloads were wrongful. I don't disagree. It was a response to an escalating corporate emergency what we don't have here is the conscious objective to deceive that you need for a four -cause termination here that's what's in the contract it's good faith it's a defensive motive it's genuinely and reasonably feared they were about to be locked out of the studio systems they did not loot the company to enrich themselves steal data to form a competing venture or sell secrets to a rival that's the kind of thing the judge would have looked for and it's not there

0:17:10 Thomas: And this is so key. It's like the fact that the law can actually be reasonable in cases like this is good. A lot of times when you get down to it, if you're able to afford to put up the fight, the law can be reasonable. The main key is just like, it's so effing impossible to get there.

0:17:32 Thomas: But there are all kinds of ways where it's like, look, this is a flimsy excuse. It's also post hoc, it seems to me. It's like well, yeah, you already were doing some BS and they reacted and then that therefore justified the BS you were already doing, like no way.

0:17:46 Jenessa: That you're exactly anticipating the next issue the judge is going to raise yeah the data download was not a thing that is okay we have explanations for the behavior that don't go so far as to hit like bad faith or anything and then they gave it back to you when you caught them and like there's just not evidence that this one wrongful act is going to rise to any particular level right take it a step further when you sent that dismissal letter what did you say single ground for dismissal intention to proceed with a premature release of subnautica 2 you did not say this other stuff yeah

0:18:25 Thomas: Curse you chat GPT. You didn't have me say that other stuff.

0:18:29 Jenessa: It's kind of like talking to your lawyers and doing what your lawyers said would have helped a little.

0:18:35 Thomas: Probably.

0:18:36 Jenessa: The judge is going to say, I shouldn't even analyze this stuff in the first place. I'm being thorough. This judge is like writing his law school exam. Like, I'm going to analyze every piece of this.

0:18:45 Thomas: Well, I think, too, when you're a real asshole, there's so much play in the joints for law. And I do think there's a real fundamental divide between using the law in a rigid, literal way to, you know, reach bad results when you want to versus. Is. All right. Clearly, I wonder how much judges take a look at the situation just like holistically and like, well, this guy freaking sucks. Let's see. You know, and it might be like a letter of the law might be one thing, but like spirit of law. No, you know. And I wonder how much of that there's got to be a little bit. The judges do that, you know, And I would hope they would. It would be good if, you know, it'd be it'd be bad if they just like ruled in the favor of a holes because of letter of of the law stuff

0:19:18 Jenessa: Yeah. Oh, for sure. Right. There's two things that go into that. One is certainly the spirit of the law is really what's supposed to matter more than anything. Thing. The literal text, we don't pretend to be Amelia Bedelia. We understand that these words are supposed to advance a certain goal. And so we can understand that even if you followed the literal letter of something, if you didn't follow the spirit of it, that absolutely legally can matter. And there's also a thing that people say often, which is bad facts make bad law. Sometimes you hit a case where you're like it can happen exactly this way where somebody is such a dick that you can end up with a ruling that is like I had to find some way for you to not win because I can't live in a universe where you win

0:20:13 Thomas: And then that makes a bad precedent because you've kind of yeah

0:20:21 Jenessa: This exactly that does happen sometimes it is a place where sometimes we have to step back and realize when some real asshole wins a lawsuit suit you do want to think about what precedent it could have set sometimes judges are saying like I don't want to do bad facts make bad law I don'T want to put other good people in a position where this ruins their life the law needs to change not this decision that is certainly part of it I would also say like in a case like this where you've done something so egregious they are going to paper over every possible piece of this I'm going to explain every way that you are wrong because when this inevitably gets appealed, I have to have said everything.

0:21:05 Thomas: You've belt and suspenders did you've got multiple ways that you're showing these this guy sucks

0:21:08 Jenessa: Yeah, exactly. We've already got, I don't think either of the reasons you're raising right now would rise to the level of forecause. Let's say they did. You are just raising it now for the first time. And there's two rules that are going to be important. For the thing about, well, they changed their job role. We hired you to be the creative director and you're not really the creative director of Subnautica 2. This is terrible. Well, for any grounds that you knew of before the firing but did not rely on during the termination, it is waived under the mend -the -hold doctrine.

0:21:51 Thomas: Mend the hold oh I don't know that I've heard of this okay Okay. New law thingy.

0:21:55 Jenessa: Yes, I hadn't either. So it's possible it's just a Delaware thing, but I bet it isn't. I am betting this is a common law thing.

0:22:02 Thomas: Probably not. Yeah. Yeah, right.

0:22:05 Jenessa: Generally uh what it's saying is you cannot shift your contractual justification for your conduct during litigation if you knew about something before you did the firing you're just done here you have to have said it when you fired them you cannot after the fact tack it on this is trying to prevent exactly that kind of post -hoc when you realize you're going to get sued for firing someone coming up with other reasons.

0:22:35 Jenessa: If you knew about it at the time, you should have said it when you fired them. Sorry.

