The deal with Koch Media effectively secures the development and global publishing of Payday 3 throughout its “entire game life cycle”. As a result, Starbreeze has now given Payday 3 a 2023 release date on both consoles and the PC platform.
What Does This Deal Mean for Payday 3?
In addition to securing funding for development and post-release content, this is big news for Payday 3 and more importantly, Starbreeze. Starbreeze CEO Tobias Sjögren took over as acting CEO in October 2020. However, he inherited a company that had not had a lot of financial success over the years. In fact, on multiple occasions, the company made bad investments and product launches. This resulted in them coming very close to filing for insolvency. Luckily for the Sweden-based company, Payday 2 has been a massive hit since its release. Released in 2013, Payday 2 was the very first game that Overkill, a company under Starbreeze, had to release at retail. At the same time, the game had become too big to become digital-only. Then, just a week before it officially launched, Starbreeze confirmed that they had turned a profit on Payday 2 just from the pre-orders alone. As of November 2014, Payday 2, along with the first game, Payday: The Heist, had sold more than 9 million units. Since then, Payday 2 has continued to grow in popularity. This prompted the developers to release more than 30 pieces of downloadable content for the game over the years. This includes everything from adding new heists to weapons and even game mechanics. As a result of the game’s success and renewed development, the Payday IP made up around 95% of Starbreeze’s total sales in 2020.
The Future is Bright for Starbreeze
Securing this funding is a massive win for the acting CEO and the company in general. As mentioned earlier, Starbreeze was close to financial ruin. This was following the poor sales reception and launch of Overkill’s attempt at making a game based on The Walking Dead franchise a couple of years ago. Because they were never able to turn things around for that game, unlike others, the company had no choice but to go back to a franchise that proven itself already. As a result, development in Payday 2 resumed in 2019 after having already stopped. Perhaps, this was meant to be. Because, now, the company has committed to releasing a sequel in Payday 3.
