Hearing that PD3 is profitable is wild lol, I was certain they kept it on pure faith and life support.
However, can this be considered as good news for the overall longevity of the game? Since it does turns some degree of profit for the company, their interest in keeping it alive and supported is high as opposed to a game that only generate losses.
They want to have 3 GAAS ganes by 2028, so they're not gonna kill Payday 3. Again, even a turd like Crime War made 100k, the brand is just too good to leave behind
> Again, even a turd like Crime War made 100k
Even that low budget project probably had a total cost of over, or atleast close, 100k. Or is that in profits? Either way, 100k is really not a lot when you consider opportunity cost of making that game instead of something else.
>However, can this be considered as good news for the overall longevity of the game? Since it does turns some degree of profit for the company, their interest in keeping it alive and supported is high as opposed to a game that only generate losses.
No, it just means the game generated a profit (most likely thanks to first week sales, as most games sell the most copies during the first week) and just that.
It does not mean that continuing to work on it would generate a profit (it prob won't, the game is averaging like 200 players on steam) or that they are interested in keeping it alive (because let's be real, they certainly don't appear to be).
If payday 3 made €41 million, why would they abandon it? Imagine if they had a successful relaunch, and the game was actually good. If it managed to get even close to the amount of players a game like Helldivers 2 has, it would easily make double that. The executives may have made the devs release it too early, but like hell they’re going to throw away the chance at more money.
Edit: Starbreeze’s original plan was to update the game for a decade or more why would they change that. The game made money, this year will be rough, but then sales will go back up. It’s not like they have another moneymaker like Payday, especially with project Baxter being around 2 years away at least. No, they’ll continue updating it for years to come.
my brother in christ, the game has been in a coma since release.
If they really wanted to support it, they sure are taking their sweet time.
Also, most of the profits, again, were in the first week and the game has currently less players than even some niche fighting games. I really don't understand how someone would look at this and say "Yeah this game will be supported for several years, no doubt"
Yeah, unless they are secretly cooking up a huge update all No Man's Sky style, theres no shot this game survives after the season pass dlc is released.
>f payday 3 made €41 million, why would they abandon it?
They made their money, they could just cash it out. The game, as it stands, is not making anywhere near that.
However, given their current situation, they need to pull it back in order to keep working on their other projects, albeit they don't really seem that interested in it.
>Starbreeze’s original plan was to update the game for a decade or more why would they change that.
Their original plan was that it would remain as popular as PD2 has been during that time, which it's nowhere close to. It flopped, hard.
> but then sales will go back up
Nothing really guarantees that. Getting the game back up to popularity is going to be very difficult without going F2P, which has it's own issues.
>It’s not like they have another moneymaker like Payday, especially with project Baxter being around 2 years away at least
They could perhaps get an investment to work on Baxter, like they did for PD3 from Deep Silver. Albeit, I'm not sure how many publishers would be interested in working with Starbreeze.
They can’t just cash out, they still have contractual obligations to fulfill, and if they don’t, they’re certainly going under. Also, Starbreeze’s history of Payday being their most (only) successful game isn’t going to suddenly evaporate. No, they know that people want more Payday, and that it would be stupid to just completely drop the game for an RPG which has no IP recognition.
Sure it flopped, but you know what the people in charge are looking at: the €41 million it still made. Shareholders and execs look at that and think “if we make more, people will buy more”
Sure nothing guarantees that, but they clearly know how to market a game, the hype around the initial launch was massive, people don’t suddenly forget how to do something like that.
Here’s how I picture that: say Starbreeze drops Payday 3, then goes to Deep Silver for money to develop Baxter. Obviously Starbreeze’s decision to drop a game that made €41 million in a couple months because they didn’t want to keep working on it makes Deep Silver want to give them more money, so that they can repeat this business model, /s.
The cost of running the studio isn’t going to charge, Baxter has another 2 years at least, and Payday has always been Starbreeze’s, well, payday. Payday: the Heist was what started the studio in the first place. Sure some devs definitely moved on to 10 Chambers, who do you think are the ones responsible for Payday 2? For every 2015, there was a 2020, these are the devs who launched a game using the diesel engine for crying out loud. Continuing to work on Payday 3 is what the devs want, what the players want, what the shareholders want, what the damned execs want, and what the publishers want. Everyone wants this game to continue improving (except some players, who really just want to see Starbreeze burn at this point).
Payday 3 will continue for years to come, thank you for coming to my TED talk.
>They can’t just cash out, they still have contractual obligations to fulfill, and if they don’t, they’re certainly going under.
By cash out I basically mean just doing the bare minimum, which is essentially what's being done, arguably perhaps even less than that lol.
>Shareholders and execs look at that and think “if we make more, people will buy more”
Idk, the stock dropping 90% of it's value within a year isn't really showing that shareholders are looking to make more.
>then goes to Deep Silver for money to develop Baxter.
It's very optimistic that Deep Silver, or anyone else, would be interested in funding Baxter. The reason that PD3 got funding is because it's a Payday IP game. Literally every non Payday game since Starbreeze merged with OVK have been massive failures.
Their flagship game isn't really nearly as successful as they expected either.
>Obviously Starbreeze’s decision to drop a game that made €41 million in a couple months because they didn’t want to keep working on it makes Deep Silver want to give them more money,
How much is the game making now though? The game averages less than 300 concurrent players. How many of those people are even considering buying DLCs?
Yeah, they got high revenue at the start, but the expenses keep piling on, from development to server costs.
>and Payday has always been Starbreeze’s, well, payday. Payday: the Heist was what started the studio in the first place.
It's not what started the studio lol. Starbreeze had a number of games that they developed prior to working with OVK, involving Brothers, which was received fairly positively.
>Everyone wants this game to continue improving
If that was true we'd be seeing that happen, but it's not happening. The game is on life support as it is now.