0:22:35 Thomas: But what does mend the hold mean? I can't get over that.

0:22:42 Jenessa: For the life of me, I don't know. I don'T KNOW HOW

0:22:46 Thomas: Well, I'm Googling it while you talk.

0:22:46 Jenessa: IT GOT THAT NAME. Okay.

0:22:51 Thomas: Derived from arrest. Okay. Now, but AI is answering me. I forgot it's going to be AI, but we'll see. Okay, derived from a wrestling term for getting a better grip on an opponent. Okay? Legal meaning establishes that if a party gives gives a reason for their conduct they cannot later change oh okay okay no that makes sense so it's like if you have it's in a wrestling sense if you got a hold on someone you can't go back later and like oh I'm gonna I'm going to re -grip for a better hold on the argument it's like kind of the grip you had with your first argument you're stuck with that you're not allowed to go make post hoc stuff after the fact I get it that's cool

0:22:55 Jenessa: Oh, great. Yeah. Per usual with AI, that sure sounds like an answer. I would always want want to check that that is in fact, I wouldn't want to rely on.

0:23:35 Thomas: Nope we're not checking it is is getting results. Here, I will click on its sources. It's from the Illinois State Bar Association. If you insist that I look at a real source and it was telling me exactly what was on that website. So now you can blame the Illinois state bar association.

0:23:55 Jenessa: It just repeated it.

0:23:56 Thomas: Yeah, but that's in Illinois. Who knows? But I just meant for the etymology. I was kind of looking for that. I didn't mean to give like a specific legal meaning. I Was just, yeah.

0:24:03 Jenessa: Just every once in a while, it's like it invents a reason that sounds very plausible. The other one, which the name will be very intuitive, the after acquired evidence doctrine.

0:24:05 Thomas: Oh, it's wrong a lot. Yeah. Yeah, it's wrong a lot. It sure does. Oh, okay. Yeah, that is more intuitive.

0:24:20 Jenessa: That one just kind of says what it is. If you get the evidence after the firing, can you retroactively justify the termination? Can you add it to the list? We're going to balance some interests here. On the one hand, we want to be really careful about this issue that you fire somebody and you find reasons after the fact, and now that's not really the reason. Reason on the other hand yeah I mean if you found something freaking egregious you shouldn't be required to keep me just because you found it after the fact right like you should be able to fire me now uh

0:24:51 Thomas: Yeah. Firing now. I can also imagine, is there a logic, and I'm just, this is me wondering, don't worry, it's not AI. Is there also a logic of like, if the firing was like, I expected there would be something like this because of other indicators, you know, if it's like, all right, this guy is doing weird crap at their job. And if the thing that is later revealed is kind of, this Is me imagining.

0:25:15 Thomas: I'm just asking, is in line with kind of that overall, then it's like, yeah, you kind of can use that because it is like, you know, I didn't know every detail of what you were doing when you were shirking your work. But I knew you were shrinking your work and doing something I didn'T like kind of thing. I'm inventing this. Is that anything? Any part of it?

0:25:33 Jenessa: I think at some point if it was connected enough to what you already said you wouldn't even have to worry about this you just discovered an increased severity that would work what they're also going to say here let's say it's totally unrelated

0:25:38 Thomas: Hmm. That's that's a good point. Yeah. Gotcha. Mm hmm.

0:25:47 Jenessa: It'll still be be okay if the later discovered conduct was of such severity that the employee in fact would have been terminated on those grounds alone if the employer had known of it at the time of the discharge yeah that's gonna be a really high

0:26:03 Thomas: That's interesting. Interesting how the turntables have turned table, because now I think of it in the other sense where I sort of think this might be another place where the law is, once again, trying as it might to be reasonable, where it's like, OK, well, now imagine an employee who's just like awful, stealing, doing horrible crap. But like they don't get off on a technicality of like, well, yeah, but you didn't know that I had stolen stuff when you fired me. So now you're stuck. So I almost the shoes on the other foot in terms of like maybe you're trying to protect from that sort of thing.

0:26:18 Jenessa: Bar right exactly most jobs are just at will so as long as I don't fire you for like racist reasons or something I can just fire you for

0:26:42 Thomas: Sure. Oh, that's gone, too, now because of Trump. So there's you can you actually just fire people for racist reasons. Just FYI.

0:26:49 Jenessa: Whatever yeah imagine a job with like due process like uh any job that has tenure you know a teacher you have a union yeah you have to be like be bad at your job or have done something if they were like trying to fire you because you're just not good at your Job and a later hearing would have been like no I think you were being pretextual I don't think this would and then halfway through that yeah we find you were stealing from the school or we find you were like a predator.

0:26:57 Thomas: Mm hmm. Lots of contract jobs. Yeah.

0:27:22 Jenessa: If we knew about that at the time, we wouldn't have even worried about this whole, are you bad at your job? We would have just fired you on the spot. Your union may not have done a thing about it. They might've been like, please take them. We don't want them here.

0:27:37 Thomas: All right. Some interesting concepts there.

