“Payday 3’s sales and player activity are currently at significantly lower levels than we would like,” writes the company CEO in theiryear-end report. “Our biggest focus and absolute priority, both during and after the quarter, are the efforts needed to ensure that the game lives up to expectations. We are working closely with our co-publishing partner Plaion to identify the changes that we will implement, in both the short- and long-term, that add the most value to the gaming experience.
“There are many examples from the game industry, where a problematic initial time on the market is turned into long-term success. There is no simple recipe available, but a common thread from the positive examples is to take players’ criticism to heart, dare to support your game and keeping an open and honest dialogue with your stakeholders.”
While Payday 3 has been struggling, the end-of-year report did also note that Payday 2 is performing above expectations, “with more than 400,000 active players in single months during the quarter.”
I’ve played Payday 3 and I’d say that Starbreeze have a long road ahead of them. There are plenty of examples of games launching in a rough state and then turning player sentiment around, but they’re usually still fun somewhere at their core. Payday 3, by comparison, felt to me like such an awkward mishmash of systems. A game in which you have to put a mask on in order to climb stealthily and unseen through a window, but then can never remove your mask ever again. Alice B explained more about its problems in herPayday 3 reviewlast year.
