Patrick Söderlund leaves EA—after receiving a $20 million bonus?

Patrick Söderlund, ea

Chief design officer of Electronic Arts is planning to exit the company later this year, despite a $20 million bonus paid to him to stay.

News broke of Söderlund’s exit from the company on Tuesday. He has worked for EA since they acquired the developer DICE in 2006, of which he was CEO. Since then, Söderlund has reportedly had creative input in “all of EA’s game development,” according to Gamespot.

But Kotaku has reported that Söderlund received a bonus of $20 million from EA to support the "longer-term retention of Mr. Soderlund." He received this bonus last year and reaped the benefits for it in stock awards, which means he was rewarded even more than EA boss Andrew Wilson.

His appointment to chief design officer is a recent one, having only been appointed in April. In his 17-year tenure at EA, he has overseen development for The Sims, the Battlefront games, Plants vs. Zombies and Mass Effect, among others.

Most recently, Söderlund and other executives did damage control for the unpopular additions to Star Wars Battlefront II, which included loot boxes and microtransactions galore.

He will leave the company in October.

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