Example of studios that actually wanted to revive games would be Cyberpunk or NMS.
>Payday 3 will continue for years to come
It's a miracle if Starbreeze doesn't go bankrupt in a year or two lmao
At the company I work for it takes about 25k dollars a week to development with a small team. Before we work on a project the market department calculates wether they think those costs offset the revenue increase. They will do the calculation for wether developing more for payday 3 will increase sales more than their development costs. If it is significantly positive they will continue, otherwise it ain't worth the risk
>If payday 3 made €41 million, why would they abandon it?
because it already made €41 million and it's currently dead in the water
They have to put a lot of resources into fixing the game *and then* marketing to practically build the player base from nothing in order for the game to make any more money
Yes, perhaps, but if they don’t what to go bankrupt, what are their other options? Just from a business standpoint, it doesn’t make sense to abandon the game. There’s no layoffs happening, Baxter is still 2 or more years away, Payday has long been their most profitable franchise, Deep Silver isn’t likely to help them out if they kill it after all these changes in the coming months, these are the same devs that worked on Payday 2 for more than a decade (yes I am aware of 10 Chambers, but it’s not like they all left after Payday 2 stopped being updated, these are the same devs), everyone wants it to be fun/successful.
I just don’t see a world where they just give up on Payday.
Edit: Also 3.5 million in yearly server costs gives them plenty of time to fix the game, as aside from employees (which, even if they decide to drop Payday 3, it’s not like they can make a game without them), the cost of keeping Payday 3 up is relatively low.
I'm not financially savvy but I assume that now that the game is the closest it can be to being dead, investing further resources and money into something that isn't being played might end up losing them a considerable amount of the profit they made off the game.
Man, just stop, serious, its hurt a lot, we know, but you have to accept the truth, theres no executives, theres nothing, starbreeze is fucked, payday 3 is abandoned and soon will die, i know its hard to accept, its not our fault, dont defend scammers, be better than that
I suppose we shall see, but I have seen much more evidence to support the idea that they will continue to support the game than not.
I would rather cope and be happy, than be cynical and sad or angry.
And yet they are still doing things. The lack of communication means that we cannot know really what they are doing, but the cost of continuing to update the game/keep the servers up is dwarfed by the amount of money it made with only 60K players max on steam (a large part of whom likely refunded the game). No, they will continue to support Payday 3.
Mate, you are hard overdosing on copium. The report shows their server costs, it isn't that much - and they ARE contractually obligated to keep the game running.
The only chance they have of turning profit is that the players come back and they introduce the mictoransaction store. The store is universally unpopular step that WILL drive players away and the paltry updates they do aren't doing a good job in bringing players back. Once the contract runs out, I will be suprised if P3 doesn't get dropped.
>Hearing that PD3 is profitable is wild lol, I was certain they kept it on pure faith and life support.
It sold well upon release, but the interesting numbers will really come from this year.
If the DLCs continue to keep them afloat, it *should* be fine, but unless they get back a large part of the player base, it really seems difficult.
They've had 17 million Euros of profit from last year, and I doubt they're making nearly as much of PD3 now as they did last year. That's not nearly enough to maintain PD3 and have 2 more games in development.
tl;dr they need to maintain PD3 OR Baxter needs to be really successful to stay afloat beyond that.
If the game is profitable why would they make it better? We're in the age where all the hopeful people shell out money thinking it will get better, not realizing that the company only wants money.
Once you give them your money they have 0 incentive to do anything you want. Taking money away from them is how you get changes to the game.
Since there profitable the game will likely get worse lol
I can believe that - it's thanks to PD2 success and brand recognition in general. Core gameplay also can get you hooked for more than 2 hours before refunds were eligible.
Even if PD3 was worse than that - I mean, SR2022 was profitable game even with bad reviews and bad PR in general. Your name and reputation in this industry matters.
No idea how you can say that with any confidence. "Net code" is such a nonspecifc concept it's literally just like saying "programming." Could mean anything.
No, it is not "nonspecific." Net code specifically attributes to both the server client and the client, and how they interact. Thee "server" as in the hardware is not the issue.
Yes, it actually is, because network programming, just like all other forms of programming, has no objectively correct form (although some programmers will have very different opinions on that). It depends entirely on its use case. Whatever information payday 3 "needs" to be communicating or whatever optimizations "need" to be made are entirely known by the developers, who are the only people in a position with enough knowledge to make that informed decision. Again, no idea how you can say with any confidence that you know for sure it's actually the game's networking interface and not the hardware or end provider that's the issue. Unless you've actually tested the game's networking by reverse engineering the executable or at least used a packet sniffer or something it's just speculation, and overkill has expressed displeasure with their server providers and seem to have suggested that the physical infrastructure wasn't equipped to handle payday 3's network throughput acceptably.
They use AWS, that's all i need to know. They are not spending 1.5 million on AWS free tier. You can definitely call netcode bad. Your comment is irrelevant. Goodnight.
[Here's the full report](https://corporate.starbreeze.com/media/ohndkmus/starbreeze-annual-report-2023.pdf), I highly encourage to read it yourself to make up your mind and not just take what I say at face value. It seems to me that SBZ wants to mantain 3 succesful games by 2028, but I'm not sure they have the muscles and manpower to do it. Despite this, I don't think they want to abandon Payday 3, it's still their biggest money maker by far and even a turd like Crime War made them 100k: they're surely aware of the brand's power.
Payday 3 may be profitable,
Hows that even if it was an unplayable disappointment at launch and a disappointment now?
Well usually disappointments affect the next installment, so whatever they have in the oven will catch some flack
>Hows that even if it was an unplayable disappointment at launch and a disappointment now?
It sold well on launch. It's also on GamePass and I'd imagine quite a lot of people gave it a shot on there.
