Mortal Kombat creator Ed Boon's $1 million bonus
Browsing through some of Midway's bankruptcy filings to see if there's any more interesting information in there besides today's revelation that the publisher is considering selling the "Mortal Kombat" franchise, I came upon some very specific data about how its top designer is compensated.
Ed Boon is the co-creator of "Mortal Kombat" and currently the lead designer for for the fighting franchise at Midway. Though he isn't mentioned by name in the bankruptcy filings, there is extensive discussion of a "key designer" who is "responsible for historically the Debtors’ most successful video game series." Later on it mentions that the series had a new release in the fourth quarter of 2008.
The series is obviously "Mortal Kombat" and the designer is Boon. In this filing, Midway is asking the bankruptcy court to approve continued payment of Boon's bonus plan in order to retain his services, which it claims is "critical to maximizing the value of one of the Debtors’ primary assets" (a.k.a. "Mortal Kombat").
Why? Well, he's in charge of making the "Mortal Kombat" games and also the guy who handles most interviews and publicity. If he were to leave, it would be yet another PR nightmare for Midway and would likely lessen the value of the franchise to a potential buyer.
So how much does Boon get for his work? Well for "performance of new release version of the Video Game in fourth quarter 2008 and first quarter 2009" -- in other words, sales of November release "Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe" in the five months when it will have achieved most of its sales -- the bonus is $900,000. In addition, Boon gets $105,000 for other revenue from the "MK" franchise (older games, movies, etc.) in those two quarters.
Of course we still don't know what Boon's annual salary is. But if you've ever wondered how much a successful game designer associated with one of the industry's top franchises earns in sales bonuses alone, now you know.
By contrast, the bonus pool available for 110 employees under the "design team bonus plan" Midway offers is $325,000 in the same period when Boon is making just over $1 million. So it pays to be the top guy and the public face.
(Oh, and yes, I almost wrote "kreator" in the headline. I managed to restrain myself.)
Chris Morris reports on the business and culture of video games and offers analysis of recent events and industry trends.
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yes but I want to see spiderman and scroupion together
Posted by: Dashawn Stallings | March 28, 2009 at 07:58 AM
My brothers, sister and I came up with an idea of a new mortal combat game while playing "Mortal Combat vs. DC Universe" the idea was "Mortal COmbat vs. Marvel Comics" such as X-Men, thats the one we'd really like to play, vs. X-Men.
Posted by: Holly G. | March 12, 2009 at 03:24 PM
Hey you know you guy should make the next game vs marel and have all the mortal combat charecters in it
Posted by: chris rehrig | March 12, 2009 at 10:07 AM
wut is he gonna do know
Posted by: rickford | March 03, 2009 at 03:03 PM
"Oh, and yes, I almost wrote "kreator" in the headline. I managed to restrain myself."
Thats disappointing, it could have been a new term created just for video games. Come on, you work under the Variety banner, you have to create new and meaningless terms so that outsiders have no idea what you are talking about.
It seems like a big payment, but probably fair enough for the creator of a franchise that, according to your recent post, could be sold for $40m. What would happen though if they do sell off MK? Does Boon still get the bonus?
Posted by: Scott | March 02, 2009 at 06:53 PM