You failed to read my post. Every single Fortune 100 firm I know uses the same general scheme: the profits for either the company in toto or a major structural division are used to set a baseline bonus, and then individual performance reviews adjust that bonus upwards or downwards. The issue is that, even when bonuses are done by division, that entity generally has dozens or hundreds of products besides the one that a specific employee worked upon. Furthermore, one of the most common schemes involves granting stock or stock options, which obviously is intimately tied to overall company performance.
Your post stirred enough interest, however, for me to check what actual policies are at major game studios. The largest of them (Sony Interactive Entertainment) apparently uses just the system I describe, while Blizzard Activision used this system until just last year:
"...The new policy was instituted in 2023. Before the change, Blizzard would dole out bonuses to all employees based on the overall success of the publisher. If Blizzard's earnings were up, then everyone would get a bonus. The new policy only gives bonuses to the teams that are successful. For instance, in 2023, Diablo IV generated $666 million in just 5 days via game sales alone. The Diablo team's success doesn't affect other teams within the confines of the newer bonus scheme."
Read more:
https://www.tweaktown.com/news/9705...-cuts-bonuses-for-overwatch-2-devs/index.html
I work at a Fortune 100 company (not a startup!). My bonus and my stock are NOT the same. I've worked at large multinational corporations for the past 12 years. They all had the same incentive structure:
* 10/15% (non-senior/senior-and-above) of overall yearly gross salary as a bonus. Non-executive roles, of course, as those have their own incentives.
* Variable RSU levels depending on seniority. minimum level is actually a Senior IC employee, although pre-IPO companies will likely give everyone a stake.
* Some companies don't do RSUs anymore, they do, however, provide ESPPs (Employee Stock Purchase Programmes) where you can get "buy 2 get 3" deals on stock, for example.
Overall bonus-setting is for non-execs and non-sales people (because the bonus for these are heavily variable), of course. Employee bonuses work like this:
1. Company sets their financial goals.
2. Company sets baseline bonus levels. 100% is for goals that are met. Then they stagger up and down a range of percentages. e.g. they'll pay out less if they don't meet targets, etc. This is a modifier on your direct bonus.
3. Individual performance-reviews set how much you receive compared to the baseline. Say you were a top-performer and there is a 115% modified to your bonus.
4. At the end of the FY, you get that grade modified by the overall company modifier.
Say the company determined a 120% bonus if sales goals were exceeded by 30%. Your bonus would be <base bonus value based on your salary (15%) > * 1.15 * 1.2. So if you made $100K a year in a senior role, you'd get $15,000*1.15*1.2= $20,700, usually subject to income tax, depending on where your contract is.
This is not company stock. Those are awarded at the senior manager's discretion to further incentivize people.
Some companies are now changing this format to a benefits-based scheme, where you don't get a bonus directly, but you get extra benefits, that are "tax free".