0:27:39 Jenessa: Yeah. Yeah. So basically the judge is going to say, okay, the whole thing about them abandoning their roles. You knew that at the time. Done.

0:27:49 Thomas: Get out of here with that.

0:27:51 Jenessa: If you didn't say it then, you're done. This thing about the data, I find Krafton's timeline credible, the judge says, not me. I guess I do, sure. Why not? They really did not know the full scope of how much stuff they had downloaded and what it was until after July 1.

0:28:14 Jenessa: They caught one guy doing some stuff earlier, but like, Like, did they really know what you did exactly? I find them credible.

0:28:11 Thomas: And I agree hmm oh oh okay so wait that's going the other way then you're

0:28:26 Jenessa: The judge is going to say, I have to apply the after -acquired evidence doctrine, not mend the hold. So it's okay that you didn't mention it as a ground for dismissal in your July 1 letter. You didn't know about it.

0:28:30 Thomas: Saying okay okay

0:28:39 Jenessa: However, it's not severe enough to meet the rule. Is it so severe that on that ground alone, you would have terminated them with nothing else? No, I don't believe you.

0:28:52 Thomas: Yeah can you remind me the details of the downloading just so I I know what what doesn't quite

0:28:57 Jenessa: They downloaded basically like proprietary information, but it's information that they personally created and they kept it on their own personal private devices. They gave it back the second they were asked.

0:28:59 Thomas: Qualify sure right yeah I think it's more about what they did with it right like it's it's like just downloading sure it might violate like a policy but if it's like oh well I was just backing it up in case like the server went down you know that's That's a lot different than, oh, I downloaded it to sell it to somebody or make my own game. Right?

0:29:27 Jenessa: Right, exactly. And so is it possible that somebody who works there, the manager, whatever, is so strict he would have fired literally anyone for catching them doing that regardless of the reason? Maybe. But do I believe you that this is not post hoc reasoning? Do I believe that now? I don't think so. The judge says, ultimately, Krafton's true focus in June 2025 was avoiding its financial exposure. I know what you were about, my guy.

0:29:58 Thomas: I saw you and your chat GPT ramblings, you dummy. Boy, that is a bad document.

0:30:05 Jenessa: It is really bad. The document that tells you how to bully someone to a negotiating table with tactics that are arguably themselves illegal.

0:30:15 Thomas: And the level of embarrassment. Maybe one thing. I mean, it would already be a bad documentary if you were, like, talking to your friend or your dad. Hey, dad, how can I F these people over? That's already embarrassing. But to be talking to chat GPTs. And it's just like okay we're forming super team x and we're we're gonna screw these people out of the stuff it's like god that is embarrassing hoof hmm

0:30:34 Jenessa: It really is. After your lawyers and it told you This is not going to happen, my guy.

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0:30:46 Jenessa: Okay, so the idea that craft and defense option number one, that you really did fire them for cause, no. First of all, I find it all pretextual. Even if it wasn't, it doesn't meet the four cause definitions. We've just knocked this down every way possible. So your other option was, were you otherwise entitled to assume operational control? Did anything in this contract give you the right, as opposed to just firing them for cause, firing them because you needed to control this company for some reason? The judge is going to say you got a couple of options here. Did they act outside the ordinary course of business? That was in the contract. Did they make those business kind of decisions that Krafton was entitled to have prior consent? So remember we said for all the video game type stuff, they had operational control. But for something like acquiring IP, taking on debt, Krafton had to give prior consent. So if you violated that, maybe they would be able to say, oh, my God, you are making terrible financial decisions. Or we've always got good faith. You didn't act in good faith, now I get to take control.

0:32:02 Thomas: Yeah kind of a catch -all

0:32:04 Jenessa: Yeah, exactly. Good faith is just always hanging out in the background of every contract.

0:32:09 Thomas: With contract like yeah yeah specifically

0:32:11 Jenessa: Ordinary course of business. What is that? Acting consistently before and after purchase, right? It's generally what it means. It's also how it was defined in this contract. Crafton is going to say, that requires the unique vision of Cleveland and McGuire. They're the little magic pair at the helm of every project. That's, yeah. It really does sound like a cop drama.

0:32:26 Thomas: Yeah they're the detective team detective cleveland Lenny McGuire, buddy cops. Yeah.

0:32:36 Jenessa: They are saying, that's what I paid for. These are the people who made the magic. They disappear for a while and Subnautica 2 is not working and then they come back and they make a little prototype and all of a sudden it's working and like, doesn't that mean that's what I paid for and not what I was getting? The judge is going to say, so here's your problem. Ordinary course of business is not evaluated at the individual employee level. It's evaluated atthe company level.

0:33:04 Jenessa: Unknown worlds needed to act in the ordinary course ofbusiness, not Cleveland. What is the ordinary course of business of Unknown Worlds? Video game development? This early access model? This community -based model where the gamers give input and we take that input? If all of a sudden they stopped acting like that, that would be a big deal. The founders have previously delegated before like this is not outside the ordinary course of business trying to assign it at the individual employee level that would mean every time an individual employee starts just screwing off and not doing their job you are no longer acting in ordinary course of business that would be a huge problem

0:33:53 Thomas: Good point. Good point. Didn't even think of it from that angle.