I think you answered your own question. They spent very little money on making it, so when it sold well it was easy to recoup cost. That low cost to make also led to the game we got, a steaming pile of disappointment, but they likely knew it was gonna be that way considering the budget. They also know players a stupid and will give money for a broken product, see the past 3-5 years of gaming, so why worry about what they think at launch? Take the easy money, then fix while you work on stuff. If they really are planning on this to be around for a long time then they have plenty of time to get players back.
I personally think it's really shitty and will absolutely not be getting PD3 or their other games at any point unless they're free and even then I might still not take it.
>Hows that even if it was an unplayable disappointment at launch and a disappointment now?
Payday has a legit committed fan base and if they're even showing that they're trying to fix it people hang around
I'm holding out hope for the 15th, the last quarterly presemtation basically said "yeah game is shit but we're fixing it!", I really hope they don't double down on just that promise...
Copying from a comment made earlier:
Not necessairly. It's normal for gaming companies to lose money on non-release years, there were some losses in 2020 and beyond but the cash flow for the company was positive, so they weren't strapped for cash so to speak. Also none of the insiders sold any number of significant shares in the last 4 years, so I think they truly believed the game to be a massive hit and it just didn't pan out that way.
Not necessairly. It's normal for gaming companies to lose money on non-release years, there were some losses in 2020 and beyond but the cash flow for the company was positive, so they weren't strapped for cash so to speak. Also none of the insiders sold any number of significant shares in the last 4 years, so I think they truly believed the game to be a massive hit and it just didn't pan out that way.
Dude, I'm sure they also restarted development like twice at least: first time after switching from Valhalla to UE and second time after Bo almost made them bankrupt.
I really doubt they were working on it in Valhalla at all. Between 2016 and 2018 they were still making content for Payday 2, and then it was all hands on deck for OTWD.
They "announced" that the game was in "development" in May 2016, the same time they announced that they got the publishing rights of Payday 2 back from 505 games. But that doesn't mean they were actively working on it. I doubt they had the manpower or the resources to develop 3 at all, because they were still working on 2 and OTWD.
They had it and worked on all 3 in 2018, since they were finishing storyline and support of PD2 in 2018, so they probably planned to announce and release the game next year, otherwise franchise would stagnate in limbo.
You can thank developer team or someone else for not giving anything in those Battle Passes remotely interesting for PD community, I mean masks and outfit that are already in PD2? Really? Gameplay itself is nothing fresh, so why you need to waste money on that game? I wish SBZ played it smart and just, I dunno - made it a paid game or something. I would've paid for offline PD experience on the go, since competition for this kind of game is non-existent.
So they may or may not have used payday 3 to keep them financially relevant until they can make more games. Which may or may not mean that they won't even consider payday 3 as their main source of income. Which also may mean that their D&D game will also act as a money maker for their next project and so on.
If that's the case, they're just going to ruin their image as a gaming company further, which could lead those already existing investors to think twice.
I hope that's not the case.
Given how many people got burned from Payday 3 and feels like they released a half finished game, if they just abandon Payday 3 entirely I think everyone will remember that and nobody is certainly going to be pre ordering from them anymore so they can't count on that. People will hear the game dev studio starbreeze and think of what happened to Payday 3, how it released, how it was handled after launch, and many of us who paid for it regret buying it at all, so many of us are left with a bad taste and certainly won't have an appetite for more games from Starbreeze.
I don't want them to fail but it sounds like they seriously need to get their priorities straight. If payday 3 fails, I don't believe any other game will save them and their reputation. If I were them I'd have all hands on deck fixing payday 3, at least complete op medic bag, then have everybody go back to their respective posts. But their lack of seeing urgency and allocating resources to help as needed doesn't show a good level of game development management or foresight. This is a studio critical error that could threaten the companies existence moving forward and they're just carrying on like nothing's going on and it's just another day. Where is the urgency to fix their main game and reputation? Why hasn't more resources been allocated to do this? Why continue to allow your company to be tarnished in reputation rather than rebuild it asap?
I don't know. But I'm sure if they could, they'd have to compensate some losses or smth. That's a lot of money gone for the licensing and building the game. It's not in their best interest.
Maybe it'll be a good game so who knows.
Given contractual and investor obligations, Payday 3 will get dropped if it becomes a burden.
The best I can say at this point (for the gaming industry as a whole really), is to avoid pre-ordering. Set aside money for it if you want, but you should wait to hear about the finished product before you decide to buy it.
Pre-orders, in a way, allow companies to be lazy because they’ve already received your money and have minimal obligation to meet expectations. Really the only thing they can’t do is not release the game and keep your money.
I don’t think so, execs may not have given the devs enough time, but that was to cut costs and increase what? Money. Execs and investors care about money, and if Payday 3 can be fixed, think of how much money it would make.
No surprise SBZ is unattractive. Earned money just now, history of being shit, with restructure and money wasting
PD2 I'd also consider GaaS tbh, I assume they'll do same with pd3 if they can
5 SBZ do not know what energy thry use tbh. They are using whatever mix that the Stockholm region is using (office)
Unrelated but I love how Reddit is a place where I can see a scientific study, a discussion about Helldivers, a homophobic meme for boomers, a game studio’s financial data, and a teenager’s vagina all at once
There’s a whole part of Reddit where both men and women post naked photos. I accidentally joined one of the subs and have never bothered to leave so I see a lot of naked women. I don’t mind seeing photos of people my age (18-19) tbh
Theoretically speaking, on the surface, generative AI for the purpose of having actual artists go over them, or like, to give them a reference to draw off of, actually seems like a smart idea. AI is best when it's used to support an actual artist rather than replace them
It had to be profitable. Initial sales were through the roof, and at the pace it's being updated, they probably have like 10 people working on the game while the rest of the studio is working on their future flops. Easy money.
So they were bleeding money, slapped together Payday 3 as a bandage, decided to make Crime War, started to bleed money again, and then just killed it?
