Starbreeze CEO Out After Payday 3 Disaster

ign.com:

The CEO of Starbreeze has exited the company following the disastrous launch of Payday 3.

Tobias Sjögren was boss of the Swedish developer for three years, overseeing its recovery from near total collapse and the release of co-op shooter Payday 3 in September.

Payday 3 was billed as Starbreeze’s next big game, and the developer had high hopes it would enjoy the kind of success that would secure the company’s future for years to come. However, Payday 3 suffered a disastrous launch that was so plagued by server issues that Sjögren was forced to apologize. "We are so sorry that the infrastructure didn't hold up as expected, and although it's impossible to prepare for every scenario — we should be able to do better," he said at the time.

Then, almost a month after launch, Starbreeze apologised again for its lack of communication, and then just a week later said sorry one more time for not delivering a promised patch. It said in January 2024 it was "well aware" fans weren't satisfied.

Embracer Group, which owns Payday 3 publisher Plaion and is having significant trouble of its own, said its investment in the game was recouped as of the end of September, less than two weeks after launch. But Embracer also said Payday 3's ongoing contribution to the company’s bottom line would be “below management expectations” due to the softer launch.

Most recently, in February, Starbreeze admitted the heist shooter was performing "significantly lower" than it would like in both sales and player engagement. "Payday 3’s sales and player activity are currently at significantly lower levels than we would like," it said. Improving Payday 3 was said to be the company’s "biggest focus” going forward.

Starbreeze boasted Payday 3 had 3.1 million players as of October 2, but this number has dwindled, at least on Steam, as many more players are currently playing Payday 2 than its sequel. According to SteamDB, Payday 3 has a 24-hour peak of just 378 players compared to Payday 2's 31,866, despite the