Consulting firm Games One has shared a list of the highest-paid gaming CEOs. Activision Blizzard’s Bobby Kotick made it to the top-3, earning more than CD Projekt, Ubisoft, and EA leaders combined.
While Kotick’s compensation might seem huge, it still wasn’t enough to top the list. Robert Antokol, CEO of mobile publisher Playtika, earned more than $370 million in 2021.
Overall, 42 people from 40 companies made this chart with a combined compensation of $842 million.
It is worth noting that total compensation is made of salary, annual bonuses, stock, and other benefits. The size is determined by the board of directors and should be approved during the voting process among shareholders.
Top-10 most paid gaming CEOs
- Robert Antokol (Playtika) — $372,008,176
- Bobby Kotick (Activision Blizzard) — $154,613,318
- Andrew Paradise (Skillz) — $103,321,052
- Andrew Wilson (EA) — $34,715,802
- Frank Gibeau (Zynga) — $32,003,768
- John Riccitiello (Unity) — $22,001,733
- Strauss Zelnick (Take-Two) — $18,111,761
- Taek-Jin Kim (NCsoft) — $15,620,773
- Min-Liang Tan (Razer) — $10,457,000
- Debbie Bestwick (Team17) — $10,242,642
Speaking of other famous company leaders’ compensations, David Baszucki (Roblox) made $6.7 million, Yosuke Matsuda (Square Enix) made $4.1 million, Shuntaro Furukawa (Nintendo) made $2.8 million, Yves Guillemot (Ubisoft) made $925k, and Marcin Iwiński and Adam Kiciński from CD Projekt both made around $1 million.
Embracer Group CEO Lars Wingefors sits in 20th place with total compensation of only $162k. It might come as a surprise for someone, considering the amount of hype the Swedish holding company generated with its multi-million dollar deals.
Games One also listed media compensations for employees. Electronic Arts leads the list with $123,935, followed by Activision ($99k), Zynga ($98k), Glu Mobile ($89k), and Take-Two ($72k).