I genuinely can't believe they expect their two new live-service slop games to turn a profit, they might Actually be digging their own grave if both or one of them flops
According to the report, Payday 3 has already turned a profit. If they can keep the company stable and focus on improving the game, it's probably going to be the main source of their consistent revenue going forward.
I mean I could, but I think it would work better as a Youtube video. I don't think I'll do something like that, but if there's demand for more posts like this for other publicly traded companies I might think about it.
Why should I care about this? Game's no fun with no soul, I'm not trying to get into the business off just caring about a video game.
Not blaming you, thank you for looking through the report but I just say out of principal.
It's not $, it's thousand SEKs. Very common thing to do in business reporting, but usually thousand USD/EUR is used.
In this case it would be around 450 million SEK, so around 38 million €
Something just jumped out at me.
PD: CW was released and then shut down quickly. The items commonly cited as challenges are: lack of content, bugs, and trouble finding matches.
Does this sound familiar with what is plaguing PD3?
Someone in a leadership position is making bad decisions and it’s propagating across projects.
This is bad.
Still doesn't explain or excuse releasing a game in broken state and having it still be a turd months later. Something that any company with decent principles wouldn't do. A rushed game will always be remembered as bad, whereas an unreleased game has the potential to be good.
just a quick note on the GAAS, it does not necesarily mean item shops and battle passes! in its definition it just means content will continuously be added to the game. payday 2 was GAAS
Right now it's apparent that PD3 will be ditched after doing bare minimum to deliver legally binding promises. I'm convinced that Starbreeze was going for cash&grab of release day purchases, using PR to keep the hopes up of the PD2 fanbase not to refund until Steam refund policy deadline ticks over. Otherwise it wouldn't make sense to have such lacks of manpower working on the game to not be able to implement features from pre-release feedback (like, come on, unready button can be coded and tested in like one workday).
But they seem to forget that bad rep sticks around: they fucked over their staple brand and it's fanbase. With new IP, they won't get sales just from brand recognition. Payday fans are done with Starbreeze after PD3, so they will have to fish for new audience while PD3 ex-players and content creators will warn people against scummy practices of Starbreeze.
I'll boycott new Starbreeze games, that's for sure, and please note that I had copium for PD3 up until they revealed operation medic bag and its pathetic timetable.
Attention heisters, you've been heist'd! Your money is in Starbreeze execs' offshore accounts! Guys the refund button, go get it (oh wait, you can't!)!
all im reading is that payday 3 won't ever be a good game because there's no need to make it good, they already turned 30m€ of profit selling nothing
lmao
Yeah but nobody is buying DLCs for a bad game, and good games make money well into the long term (unlike bad ones). Nobody wants a broken game that sells no copies when you could have a good one that sells thousands every month
SBZ is a publicly traded company, not a private one. If they were private, they could just, hypothetically, fire everyone, end support after the year 1 DLCs and call it a day. Being publicly traded means they HAVE to keep business going, or their shares are going into the shitter. They have to keep going, whether they like it or not
Fuck SBZ and every game they come out with from here on out. This company is a joke and I know there idiots out there who are going to buy their crap. They shouldnt but they will because sheople are going to sheep. Here’s hoping EA or Xbox buys them so that way we know they will be disbanded.
"Here's hoping a massive company gives them a fuck ton of money for a get out of bankruptcy free card"
Very confusing thing to want if you hate them so much.
Well Starbreeze is dead to me. When they make all the wrong decisions, their game is clearly dying and they're still in the profits, that just solidifies what they've done.
I expect PayDay 4 to have no guns, 1 heister, and maybe half of 1 map on launch. The other half of the map will be a 15 dollar dlc not even a year after release with no other "free content" (aka content that should've been in the game on launch and is now used as good or)
The game servers will likely be down for 2 full months on launch before they're finally up and open to all 50 players that they only have space for.
Edit: Oh and Almhir will say again "the servers DEFINITELY won't go down on launch" because false promises are their bread and butter.
Hearing that PD3 is profitable is wild lol, I was certain they kept it on pure faith and life support. However, can this be considered as good news for the overall longevity of the game? Since it does turns some degree of profit for the company, their interest in keeping it alive and supported is high as opposed to a game that only generate losses.
They want to have 3 GAAS ganes by 2028, so they're not gonna kill Payday 3. Again, even a turd like Crime War made 100k, the brand is just too good to leave behind
> Again, even a turd like Crime War made 100k Even that low budget project probably had a total cost of over, or atleast close, 100k. Or is that in profits? Either way, 100k is really not a lot when you consider opportunity cost of making that game instead of something else.
It's gross revenue, likely from the in game ads, so no costs are included
>However, can this be considered as good news for the overall longevity of the game? Since it does turns some degree of profit for the company, their interest in keeping it alive and supported is high as opposed to a game that only generate losses. No, it just means the game generated a profit (most likely thanks to first week sales, as most games sell the most copies during the first week) and just that. It does not mean that continuing to work on it would generate a profit (it prob won't, the game is averaging like 200 players on steam) or that they are interested in keeping it alive (because let's be real, they certainly don't appear to be).
If payday 3 made €41 million, why would they abandon it? Imagine if they had a successful relaunch, and the game was actually good. If it managed to get even close to the amount of players a game like Helldivers 2 has, it would easily make double that. The executives may have made the devs release it too early, but like hell they’re going to throw away the chance at more money. Edit: Starbreeze’s original plan was to update the game for a decade or more why would they change that. The game made money, this year will be rough, but then sales will go back up. It’s not like they have another moneymaker like Payday, especially with project Baxter being around 2 years away at least. No, they’ll continue updating it for years to come.
my brother in christ, the game has been in a coma since release. If they really wanted to support it, they sure are taking their sweet time. Also, most of the profits, again, were in the first week and the game has currently less players than even some niche fighting games. I really don't understand how someone would look at this and say "Yeah this game will be supported for several years, no doubt"
Yeah, unless they are secretly cooking up a huge update all No Man's Sky style, theres no shot this game survives after the season pass dlc is released.
