Have you ever been paid to leave someplace? Probably not. Most people aren’t that lucky. But Dino Patti, one of the co-founders of independent developer Playdead, had exactly that happen to him. He was paid $7.2 million to leave the company following a power struggle, even though it was initially reported he left as a career move.
The information came to light in Borsen , a Danish newspaper. The problems between Patti and Arnt Jensen, the other co-founder, started in 2015. It began with a fight over who owned Playdead’s games. In November 2015, Jensen was going to step down as a creative director, but his manner of expressing this caused Patti to take it as total resignation and remove Jensen from Playdead’s Denmark business registration. This caused the Danish Business Authority to come in to help iron out the issue, which led to Patti being removed and paid 50 million kroner (about $7.2 million).
It’s such a shame when things get messy like this. Especially when Playdead is known for wonderful games like Limbo and Inside . One can only hope that the products remain at the same high quality following such an event.