0:33:56 Jenessa: That's not going to work when they bulk Hulk downloaded this data. Oh, my God. Was that outside the course of business? Kind of. It's not a job duty to do it. But again, this isolated incident does not amount to a failure to operate in the ordinary course. You just keep trying to latch on to this one thing they did as like a giant, you know, change in the culture. That's not going to work.

0:34:24 Jenessa: They were reacting defensively to something you did. A mounting corporate crisis the judge says did they act outside the ordinary course of business no

0:34:33 Thomas: And more importantly, you're an asshole. Oh sorry. We'll get there. That's probably at the end. I hope the judge, I hope the judge wrote a hundred pages and then the last one and And you're an asshole. Stop being an asshole, no, yeah, the remedy is, okay, sorry, go ahead.

0:34:37 Jenessa: Kind of oh boy I feel like the remedy will basically do that yeah did they do anything that required crafton's prior consent crafton is going to say well first of all when you change your roles you effectively resigned now this part gets super in the weeds but But the short version is they're going to refer to a bunch of contract provisions about, like, constructive retirement or constructive termination.

0:35:16 Thomas: Now, who's they, who're they? Who's doing that?

0:35:17 Jenessa: Crafton is making this argument. And they're gonna look through the contract.

0:35:21 Thomas: Are they trying to, like, kill them with a bunch of legalese and concepts to try to bolster their case? Okay, gotcha.

0:35:25 Jenessa: Yeah, basically. They're gonna say when they change their job roles, when they changed their job titles, they engaged in constructive terminated. And the judge is going to clarify to them, hey, that's a provision that protects the employee from the employer and not the other way around. Yeah, this is a big lawyer fumble.

0:35:41 Thomas: Oh, no. Oh, that is a big, oh, please tell me the judge was like, hey, maybe you didn't ask Chet to do this. Um that I I don't know how these you know these judges there is something to be said for being as even keeled as they often are unless they're trump judges because I would have taken some real dunking opportunities here like there's just I mean how can you resist or oh no you don't no oh god you know what I would Have done if I was the judge I would've been like um so so what was the thing you're saying construct or was it effective

0:36:07 Jenessa: Yeah, I mean, constructive termination is one of the terms.

0:36:16 Thomas: Termination or something yeah I would have been like oh constructive termination here I'm gonna uh let me let chat gpt define this for you and then I put an entry from chat gt that says what it is yeah yeah I I it's I would in this case this guy sucks okay carry on

0:36:27 Jenessa: Terms. I mean, judges get that petty sometimes for sure.

0:36:34 Jenessa: Yeah. Generally speaking, what those provisions, they're classic contract terms that would say, hey, so like if you change my job duties, you, the employer, do this to me or other employees doing it to each other, like the board does this. If you change My Job Duties so much that like I am effectively fired, I'm not doing my job anymore. I have no hours anymore.

0:36:59 Thomas: Well this classic employment law stuff right like you can't get around like uh discrimination law by like oh I didn't fire them they just sit in the basement and talk about their stapler like the office space

0:37:12 Jenessa: Exactly they work two hours and I pay them for two hours. No no no no. So it's saying I can quit and still get my severance because you constructively terminated me. I didn't get technically terminated but I was constructively terminated.

0:37:23 Thomas: Guy right right and the guy they tried to argue that on the wrong end of

0:37:33 Jenessa: They tried to say you constructively terminated yourself. No.

0:37:37 Thomas: It does that make sense oh boy

0:37:38 Jenessa: No yeah the judge really had to give him the schooling on like hey that that goes the other way around my guy

0:37:42 Thomas: Oh boy holy shit I get that this idiot trusted chat gpt but they had lawyers at some point

0:37:51 Jenessa: Yeah I don't know if this was just like a reach to see if they could get it like maybe a judge would interpret it that way

0:37:54 Thomas: Right oh yeah it's like rhetorically well so if you think about it it's kind of like they did the kind of thing like really reaching it could be

0:38:05 Jenessa: It could be that that's the most charitable thing because I really struggle to imagine I know his lawyers worked on this it is a corporation ultimately the individual ceo didn't write this response the lawyers for crafton wrote this so they must have been hoping they could But the judge was just like, no, that's literally not what those words mean. We don't take these contract terms. I'm not going to sit here today and expand them to mean something that they've just never meant. This protects the employee. It does not protect the employer. Employer.