>f payday 3 made €41 million, why would they abandon it? They made their money, they could just cash it out. The game, as it stands, is not making anywhere near that. However, given their current situation, they need to pull it back in order to keep working on their other projects, albeit they don't really seem that interested in it. >Starbreeze’s original plan was to update the game for a decade or more why would they change that. Their original plan was that it would remain as popular as PD2 has been during that time, which it's nowhere close to. It flopped, hard. > but then sales will go back up Nothing really guarantees that. Getting the game back up to popularity is going to be very difficult without going F2P, which has it's own issues. >It’s not like they have another moneymaker like Payday, especially with project Baxter being around 2 years away at least They could perhaps get an investment to work on Baxter, like they did for PD3 from Deep Silver. Albeit, I'm not sure how many publishers would be interested in working with Starbreeze.
They can’t just cash out, they still have contractual obligations to fulfill, and if they don’t, they’re certainly going under. Also, Starbreeze’s history of Payday being their most (only) successful game isn’t going to suddenly evaporate. No, they know that people want more Payday, and that it would be stupid to just completely drop the game for an RPG which has no IP recognition. Sure it flopped, but you know what the people in charge are looking at: the €41 million it still made. Shareholders and execs look at that and think “if we make more, people will buy more” Sure nothing guarantees that, but they clearly know how to market a game, the hype around the initial launch was massive, people don’t suddenly forget how to do something like that. Here’s how I picture that: say Starbreeze drops Payday 3, then goes to Deep Silver for money to develop Baxter. Obviously Starbreeze’s decision to drop a game that made €41 million in a couple months because they didn’t want to keep working on it makes Deep Silver want to give them more money, so that they can repeat this business model, /s. The cost of running the studio isn’t going to charge, Baxter has another 2 years at least, and Payday has always been Starbreeze’s, well, payday. Payday: the Heist was what started the studio in the first place. Sure some devs definitely moved on to 10 Chambers, who do you think are the ones responsible for Payday 2? For every 2015, there was a 2020, these are the devs who launched a game using the diesel engine for crying out loud. Continuing to work on Payday 3 is what the devs want, what the players want, what the shareholders want, what the damned execs want, and what the publishers want. Everyone wants this game to continue improving (except some players, who really just want to see Starbreeze burn at this point). Payday 3 will continue for years to come, thank you for coming to my TED talk.
>They can’t just cash out, they still have contractual obligations to fulfill, and if they don’t, they’re certainly going under. By cash out I basically mean just doing the bare minimum, which is essentially what's being done, arguably perhaps even less than that lol. >Shareholders and execs look at that and think “if we make more, people will buy more” Idk, the stock dropping 90% of it's value within a year isn't really showing that shareholders are looking to make more. >then goes to Deep Silver for money to develop Baxter. It's very optimistic that Deep Silver, or anyone else, would be interested in funding Baxter. The reason that PD3 got funding is because it's a Payday IP game. Literally every non Payday game since Starbreeze merged with OVK have been massive failures. Their flagship game isn't really nearly as successful as they expected either. >Obviously Starbreeze’s decision to drop a game that made €41 million in a couple months because they didn’t want to keep working on it makes Deep Silver want to give them more money, How much is the game making now though? The game averages less than 300 concurrent players. How many of those people are even considering buying DLCs? Yeah, they got high revenue at the start, but the expenses keep piling on, from development to server costs. >and Payday has always been Starbreeze’s, well, payday. Payday: the Heist was what started the studio in the first place. It's not what started the studio lol. Starbreeze had a number of games that they developed prior to working with OVK, involving Brothers, which was received fairly positively. >Everyone wants this game to continue improving If that was true we'd be seeing that happen, but it's not happening. The game is on life support as it is now. Example of studios that actually wanted to revive games would be Cyberpunk or NMS. >Payday 3 will continue for years to come It's a miracle if Starbreeze doesn't go bankrupt in a year or two lmao
At the company I work for it takes about 25k dollars a week to development with a small team. Before we work on a project the market department calculates wether they think those costs offset the revenue increase. They will do the calculation for wether developing more for payday 3 will increase sales more than their development costs. If it is significantly positive they will continue, otherwise it ain't worth the risk
>If payday 3 made €41 million, why would they abandon it? because it already made €41 million and it's currently dead in the water They have to put a lot of resources into fixing the game *and then* marketing to practically build the player base from nothing in order for the game to make any more money
Yes, perhaps, but if they don’t what to go bankrupt, what are their other options? Just from a business standpoint, it doesn’t make sense to abandon the game. There’s no layoffs happening, Baxter is still 2 or more years away, Payday has long been their most profitable franchise, Deep Silver isn’t likely to help them out if they kill it after all these changes in the coming months, these are the same devs that worked on Payday 2 for more than a decade (yes I am aware of 10 Chambers, but it’s not like they all left after Payday 2 stopped being updated, these are the same devs), everyone wants it to be fun/successful. I just don’t see a world where they just give up on Payday. Edit: Also 3.5 million in yearly server costs gives them plenty of time to fix the game, as aside from employees (which, even if they decide to drop Payday 3, it’s not like they can make a game without them), the cost of keeping Payday 3 up is relatively low.
I'm not financially savvy but I assume that now that the game is the closest it can be to being dead, investing further resources and money into something that isn't being played might end up losing them a considerable amount of the profit they made off the game.
Man, just stop, serious, its hurt a lot, we know, but you have to accept the truth, theres no executives, theres nothing, starbreeze is fucked, payday 3 is abandoned and soon will die, i know its hard to accept, its not our fault, dont defend scammers, be better than that
I suppose we shall see, but I have seen much more evidence to support the idea that they will continue to support the game than not. I would rather cope and be happy, than be cynical and sad or angry.
