FB: Chapter 94 – Compensation

“Thanks to the recent interview by our Guild Leader profits have increased by a factor of four and we are rapidly expanding our operations in Halfenbrook. The charts,” Quant Z said and waved at the staff member who began displaying charts with lines going up showing how we now bringing in a lot more money. That brought back memories. I was the one holding up the charts in my past while Quant Z presented his accomplishments.

“Due to my efforts, the in game financial situation has completely stabilized. The first of our three keys to success have been the protection and complete control of the guild town under my stewardship. This has allowed us to completely cut out all other competition while also protecting our investments unlike other guilds. While the defensive measures have been pricey, there have already been 19 known serious attempts to sabotage our operations that we have efficiently and effectively countered. Second, we are selling an experience and packages while keeping the number of people under control along with the rates. This has allowed us to book two months out and sell our town as a premier adult vacation destination. Third, we have had amazing marketing thanks to the Guild Leader which has pushed us beyond our previous projections,” Quant Z said with a smile.

This was what made the super guild I had worked for so successful in the past. They capitalized on sex tourism. Instead of paying individual prostitutes, people would purchase passes and the genius of Quant Z came through. Almost everything would be free except the gambling. There were limited mind altering substances in Exponential, but they existed and were safe. Food, drugs, and sex, a person would fall into an abyss of pleasure.

The cost was 1 gold a real world day for the basic package. That meant you got to reserve time with one of the adult entertainers, however much you wanted. For an elite package of 1 platinum a day, you would get a harem and staff catering to your every whim. There was some depraved shit at that level, which included some actual shit play for the more depraved people. I wasn’t curious how that worked when no one used the bathroom in game, unfortunately I had learned.

For some reason, it was popular to get someone to use Murk Barf on one’s ass and then shit out all the vomit over another person’s face of someone they didn’t like while making a video. It was called douche bagging. Sure, the recordings were pixelated in the right parts, but the Exponential personal porn market was massive.

While children were protected from sexual content in game, they could be killed and cooked. Just not sexually abused. Humane killing of children was allowed, if it could even be called that. That was what the nobles did. It was a huge taboo, but everyone wanted to do it. Quant Z began talking about how they wanted to get NPC nobles to show up to the town and were running NPC marketing campaigns to target them, giving free packages to certain noble youth to entice others and create repeat customers.

It was completely depraved and absolutely disgusting. I felt dirty even being part of this, but it was big money. The budget and free reign Quant Z had for all this development had allowed us to seize almost the entire market share. Oh, his staff member had put up another graph showing we had 73% of the high-end player market share and had 9% of the entire brothel business throughout the Human Empire.

“That’s why we need a second town. In order to capture a more family friendly type of audience. Preferably in a town near Halfenbrook for safety and protection reasons,” Quant Z said and then looked at me.

“Then get someone with another noble title to join the guild. Aren’t we set up to pay a person like that the same rates as a Champion?” I asked.

“Yes, but other guilds are offering a lot more,” Quant Z quickly answered.

“Our compensation packages are already quite generous,” I muttered in response.

“They actually aren’t. When you look at real world payments, we only pay out around a third as much,” Isabella responded.

“But we give in game coinage as well. Make that clear in our recruitment offers. I have reviewed our compensation packages and I will not beggar the guild or corporation to get people. Even if it slows down our expansion plans. We need to control the number of staff and salaries. Once our debts are paid off we can consider increasing salaries,” I stated.

“Foxy, that might not be a good idea. Many of us are horribly under compensated for our positions,” Don Anthony said. I looked at Number Crusher who rubbed his forehead.

“It is true. We are on the low end in terms of compensation, and it was stated it was a short term thing until the guild stabilized its revenue streams,” he replied.

“And the canal? Would it be impacted?” I asked Quant Z who shook his head.

“That project is on track, and possibly a few days ahead of schedule with the increased number of people joining the guild,” Quant Z said.

“Put together an updated compensation package. Something in the middle of the pack and something that beats all the other guilds. I know everyone is working hard and you have all been doing an amazing job. I also own a large portion of this company, so money is less of a concern for me than it might be for other people here,” I stated to show my understanding of their concerns.

“Would you want us to consider stock options?” Number Crusher asked me. I considered that question carefully. In terms of actual cash I was set. I had billions of dollars. At a certain point it was just a number that went up or down. While I had started this for the money, it was merely a point of leverage for the super wealthy like myself. Almost like a score system, instead of something needed to live and support myself.

I could begin issuing new shares, which would dilute the current shares. This would give top people a stake in the company. The company could then buy those shares back after a certain point in order to pay back investors or issue dividends. It would also be a good way to reduce my shares long term and extract money to invest in Exponential Corporation instead.