0:38:09 Thomas: That yeah mm -hmm sure

0:38:40 Jenessa: You fire people for not doing their job. You don't say they constructively terminated themselves. That's not a thing. So they definitely didn't, by doing that, do a business decision without your prior consent. No. The other thing they claimed is, okay, when they reduced their roles, we needed replacement executives and that required our consent. And once again, the judge said no

0:38:47 Thomas: Rough yoiks okay judges please we go to the good judges scorecard uh

0:39:13 Jenessa: Nope no to that one your agreement gave the key employees those three people operational control over employee matters and product development they didn't change executive leadership they fired a game developer and they promoted a game develop no that was not an executive

0:39:35 Thomas: Yeah only the ceo can like fire like like developers

0:39:40 Jenessa: No like first of all that's not how that would normally work at all second of all it's explicitly how it doesn't work in your contract.

0:39:47 Thomas: Yeah couldn't they try to settle this because this is this this is going badly for them.

0:39:53 Jenessa: Yeah, this is a big dunk. This is no good. Number three, our other attempt at could I have a right to seize operational control was good faith. By reducing their roles, did they not act with like a fiduciary duty? Good faith. And again, the judge is going to say nothing in that agreement obligated the founders to remain in their exact pre -acquisition role indefinitely. Literally, the contract says they're free to leave the entire company. It had rules.

0:40:24 Thomas: It had that million dollar thingy where it reduced. That's why you were telling me that probably. Okay. That is, that's a devastating bit of argument there. Okay, well,

0:40:29 Jenessa: Mm -hmm. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, you had in your contract what happens to the bonus if they quit, and it wasn't you get no money. It was literally you still get paid if you quit. There's no way you can interpret this contract to say reducing your role, not even quitting, is fiduciary bad faith?

0:40:55 Thomas: That, that is a bad argument. It's like, well they didn't quite quit, but they effectively quit. So therefore I should get something that I wouldn't even get if they did quit right that's that oh boy okay this is uh this is bad yeah

0:41:04 Jenessa: Yeah. What are you doing? Not working is what it is. I really feel like these lawyers got trapped with like, they told him they couldn't do this and he did it anyway. And they're just trying to make the only arguments they can with a CEO who won't settle.

0:41:25 Thomas: The ceo must be like no ChatGPT says it's gonna work and the lawyers are like you know what fine fine okay let's make this argument let's see how this goes

0:41:37 Jenessa: I mean, at some point, you kind of have to just do what your client asks.

0:41:39 Thomas: Oh, I'm sure they're cashing checks yeah no they're it's not like this is like sanctionably bad of an argument right it's yeah no no no we've seen way worse arguments that are not sanctionable than this like no no so they're like all right fine fine yeah pay me to pay me file it let's see what

0:41:45 Jenessa: Right, it's not bad enough that it's like bad faith. True, absolutely. It's not so bad that I'd lose my license. So, yeah, why not?

0:42:02 Thomas: Happens I just imagine everyone around this guy who sucks being sarcastic all the time and talking in that voice oh yeah let's just not pay let's see how that goes. And like, this guy is such an asshole. He doesn't understand it. He's like, oh, okay. Yeah. You're going to do it. Great.

0:42:18 Jenessa: It's gotta be behind his back what's happening

0:42:19 Thomas: That's just in my mind. Yeah, that's what's going on.

0:42:22 Jenessa: The judge is gonna summarize this all to say all the elements are met on the other side there is a contract you did breach it because you can't show me that you fired them for cause and you can't show me like the damages are just blatantly obvious here you also can't seem to raise any defense you can't prove that it was for cause you can't prove that you have any other right to take control. The contract is breached. We know that. So now it's just what remedy should I give you? Fortis is going to say, I want specific performance. I want these people hired back.

0:43:00 Thomas: Now that is interesting. So it seems like it's going to be very complex, but I still don't fully understand. And I don't know if you're waiting or if it's just too technical or whatever, why it's Fortis that's suing, but how could they earn the specific performance of making Krafton hire the particular people back that just seems like wouldn't that be like a weird standing issue or something yeah

0:43:23 Jenessa: So certainly if those individuals were the plaintiffs, we can see how they would want their job back, right? And they would have standing. So I think what's going on is Fortis stands to get a piece of this bonus, and Fortis is concerned if those people are not hired, that's not happening.

0:43:36 Thomas: But those people still aren't anywhere they're not plaintiffs of any kind

0:43:45 Jenessa: Fortis, specifically, they're listed as Fortis Advisors LLC, a Delaware limited liability company, as the representative of the former shareholders of Unknown Worlds Entertainment, which is going to be those three guys, basically.

0:43:57 Thomas: Former shareholders okay but that's still not it's not all their shareholders

0:44:03 Jenessa: When it says former shareholders, that's meaning the current shareholder is Krafton.

0:44:09 Thomas: Oh because crafton bought all of the shares that's right I forgot about that part of the of the thing so there's no other like shares that are being traded around of this company 100 okay forgot about that. So I get it still feels like an interesting way of wording it just because the remedy is going to be higher back. I mean, imagine if any of those guys hypothetically, and I'm just speaking legally entity standing wise, I know this probably isn't the case, but imagine if many of those guys were like, what? I don't want to work there anymore.

0:44:18 Jenessa: 100 % of outstanding shares. Mm -hmm. Oh, yeah.

