Activision Blizzard is one of the biggest publishers in gaming right now. They’re the publisher behind several of the most popular game franchises, includingWorld of Warcraft,andCall of Duty,thelatter being the best selling game of 2019. It’s recently announced a major leadership shakeup, hiring former Google executive Daniel Alegre as its new president and chief operating officer. Today Alegre’s compensation package has been released, and it’s quite large.
Alegre’s base salary will be $1.35 million. However, he can earn “annual discretionary bonuses” of up to 100% of his base salary. He could also earn another 100% of his base salary if Activision Blizzard’s earnings-per-share growth is 20% better than the expected results. This means he could be bringing in a total of over $4 million a year. To put that in perspective,Wonderful 101was entirely funded for $1.25 millionthrough Kickstarter.
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Alegre will also receive a one time signing fee of $2.5 million, and stock options worth another $5 million. In total, this brings his possible compensation for 2020 alone to over $11 million. On top of this, he will be receiving a life insurance policy for himself and his wife worth an additional $5 million. While this is a staggering amount of money, considering thatWorld of Warcrafthas been one of the most popular MMORPGs of all time, Activision Blizzard can certainly afford it.
It will take a lot to be at the helm of Activision Blizzard. The company is one of the largest in the industry, with a massive number of IPs.Activision Blizzard’s stock price has been doing very well in recent years, and if it continues to grow under Alegre, he will certainly have earned the large amount of money that he’s being compensated.
However, it’s worth noting that Algere will be earning exponentially more money than those below him at Activision Blizzard. The games industry is famously tough to work in, with Blizzard employees sometimes putting in100 hour work weeks due to crunch time.This is a widespread problem across the industry, and it can be detrimental to both the physical and mental health of employees. It can be hard to justify an executive earning so much more than his employees, especially when there’s a potentially exploitative culture at the company.
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Source:United States Securities and Exchange Commission
