Playdead (Limbo/INSIDE) Co-Founder Paid $7.2M to Leave Company

It might have slipped under some people's radar, but it's no secret that Playdead co-founder Dino Patti left the studio in July 2016. However, the Danish financial newspaper Borsen revealed that the leave wasn't voluntary or beautiful.

The conflict between the co-founders Dino Patti and Arnt Jensen started in 2015 when Patti felt that the studio was too quiet in between game productions, with the full breakdown happening when Patti and Jensen couldn't agree to who owned the rights to the games. Since this time the two only communicated through lawyers as each tried to gain control over the company.

Things really went down south in November of that same year when Jensen made a comment about needing to find different avenues for his creative activities. Patti subsequently removed Jensen from Playdead's CVR registry as it 'was clear to him that Jensen no longer wanted to work for Playdead'.

Jensen's lawyers didn't agree with this, claiming that Jensen only resigned as creative director and not as co-owner of the company. The ongoing disagreement between the two parties caused the Danish Business Authority to intervene and they had to force Patti out. Patti received 50M DKK (~$7.2M) for the 49% of the company he had in his possession.

Jensen refuses to comment on the situation. Patti has stated that he feels he wasn't compensated enough for what the company is actually worth and would trade back the 50M DKK for a solution that would make him co-director at the company.