0:44:37 Thomas: It feels like something's off about that in a way that I'm not a lawyer, so I can't fully describe other than it seems like a standing thing. So is there anything to what I'm saying there? What do you think about that?

0:44:46 Jenessa: Oh, yes. Standing was my very first question about this when I was trying to figure it out. Finding out they are a mergers and acquisition company, I would say almost certainly they must have handled the acquisition. And definitely an element of this is going to be that the person is ready and willing and able to perform.

0:45:03 Thomas: Okay. As they cover that somewhere yeah

0:45:06 Jenessa: For sure, if that guy doesn't want his job back, you super will not be able to get specific performance to force him to get his job pack.

0:45:13 Thomas: Yeah yeah I wasn't saying that I was more saying the fact that that's a possibility made me think this is a weird thing you know that yeah okay

0:45:17 Jenessa: Uh -huh. Yeah, no, it's weird. It feels weird to me. Now, there is entirely a possibility that as somebody who does not do a lot of giant corporation contracts or much of any contracts, it is possible this is normal and I just haven't seen it. I'm thinking what probably happened is in that acquisitions contract, Fortis is going to stand to get some of this bonus.

0:45:35 Thomas: Gotcha

0:45:46 Jenessa: Company A is being sold to Company B. We're handling it.

0:45:45 Thomas: Well sure yeah yeah I think that we're pretty solid on I get why they would have standing in that way maybe staying wasn't the right word then because it's more like the remedy seems like something having the special performance be higher back uh entity that's not technically technically speaking, the one that's suing you is, it feels weird, but I guess the fact that it's like on behalf is what you're saying kind of covers that you think. Okay. Hmm. Okay, I guess that makes sense.

0:46:06 Jenessa: It is weird. It feels funny. Yeah, as the representative of these individuals, I think I think that's what is doing it.

0:46:22 Thomas: It just does make you wonder then why aren't they just suing some intricate contract thing?

0:46:28 Jenessa: Probably. I have to imagine they just had the resources, or it's entirely possible the contract literally said, if some shit goes down, you're going to represent me.

0:46:35 Thomas: Probably I was gonna say what if the contract would mean that the way the recourse those guys would have would be crappy, like arbitration or something that is not favorable to them that so this could be like a cool workaround they did that's something to think about okay sorry this is very very in the weeds contracty

0:46:47 Jenessa: Possible. That's possible. Sure, sure. And it could be those guys have obligated Fortis to represent them should something like this have happened. They were like, please, God, I don't want to have to do this myself.

0:47:00 Thomas: Stuff sure that's usually in the form of paying for your lawyer though

0:47:10 Jenessa: That's what I would have thought, because normally you wouldn't have standing otherwise.

0:47:11 Thomas: Right all right yeah yeah interesting okay and

0:47:15 Jenessa: Who knows? How are we going to get more than just money damage? The money damages part is generally easier.

0:47:21 Thomas: That's later right that's that's also we're not at that trial yet

0:47:25 Jenessa: Correct. We are waiting on that because that's not urgent, according to the judge. To get them back in their jobs, how are we gonna get specific performance? Fortis has to show clear and convincing. So this is higher than that preponderance of the evidence standard. They're entitled to specific performance. Why? Why? It's available when the party lacks an adequate legal remedy and establishes, one, a valid contract exists.

0:47:51 Jenessa: Yeah, obviously. Two, they are ready, willing, and able to perform. And three, the balance of equities tips in its favor. The judge will also tell us normally we do have to reach that high, clear, and convincing standard. Big deal. But whereas here the parties contracted for specific performance, Delaware courts will enforce their bargain unless the breaching party presents a persuasive and case -specific reason not to. So once again, you have done this to yourselves.

0:48:26 Thomas: Contracted for specific performance Oh,

0:48:29 Jenessa: Crafton agreed that if it breached the agreement, the key employees would be entitled to specific performance to entitle compliance with its terms. Yeah.

0:48:38 Thomas: Shit. Okay. So it's just a contract provision that probably makes this all work.

0:48:41 Jenessa: So the problem is normally to get specific performance, we need clear and convincing and all this stuff. And the judge is like, yeah, but you wrote it in your contract, though, that that was the remedy.

0:48:51 Thomas: Okay, that'll do her.

0:48:55 Jenessa: The only way we're not going to do it, it's the other way around now. You're the breaching party. You have to show me a persuasive and case specific reason not to. Other way around. You Have Done Yourself In.

0:49:08 Thomas: So I hope you have some ChatGPT tokens left.

0:49:12 Jenessa: Oh, boy. Yeah. Yeah. You're both going to make your arguments, but the burden here actually ends up on Krafton, which is not normal and bad news for you.

0:49:22 Thomas: Burden shifting stuff happens often, though. That's a common thing, right? Right.

0:49:25 Jenessa: It's not normal for specific performance to have the burden on the person not asking for it, but it is very normal as a like thing you might do in a contract or like there are situations where that happens. Is money sufficient to solve this because if it is, we don't usually do specific performance. The judge says no.