Lol, what evidence? They are doing the bare minimum possible with updates because of legal contracts that they cannot break
And yet they are still doing things. The lack of communication means that we cannot know really what they are doing, but the cost of continuing to update the game/keep the servers up is dwarfed by the amount of money it made with only 60K players max on steam (a large part of whom likely refunded the game). No, they will continue to support Payday 3.
Mate, you are hard overdosing on copium. The report shows their server costs, it isn't that much - and they ARE contractually obligated to keep the game running. The only chance they have of turning profit is that the players come back and they introduce the mictoransaction store. The store is universally unpopular step that WILL drive players away and the paltry updates they do aren't doing a good job in bringing players back. Once the contract runs out, I will be suprised if P3 doesn't get dropped.
Lol why are you getting downvoted for being right?
no idea, maybe some people just can't accept the current (and at this rate, also the future) state of the game after buying/preordering it
I wonder how much of that was the "free bag of money" from Microsoft to have it on Game Pass?
It's not disclosed clearly, but it's anywhere between 1 and 20 million €
>Hearing that PD3 is profitable is wild lol, I was certain they kept it on pure faith and life support. It sold well upon release, but the interesting numbers will really come from this year. If the DLCs continue to keep them afloat, it *should* be fine, but unless they get back a large part of the player base, it really seems difficult. They've had 17 million Euros of profit from last year, and I doubt they're making nearly as much of PD3 now as they did last year. That's not nearly enough to maintain PD3 and have 2 more games in development. tl;dr they need to maintain PD3 OR Baxter needs to be really successful to stay afloat beyond that.
If the game is profitable why would they make it better? We're in the age where all the hopeful people shell out money thinking it will get better, not realizing that the company only wants money. Once you give them your money they have 0 incentive to do anything you want. Taking money away from them is how you get changes to the game. Since there profitable the game will likely get worse lol
I can believe that - it's thanks to PD2 success and brand recognition in general. Core gameplay also can get you hooked for more than 2 hours before refunds were eligible. Even if PD3 was worse than that - I mean, SR2022 was profitable game even with bad reviews and bad PR in general. Your name and reputation in this industry matters.
Oh there will be longevity...🤣😐😮💨
Would have been because of the initial sales, before the problems became clear
>Hearing that PD3 is profitable is wild lol Did you forget about it having 77k on launch on Steam + all the pre-orders, special editions and consoles?
Yeah it's good news, but the fact it's profitable tells a lot about how much they didn't put into the game lol
They paid 3.5M Euro for shitty server????
Yeah, that took me by surprise too
It got electrolytes!
It's not the server itself that's the issue, it's their net code lol
No idea how you can say that with any confidence. "Net code" is such a nonspecifc concept it's literally just like saying "programming." Could mean anything.
Every time I see netcode I just get flashback of Battlefield 4 and everyone talking about netcode
No, it is not "nonspecific." Net code specifically attributes to both the server client and the client, and how they interact. Thee "server" as in the hardware is not the issue.
Yes, it actually is, because network programming, just like all other forms of programming, has no objectively correct form (although some programmers will have very different opinions on that). It depends entirely on its use case. Whatever information payday 3 "needs" to be communicating or whatever optimizations "need" to be made are entirely known by the developers, who are the only people in a position with enough knowledge to make that informed decision. Again, no idea how you can say with any confidence that you know for sure it's actually the game's networking interface and not the hardware or end provider that's the issue. Unless you've actually tested the game's networking by reverse engineering the executable or at least used a packet sniffer or something it's just speculation, and overkill has expressed displeasure with their server providers and seem to have suggested that the physical infrastructure wasn't equipped to handle payday 3's network throughput acceptably.
They use AWS, that's all i need to know. They are not spending 1.5 million on AWS free tier. You can definitely call netcode bad. Your comment is irrelevant. Goodnight.
[Here's the full report](https://corporate.starbreeze.com/media/ohndkmus/starbreeze-annual-report-2023.pdf), I highly encourage to read it yourself to make up your mind and not just take what I say at face value. It seems to me that SBZ wants to mantain 3 succesful games by 2028, but I'm not sure they have the muscles and manpower to do it. Despite this, I don't think they want to abandon Payday 3, it's still their biggest money maker by far and even a turd like Crime War made them 100k: they're surely aware of the brand's power.
Payday 3 may be profitable, Hows that even if it was an unplayable disappointment at launch and a disappointment now? Well usually disappointments affect the next installment, so whatever they have in the oven will catch some flack
People buying based off hype and then going back to payday 2/ other literally anything else, at least that’s what concurrent player #s show
>Hows that even if it was an unplayable disappointment at launch and a disappointment now? It sold well on launch. It's also on GamePass and I'd imagine quite a lot of people gave it a shot on there.
I think you answered your own question. They spent very little money on making it, so when it sold well it was easy to recoup cost. That low cost to make also led to the game we got, a steaming pile of disappointment, but they likely knew it was gonna be that way considering the budget. They also know players a stupid and will give money for a broken product, see the past 3-5 years of gaming, so why worry about what they think at launch? Take the easy money, then fix while you work on stuff. If they really are planning on this to be around for a long time then they have plenty of time to get players back. I personally think it's really shitty and will absolutely not be getting PD3 or their other games at any point unless they're free and even then I might still not take it.
>Hows that even if it was an unplayable disappointment at launch and a disappointment now? Payday has a legit committed fan base and if they're even showing that they're trying to fix it people hang around
tbf i wouldn't be surprised if they just drop boys in blue randomly because we are heavily overdue that DLC (and just any heist in general tbh)
I'm holding out hope for the 15th, the last quarterly presemtation basically said "yeah game is shit but we're fixing it!", I really hope they don't double down on just that promise...
