Now EA's Executives are Being Overpaid

If you recall, early last month CtW Investment Group took Activision-Blizzard to task for the outrageous compensation package they offer their CEO Bobby Kotich, who is paid a ludicrous amount of money for his “work” within the company, and has even broken the law a few times to squeeze even more pennies out of the gaming company he’s supposed to lead. But rich people ignore both criticism and the law, and to the best of my knowledge nothing has yet been done about his outrageous income.

But that hasn’t stopped CtW’s crusade against overpaid executives in the gaming space: they’ve now turned their eyes to EA, and in a letter to shareholders, they point out that EA is paying way too much to their executives, particularly CFO Blake Jorgensen and CTO Kenneth Moss, who are actually underperforming and bringing little value to the company.

Specifically, in June of 2017, the two executives in question were given “special equity awards” on top of their usual compensation, with Jorgensen getting $10 million USD worth of non-cash payments (so stocks and the like) while Moss got a cool $7 million. Two years later, in November, Jorgensen was given another $7.5 million, while Moss got $5.5 million, before the performance period for the previous special awards had finished.

It’s worth noting that Jorgensen earns $6.5 million USD a year normally, whereas Moss gets $5.5 million.

"Electronic Arts has loaded up its top executives, including two executives with two special awards each, while its workers faced massive layoffs last year. This is an undue focus on the short term that cannot be good for the long-term success of EA… The notion that executives need to be incentivized with pay above-and-beyond the ordinary course program is a complete fallacy. EA’s executives have more than enough retention and performance incentive through their annual equity grant amounts, which the company already admits are set above the median of peers in its peer group."

While their efforts to stop Activision Blizzard from endlessly showering cash on its CEO failed, maybe they’ll have more like with EA. I know I’ll be hoping for it.