0:49:47 Jenessa: Key employees' right to operational control over unknown worlds was a crucial bargain for protection. You wrote this contract. Why did they pick you? They had 30 different companies asking them. They wanted to buy. Why Did They Pick You? Because you agreed to a contract that gave them operational control they have already told us money isn't sufficient to remedy not having control over their company they wouldn't allow it that part no the whole ready willing and able to perform this is the one place where unknown worlds is finally gonna lose something cleveland and mcguire are not actually ready to perform they're off doing their own thing cleveland's trying to to make a movie. McGuire is doing, I mean, I think it's a very worthwhile, interesting side project, but he's not developing the game. All three of them would love their jobs back. And the judge is like, would you though? Because it sounds like Cleveland was working four hours a week on a Subnautica movie.

0:50:28 Thomas: I would think that this part of it, this aspect would just be, yes, an affidavit. We are ready to perform. Is there further analysis than that?

0:51:02 Jenessa: This is evidence -based. You can't just say, oh yeah, I'm ready to paint your house. The judge is like that's funny because you don't own any of the supplies and and you've been not doing it for months. Prove it.

0:51:17 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]

0:51:17 Jenessa: So Gil, the CEO guy, he's been doing his job this whole time. He's been doin' all the business stuff. There's no reason to think he's not ready, willing, and able to perform. He's been performing.

0:51:29 Thomas: Wait, what do you mean he's been? He got, didn't he get fired?

0:51:32 Jenessa: Oh yeah, this is prior to. As evidence that if we hire him back, is he ready, willing, and able to perform? Yes. He's been performing. He performed all the way up until this happened. Up until the date of his firing, nothing had changed about his job. There was no indication anything was wrong. If anything, he was doing his best to get everybody else in shape. There's no logic to saying he's not ready, willing, and able to perform that job. You could make an argument that Cleveland is not going to come back and suddenly be the lead creative on Subnautica 2. He has expressed every intention that he's NOT going to be.

0:52:13 Jenessa: All this stuff you guys are worried about, that you need operational control because of all of these monetary outcomes. That is really tied up in game development. It is not tied up. You guys have never made a film. What is the evidence he's ever going to make a film with the four hours a week he's been working? You know what? Fine. You win. Here's the thing. If I reinstate Gil as the CEO, he's entirely entitled within his discretion. Yeah, whoops.

0:52:39 Thomas: He can just hire them back. Yeah. Man, he almost had me. Very interesting.

0:52:47 Jenessa: Including the discretion to retain Cleveland or McGuire as advisors, that would be part of his job. Yeah, you could make a good argument that both of them are not really doing the gaming thing anymore.

0:53:00 Thomas: I feel like this was this judge belts and suspendering and suspending. I feel this was him being like, oh, I'll give you one, but it doesn't matter.

0:53:09 Jenessa: Yeah for sure. If Gil is the CEO of Unknown Worlds and he has operational control, which includes hiring employees who do game stuff, he has the sole discretion to be like, Like, they do important game stuff. Come on back, guys.

0:53:20 Thomas: So was that the decision? So the decision ended up being you have to hire that guy back.

0:53:30 Jenessa: Yeah, and we're going to get a little more even better for them. Hire them back. The balance of equities are certainly with them. Yeah, hiring him back is going to cause tension with the parent company. There's bad blood here. But the harm to Unknown Worlds' absence -specific performance is even more palpable. The part -time CEO they put in charge of Unknown Worlds, in the meanwhile, manages another studio and has never played Subnautica before his appointment.

0:53:57 Thomas: Wow. Talk about ready, willing, and able. That guy's not ready, willing, and able, damn it.

0:54:02 Jenessa: Yeah, like he doesn't know the primary IP that he's managing. Like, this just doesn't make sense. We're going to get rid of the July 1 resolution from the board where they said Subnautica 2 shall not be released to early access absent further review. The judge is like, that has to go. Gil didn't get a say in it. I'm rehiring Gil. So he violated his bargained for operational control. You can't have that. No. No. What else are we going to do? That whole part where you guys had a deadline of December 31, 2025, as you're like, that's the day you had to make the certain amount of money by. I'm going to extend that by 258 days, equal to the period Gil's termination and this opinion.

0:54:44 Thomas: Oh, wow. Just for the time. Yeah. Nice.

0:54:51 Jenessa: The new deadline is September 15, 2026. And then Fortis had a unilateral option to extend it to June 30th, 2026. So now we're going to add that back on top. They get till March 15, 2027 to make this money to get the bonus.

0:55:10 Thomas: I'm with you. I think you said earlier, I don't really understand why they had that unilateral option, but okay.

0:55:15 Jenessa: Yeah. Unilateral of all things. Like you'd just be like, yes, I extend. I want the money, please. We get the extension for the length of time he was terminated. He didn't have operational control. So of course that could have delayed the project. And then I am going to grant you that extra six months that you had the option to extend, bringing you out a year and a half longer than the original December 31, 2025. You're getting even more time. You're gonna get that bonus now.