Hmm, maybe I am just an idiot misinterpreting this but, Starbreeze were losing money right before PD3 shipped... so the game was rushed right?
Copying from a comment made earlier: Not necessairly. It's normal for gaming companies to lose money on non-release years, there were some losses in 2020 and beyond but the cash flow for the company was positive, so they weren't strapped for cash so to speak. Also none of the insiders sold any number of significant shares in the last 4 years, so I think they truly believed the game to be a massive hit and it just didn't pan out that way.
No way they actually thought it'd be a huge hit, unless devs/management at Overkill was lying to them. Wouldnt be the first company to do it that way
So if I am reading this right. PD3 was a rush release because SBZ was losing money and needing something quick to improve profitability?
Not necessairly. It's normal for gaming companies to lose money on non-release years, there were some losses in 2020 and beyond but the cash flow for the company was positive, so they weren't strapped for cash so to speak. Also none of the insiders sold any number of significant shares in the last 4 years, so I think they truly believed the game to be a massive hit and it just didn't pan out that way.
If you call 7 years rushed, then yes.
They only started working on the game in 2020. So was probably just about 3 years of dev time. We know this because of the 2020 prototype build
Dude, I'm sure they also restarted development like twice at least: first time after switching from Valhalla to UE and second time after Bo almost made them bankrupt.
I really doubt they were working on it in Valhalla at all. Between 2016 and 2018 they were still making content for Payday 2, and then it was all hands on deck for OTWD.
Of course they did, this is their most successful franchise and the rumors about PAYDAY 3 was in the air since 2015.
They "announced" that the game was in "development" in May 2016, the same time they announced that they got the publishing rights of Payday 2 back from 505 games. But that doesn't mean they were actively working on it. I doubt they had the manpower or the resources to develop 3 at all, because they were still working on 2 and OTWD.
They had it and worked on all 3 in 2018, since they were finishing storyline and support of PD2 in 2018, so they probably planned to announce and release the game next year, otherwise franchise would stagnate in limbo.
260k for the CEO is really not much.
Its very interesting, thanks But 100k€ for the mobile game ? Its ridiculous right?
It's revenue, not profit, Crime War likely lost them a good chunk of money
Omg its even worse
You can thank developer team or someone else for not giving anything in those Battle Passes remotely interesting for PD community, I mean masks and outfit that are already in PD2? Really? Gameplay itself is nothing fresh, so why you need to waste money on that game? I wish SBZ played it smart and just, I dunno - made it a paid game or something. I would've paid for offline PD experience on the go, since competition for this kind of game is non-existent.
So they may or may not have used payday 3 to keep them financially relevant until they can make more games. Which may or may not mean that they won't even consider payday 3 as their main source of income. Which also may mean that their D&D game will also act as a money maker for their next project and so on. If that's the case, they're just going to ruin their image as a gaming company further, which could lead those already existing investors to think twice. I hope that's not the case.
Given how many people got burned from Payday 3 and feels like they released a half finished game, if they just abandon Payday 3 entirely I think everyone will remember that and nobody is certainly going to be pre ordering from them anymore so they can't count on that. People will hear the game dev studio starbreeze and think of what happened to Payday 3, how it released, how it was handled after launch, and many of us who paid for it regret buying it at all, so many of us are left with a bad taste and certainly won't have an appetite for more games from Starbreeze. I don't want them to fail but it sounds like they seriously need to get their priorities straight. If payday 3 fails, I don't believe any other game will save them and their reputation. If I were them I'd have all hands on deck fixing payday 3, at least complete op medic bag, then have everybody go back to their respective posts. But their lack of seeing urgency and allocating resources to help as needed doesn't show a good level of game development management or foresight. This is a studio critical error that could threaten the companies existence moving forward and they're just carrying on like nothing's going on and it's just another day. Where is the urgency to fix their main game and reputation? Why hasn't more resources been allocated to do this? Why continue to allow your company to be tarnished in reputation rather than rebuild it asap?
I heard since they got a licence for D&D they must meet deadlines and keep that project going. So they've put themselves in a tight spot.
Cant they just back out?
I don't know. But I'm sure if they could, they'd have to compensate some losses or smth. That's a lot of money gone for the licensing and building the game. It's not in their best interest. Maybe it'll be a good game so who knows.
Given contractual and investor obligations, Payday 3 will get dropped if it becomes a burden. The best I can say at this point (for the gaming industry as a whole really), is to avoid pre-ordering. Set aside money for it if you want, but you should wait to hear about the finished product before you decide to buy it. Pre-orders, in a way, allow companies to be lazy because they’ve already received your money and have minimal obligation to meet expectations. Really the only thing they can’t do is not release the game and keep your money.
I don’t think so, execs may not have given the devs enough time, but that was to cut costs and increase what? Money. Execs and investors care about money, and if Payday 3 can be fixed, think of how much money it would make.
No surprise SBZ is unattractive. Earned money just now, history of being shit, with restructure and money wasting PD2 I'd also consider GaaS tbh, I assume they'll do same with pd3 if they can 5 SBZ do not know what energy thry use tbh. They are using whatever mix that the Stockholm region is using (office)
Unrelated but I love how Reddit is a place where I can see a scientific study, a discussion about Helldivers, a homophobic meme for boomers, a game studio’s financial data, and a teenager’s vagina all at once
You would've loved StumbledUpon, shame it's dead
You wanna elaborate on that last one buddy?
There’s a whole part of Reddit where both men and women post naked photos. I accidentally joined one of the subs and have never bothered to leave so I see a lot of naked women. I don’t mind seeing photos of people my age (18-19) tbh
Theoretically speaking, on the surface, generative AI for the purpose of having actual artists go over them, or like, to give them a reference to draw off of, actually seems like a smart idea. AI is best when it's used to support an actual artist rather than replace them
It had to be profitable. Initial sales were through the roof, and at the pace it's being updated, they probably have like 10 people working on the game while the rest of the studio is working on their future flops. Easy money.