“For both options, consider share distribution with long term buy back or dividends. I want four choices, middle, high-end, and then a stock and non-stock option. I want staff numbers projected forward as well and staff numbers kept as low as possible. The people we are paying will be compensated, but I want to avoid bloat. Look into creating a single team of analysts that the entire guild can share for number crunching, instead of having various departments handle that. Streamline things people. Once the canal is completed and the Unmentionable Horror is killed, I will pick one of the four options. Number Crusher you can take the lead and submit the initial plans for Isabella to review and approve for submitting them to all of us. There will be a recommendation vote, which I will take as advisement on which plan to go with,” I stated.

There were nods around the table. I had enough money and could exit this guild if needed, but now I needed to strengthen its foundations and retain talent. “In addition, let the staff members know there will be an updated compensation plan once the canal is done.”

“What about regular guild members?” Hammer Crusher asked.

“We already offer generous terms and benefits. Those won’t change. Also, the chance to move up into staff positions. Can we reduce the percentage of coinage taken?” I looked at Number Crusher.

“Absolutely not. We are only earning about 12 copper profit from earnings of each guild member, every day, after taking into account developmental expenses. Staff members for team organization, knowledge distribution, resource allocation,” Number Crusher said.

“I want to see an organizational chart with staff member counts and job roles,” I stated. Everyone looked around and I let out a sigh.

“Clearly, we need another Vice Leader to handle internal organization and take charge of a number crunching team. Any recommendations or volunteers, not you Quant Z,” I quickly added the last part, and he looked like a sad puppy. I was not going to allow that man that kind of authority over the rest of the guild. Everyone was silent as they looked at each other.

“Anyone from the physical corporation we can bring in Anthony?” I asked.

“No. I have streamlined operations there, since most of it is sub-contracting out and taking a management or consulting role over other companies. Almost like franchising and using institutional knowledge to make things easy,” he replied. I nodded at this. While we wouldn’t make as much money as if we had done everything ourselves, it reduced the risk with the prisons and nursing homes. It also got us more stakeholders who would support the Fanged Fox Corporation with their connections.

We handled giving a smooth experience as possible to people entering the game and recruiting the best ones once they hit level 30. There were also technical and political issues to be aware of in the real world as well. We got a small percentage of what these people were paying to enter Exponential while providing in game support and smoothing things on the outside, like a consulting firm who specialized in a specific area.

Anti-vibration pads, controlling external stimulus around the capsules, and back up power supplies were all things that needed to be taken into consideration. Already there had been some failures with groups that didn’t bring in the Fanged Fox Corporation which were blown up in the press. This put pressure on these other companies to hire us and give us a small percentage stake of their operations to ensure everything ran smoothly.

While Exponential Corporation would ensure their pods worked correctly and were completely safe, there were other considerations outside of the pods that were needed to provide a good experience for the users. While our fee was incredibly small, it had a huge impact on perception in the real world. I had already done a couple of interviews about the subject as well to make things easier for Anthony like I had recently done for Quant Z. My fame was immense, and I was leveraging it to the hilt.

Anthony had his role and moving him to internal operations in the game would just create trouble. “Isabella, you have been acting as our HR person for high end recruitment, while we have been internally recruiting from the guild for staff positions. Any trouble there?” I asked.

“None and it is useful to have that role. I have a staff member handling the more technical details,” she replied, and I nodded at this. I didn’t want to hire a Human Resources Officer in game.

“Then I will put you in charge of recommending someone for the Vice Leader position. Anyone you recommend I want an extensive background check. That includes someone physically checking up on their story. This position is too sensitive to let someone with poor intentions slip through.”

“Their exact role?” Isabella asked.

“Setting up a team to crunch numbers for the various officers and departments in the guild as well as taking a close look at our organizational chart with yearly audits and performance reviews. They would propose metrics we can evaluate our staff members on, or perhaps an internal reporting system where they submit their yearly activities and what they do for the guild. The problem with looking at utilization and the amount of work people do is that it creates pointless busy work, which I also want to avoid. Now that I am thinking about it, we will go with a model where they do an interview with all staff members and bring to the attention of the officers anyone they think should be fired or be monitored more closely,” I said.

There were nods at this. I didn’t want to get sucked down this hole of monitoring people, since the monitoring itself was a waste of time. Like having meetings about meetings. It was stupid and pointless. I wanted people to just do their jobs and do them decently. They didn’t need to be super stars, but they needed to execute and have a proper level of utilization.

It was far too easy for super guilds to have bloat. Looking where we could streamline efforts like the data people was something a Vice Leader needed to handle. Right now each officer was running their department like their own little kingdom, which was fine. I had planned it out that way since we needed to get the guild up and running.

But now that we were out of that startup phase and looking to increase compensation, we needed to control the number of staff members we had as much as possible to prevent bloat. Finding that nice middle ground where we had enough so people weren’t overwhelmed, but not too many, that people were just sitting around earning a paycheck doing nothing.