0:55:47 Thomas: Nice. Wow. Suck it, chat GPT idiot slash probably also listened to about a hundred other people who probably tried to tell you this is a dumb idea. Yeah. Plus your mailman and your mom and everybody, any, literally anyone else you said this to who's a human, listen to them. Cause I'm sure they were like, yeah, no, not a good idea. Not a good idea.

0:55:52 Jenessa: Oh my god, listen to your lawyer the first time.

0:56:00 Jenessa: Oh, my god. Yeah that was a team of lawyers there's no way oh boy really not a good idea and like also just a dick move it could open them to lawsuit and reputational damage of course it did and I just saw an article this week that they're like oh now you know as an ai first company we're teaming up with a Korean aerospace firm to expand into physical AI they want to make skynet we're We're going to have autonomous AI weapons. This company is not a nice person company.

0:56:46 Thomas: Yeah, I'll give them this. You're an AI first company. Like nobody's going to argue. I'll get them. If this is like, you know, I will give you that for your reputation. Like you can't look, I blew a whole lawsuit from being an idiot AI first person. And they're like, well, I'll give you that. You know, I can't, can't take that away from you.

0:57:00 Jenessa: I was talking to a friend about this who like works in tech and he expresses constant frustration with all the marketing buzzwords where he's like, hey, when you say we're AI first, tell me what that means. What do I do differently at my job? And like can't get an answer. And I was like, yeah, what would an AI second company do? And he's Like, I don't know. This this is AI first. This is, I asked ChatGPT instead of my lawyer.

0:57:24 Thomas: Yeah. I guess that's an answer. You would, you would, you would ask the lawyer first and then chat GPT maybe. Oh wait, that is what they did. You would listen to the lawyer and then check GPT. So then not check. I don't know. Yeah.

0:57:37 Jenessa: Yeah, ChatGPT makes the plan. And then tell your legal department to follow this. No, don't worry. It's not a ChatGPT printout. Don't worry why it said ABABC, M dashes.

0:57:47 Thomas: Yeah, don't worry that it has a bunch of the, what are they called, the em dashes? Don't worry, that's riddled with the em dashes. Oh, wow. Well, that was fun. Is that the end of our story for now anyway?

0:57:58 Jenessa: Yeah, yeah. So right now the CEO is reinstated. I am betting maybe he'll rehire those guys. Maybe those guys need a break. Who knows? Subnautica 2 immediately got an early access release date. I forget what it is, but it's soon. They will find out about damages probably a very long time from now. That will crawl through the courts. What happens with like, how do you keep working at a company where there's this much bad blood? I don't know.

0:58:33 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, that is a good point.

0:58:34 Jenessa: Maybe they'll separate.

0:58:36 Thomas: I am curious how in the world the CEO would still have, it is a he, right? How would he have his job?

0:58:41 Jenessa: I mean, I would imagine there has to be a shareholder lawsuit coming. You used ChatGPT and ignored our lawyers and you've just exposed us to liability.

0:58:50 Thomas: Is it like a Mark Zuckerberg situation where the CEO is just like the whole thing or something?

0:58:55 Jenessa: I guess like if it's a private corporation, if it'S not publicly traded, then maybe, I don't know exactly how that way, if It was a publicly traded corporation, you have fiduciary, but I think even if It's private, you have Fiduciary duties.

0:58:59 Thomas: Oh, okay. Okay yeah sure it kind of depends on the structure of it so yeah who knows wow well this couldn't happen to a bigger idiot so that's nice and it sounds like for people who are fans of subnautica sounds like a real victory it's you know it's there's been a lot of bad video game news stuff sometimes we've covered lawsuits uh seems like this one went pretty well for the for the

0:59:28 Jenessa: It did, it did. And you know, especially keeping that operational control, I think is really important because as soon as Krafton said that like AI first stuff people were like I'm sorry and Unknown Worlds said no we're not using generative AI to make our games we are not doing that and because their contract gives them operational control they don't have to do what Krafton does knowing they retain operational control over the game is going to be really important to people who have ethical feelings about the game not being made by ChatGPT.

0:59:33 Thomas: Fans yeah mm -hmm all right mm Mm-hmm

1:00:04 Jenessa: It's overall very good news for people who want this game to ever come out, would like the money to not go to, you know, mostly not go to Evil Corp. We'll see.

1:00:15 Thomas: Wow what a story that was a lot of fun thanks so much Jenessa that was great breakdown and the good guys seem to have won at least from what I can tell thanks so and thanks for listening everybody and if you were a patron then you got that early so thanks for being a patron hope you enjoyed that early content maybe let that be a lesson to the rest of ease well

1:00:39 Jenessa: See you soon.

1:01:13 Thomas: We'll see you next time on opening arguments number one no nope we're not checking. Oh, I'll give you one, but it doesn't matter. Ha ha. Hey dad, how can I F these people over?