Midway execs get rich while company crashes

I thought the CEO of Midway was M. Fucker, who's this new guy?

Do not question your masters' tactics. They reached the levels they are at through hard work* and dilligence*.

Execs always get paid regardless of their personal performance and sometimes, as is evident here, in spite of the company's utter collapse.

huh, i was expecting really big $$ for the CEO's salary. Honestly, $2.25 million as a yearly salary for a (former) big-name video game company...doesn't seem too disheartening. Compare it to the CEO of EA Games' salary, and then maybe you'll draw some blood from my flesh.

First rule of "CEO School":

RAM IT INTO THE GROUND

Seriously...WHO THE FUCK ARE THESE PEOPLE?

This is why CEOs should be paid in stock, so they feel responsible in some way or form. They can either cash the stock out and make the stock price go down or keep the stock in and try to revive the company so they can increase the stock value.

PS Joystiq, your interruption ads are getting annoying, they would not let me close it out so I had to refresh so many times just to get to another page. I know you need money, but there has to be another way.

This is a shocking news story. I can hardly believe that such a blatantly exploitative system of capitalism would ever produce CEOs bilking their company for as much as possible despite its performance. At least that $700 billion is to bailout the rest of us who are feeling the brunt of a greedy and mismanaged Wall Street and is going into the pockets of a single investor. Right?

How could we have ever predicted this? I, for one, am stunned.

Maybe Midway should change their business from games to making items for Home. There's a profit in charging $10 for a lamp and couch for that summer house.

Welcome to business, its sad as an accountant myself to see stories like this. I cant see how they could at least cut their own salary by 25-40% to allow more cash flow within the business to operate better.

The same has been happening with the recent news with banks now, even after getting releif money from the gov't they are still screwing customers and borrowers over like its nothing and not lending out a single dime and still taking huuuge salaries and paychecks.
We need some od movement like in V for Vendetta, because theres something terribly wrong with the way business works nowadays....

Nobody has made any Booty jokes? For shame, Joystiq commenters, for shame.

Booty.

CEO's should all burn in hell.

How about that guy that asked for a multi-million dollar bonus despite his company losing big money? I don't really know the specifics, my smarterer friend told me about it.

CEO's making huge money while their company crashes and burns?

*puts on cowboy hat and affects his best southern accent*

Wel-come tuh Ameri-cuh, son!

"...could have paid for all 180 of those workers [who lost their jobs] to be employed at full pay for another six months."

And then in 6 months they'd be out of a job anyway. Seriously, I'm sick of hearing about how these "evil" CEOs are making all this money - it's a private business, and if the stock holders feel they deserve it, then so be it.

Unless those CEOs have some say in the daily operation of the company I work for, they have no business saying what I make. Just like I have no business saying what they should be making (since I don't own any stock in Midway).

Seriously, this country has turned into a bunch of socialist liberals. If anything, I look at those CEOs and say "How can I make that much?", not "They should only be making as much as I do!"

This is very similar to what happened to Commodore in the '90s. The company was being run into the groung by execs who made insane amounts of cash.

I have no problem with execs making money. The problem is when they rake in the cash while runnng that company into the ground. Its not good for the employees or investors when a company goes under. What's going to happen to all of Midway's games?

Collapsing company, overpaid and inept management, sounds like they've met the criteria for a government handout.

What will happen to our economy without Mortal Kombat to sustain us?

Same story with every company going under.

(laughing)

uh, yea welcome to the real world people. this is not only common in all facets of big business but practically expected.

every time you hear of major corps "cutting back", "elminating redundencies", or "laying off staff" has always been bullshit-slang for "in order to sustain our (CEO's, board members) grossly inflated salaries and the lifestyle that comes with it, we must fire as many employees as humanly possible."

it's that mentality that's partly responsible for why the US economy is in a tailspin.

Either CEOs need their pay directly tied to the stock, or they need regulation insuring that they must raise employee pay to stay in ratio to theirs. I don't mind that they make more money for being the boss, but ten-fold is absurd. Meanwhile the rest of us barely make it to the next paycheck let alone be lucky enough to have some left over to invest in shares that will just tank as the CEOs cash in anyway. The grind sucks.

Midway has only managed to stay this long because of speculative investments by the billionaire Sumner Redstone,80. Zucker, Booty and the rest of the executives plundered that company and only managed to eek out a few half-witted attempts at a decent video game. Mostly they made themselves money. The behaviors of the executives at Midway is not as interesting on the Madoff ponzi scheme. Nothing that complicated, its just a case of incompetent executive taking advantage of a aging fool with money.

Ducttape,
could the Ceo have done anything to avoid this? in the short term probably not, tanking of this kind i imagine are generally the result of more long term problems... In theory, had the company be managed better over the years, it might have not been so badly hurt by the recession... For instance, the Ceo's are making huge amounts of money every year off the company, if they were to cut down their own profits to even a remotely more modest amount, that money could have been pushed back into the company and be used to help the company... hell maybe they could have even used the money to put together some kind of surplus that they can dip into any time profits are running on the low end so that they can hold on to their employees while they make new games and try to pull themselves out...

And you should not look down upon those 6 months... that's 6 more months for all those employees to look for new jobs elsewhere while still maintaining an income; it's far better then them jumping right away into welfare.

ya ya, i shouldn't pretend i know business and economics, cause god knows i don't, but what i can tell is that there is something SERIOUSLY wrong every-time this kind of shit happens and that their are certainly better things that can be done with all those millions that would be much better than just giving it to some greedy scum who is already incredibly wealthy.

NOW do all of you see why I'm a Democrat and support the little guy? Not to rub it in other's faces, but Republicans are big corporation's bitches. That's a fact. YOU look up articles for it on unbiased sites (And one would have to be an imbecile to count Fox "News" or any other Newscorp shit as unbiased).

I hate these fat pigs that run corporations. You're suppose to make big bucks and be rewarded if your company is doing well. Not if you're company is failing. Pretty un-American if you ask me.

TOASTY!!!

Someone had to do it..