Krafton CEO Used ChatGPT to Plan Evasion of $250 Million Contract Payment, Lost Case in Delaware Court

Gate News reports that on March 17, South Korean game publisher Krafton’s CEO Changhan Kim used ChatGPT to plan a scheme to avoid a $250 million contract payment, ignoring warnings from the legal team and pushing forward regardless. He ultimately lost the case in Delaware court. The judge on Monday ordered the reinstatement of the dismissed developer and fully revealed in the ruling how the CEO relied on an AI chatbot to develop company strategy.

Krafton acquired the underwater survival game Subnautica’s developer, Unknown Worlds Entertainment, for $500 million in 2021, with a promise to pay an additional $250 million if the sequel, Subnautica 2, met sales targets. Internal sales forecasts indicated this payment was likely to be triggered.

Kim’s corporate development head, Maria Park, explicitly warned on Slack that attempting to evade the payment posed “litigation and reputational risks,” and that even dismissing the founder would “likely still require payment.” However, Kim turned to ChatGPT for a solution. ChatGPT responded that the payment “would be difficult to cancel,” but Kim still asked for an alternative strategy.

ChatGPT suggested forming an internal special operations team. Based on this, Kim established a team codenamed “Project X” and had ChatGPT draft a “scenario response strategy” that included: 1. proactively guiding public opinion to prevent the incident from being characterized as “big company bullying an independent studio”; 2. securing control over Steam/console release rights and code pipelines; 3. preparing backup recruitment plans for key personnel loss; 4. employing a dual strategy of hard (legal + financial) and soft (support + incentives) approaches to push moderates toward compromise.

Following ChatGPT’s advice, Kim issued a statement on the Subnautica official website to garner player support, but the response was counterproductive, causing players to worry about the game’s future. Subsequently, Kim dismissed the original creators of the game, leading to litigation.

The judge’s ruling stated: “Fearing they had signed a ‘puppet’ contract, Krafton’s CEO turned to an AI chatbot to plan a ‘takeover’ strategy for the company.”