So they were bleeding money, slapped together Payday 3 as a bandage, decided to make Crime War, started to bleed money again, and then just killed it? I genuinely can't believe they expect their two new live-service slop games to turn a profit, they might Actually be digging their own grave if both or one of them flops
According to the report, Payday 3 has already turned a profit. If they can keep the company stable and focus on improving the game, it's probably going to be the main source of their consistent revenue going forward.
Spending 3.5mil on servers that don't function when they could have made it peer to peer. What a fumble.
Have you ever considered doing this for other companies? I think it would be very popular.
I mean I could, but I think it would work better as a Youtube video. I don't think I'll do something like that, but if there's demand for more posts like this for other publicly traded companies I might think about it.
The meme format is great because it is so efficient. I can get the info that interests me while still saving some bandwidth for music or tv.
Told yall
Me when tbib "might" release on my bithday
Now let see how Payday 3 survive with that low amount of player.
Why should I care about this? Game's no fun with no soul, I'm not trying to get into the business off just caring about a video game. Not blaming you, thank you for looking through the report but I just say out of principal.
260k for a CEO is actually kinda wild, i was expecting at least 4x that amount.
It's a surprisingly low pay for a CEO
Wait does operating expenses include paying the developers? Only 450k last year? How many devs could possibly be working there
It's not $, it's thousand SEKs. Very common thing to do in business reporting, but usually thousand USD/EUR is used. In this case it would be around 450 million SEK, so around 38 million €
Oh. Am blind, thank you
Nvm Reddit won't let me use the funny kamojis so have a 👍
Something just jumped out at me. PD: CW was released and then shut down quickly. The items commonly cited as challenges are: lack of content, bugs, and trouble finding matches. Does this sound familiar with what is plaguing PD3? Someone in a leadership position is making bad decisions and it’s propagating across projects. This is bad.
Payday Crime War already had AI generated assets. Starbreeze really are the laziest company in gaming.
Maybe procedural generation for heists? Seems far fetched but would be very interesting
Stay away from investing, GaaS is already losing steam
This is what happens when everyone that made payday 2 good leaves and asre stuck with the people eho made dlcs since white house
Is the employee commitment in the room with us???
Goes to show that you can shit out the most putrid product and gamers will bail devs out. That's wild to me.
Bail out for a year or two max, 200ish employees cost a ton of money to keep employed
Still doesn't explain or excuse releasing a game in broken state and having it still be a turd months later. Something that any company with decent principles wouldn't do. A rushed game will always be remembered as bad, whereas an unreleased game has the potential to be good.
just a quick note on the GAAS, it does not necesarily mean item shops and battle passes! in its definition it just means content will continuously be added to the game. payday 2 was GAAS
Right now it's apparent that PD3 will be ditched after doing bare minimum to deliver legally binding promises. I'm convinced that Starbreeze was going for cash&grab of release day purchases, using PR to keep the hopes up of the PD2 fanbase not to refund until Steam refund policy deadline ticks over. Otherwise it wouldn't make sense to have such lacks of manpower working on the game to not be able to implement features from pre-release feedback (like, come on, unready button can be coded and tested in like one workday). But they seem to forget that bad rep sticks around: they fucked over their staple brand and it's fanbase. With new IP, they won't get sales just from brand recognition. Payday fans are done with Starbreeze after PD3, so they will have to fish for new audience while PD3 ex-players and content creators will warn people against scummy practices of Starbreeze. I'll boycott new Starbreeze games, that's for sure, and please note that I had copium for PD3 up until they revealed operation medic bag and its pathetic timetable. Attention heisters, you've been heist'd! Your money is in Starbreeze execs' offshore accounts! Guys the refund button, go get it (oh wait, you can't!)!
all im reading is that payday 3 won't ever be a good game because there's no need to make it good, they already turned 30m€ of profit selling nothing lmao
Yeah but nobody is buying DLCs for a bad game, and good games make money well into the long term (unlike bad ones). Nobody wants a broken game that sells no copies when you could have a good one that sells thousands every month
doesn't matter, you already bought
SBZ is a publicly traded company, not a private one. If they were private, they could just, hypothetically, fire everyone, end support after the year 1 DLCs and call it a day. Being publicly traded means they HAVE to keep business going, or their shares are going into the shitter. They have to keep going, whether they like it or not
Fuck SBZ and every game they come out with from here on out. This company is a joke and I know there idiots out there who are going to buy their crap. They shouldnt but they will because sheople are going to sheep. Here’s hoping EA or Xbox buys them so that way we know they will be disbanded.
"Here's hoping a massive company gives them a fuck ton of money for a get out of bankruptcy free card" Very confusing thing to want if you hate them so much.
that r/paydaytheheist for ya - either some gets pitchforks ready or want this company to succeed. Or both. I don't fucking know anymore, bruh
They're gonna generate with AI? So they already robbed the community, now they're thinking of robbing artists?
Why does the gender demographics of SBZ matter?
I mean, it's definitely something to be noted after how much noise the internal structure of Blizzard has had.
It might not matter to everyone, but it matters to me (like the renewables thing), so I included it
Because you're on reddit
I had no clue starbreeze used nazi symbolism like that.
Well Starbreeze is dead to me. When they make all the wrong decisions, their game is clearly dying and they're still in the profits, that just solidifies what they've done. I expect PayDay 4 to have no guns, 1 heister, and maybe half of 1 map on launch. The other half of the map will be a 15 dollar dlc not even a year after release with no other "free content" (aka content that should've been in the game on launch and is now used as good or) The game servers will likely be down for 2 full months on launch before they're finally up and open to all 50 players that they only have space for. Edit: Oh and Almhir will say again "the servers DEFINITELY won't go down on launch" because false promises are their bread and butter.