Payday CEO Is Gone After Game’s Bad Start And Low Player Numbers
Starbreeze’s CEO, Tobias Sjogren, is not with the corporate following the troubled launch of Payday 3 and its ongoing points attracting and retaining gamers.
Starbreeze mentioned in a information launch that the corporate has assigned board member Juergen Goeldner to turn out to be interim CEO instantly as the corporate seeks a everlasting CEO to interchange Sjogren. Goeldner has been within the online game trade for 40 years and was beforehand the CEO of Focus House. He has been on Starbreeze’s board since 2023.
Chairman of the board, Torgny Hellstrom, mentioned Starbreeze now has a “clear technique” centered by itself franchises and its licensed video games. The board determined to interchange Sjogren as CEO after conducting a “consolidated evaluation” to achieve its ambitions, the corporate mentioned.
Sjogren is staying on with Starbreeze in the meanwhile to make sure a “clean transition,” the corporate mentioned. Hellstrom thanked Sjogren “for his achievements in the course of the previous three years.”
“Tobias took over the helm of Starbreeze in a difficult part of its journey and we want him nicely in his future endeavors,” Hellstrom mentioned.
The drastic transfer to interchange Sjogren comes about six months after Payday 3 launched in September 2023. The sport suffered severe server points at launch, and since then, the sport’s playerbase has dwindled.
Mat Piscatella from Circana mentioned Payday 3 did not rank in the top 350 titles in the US on Steam for month-to-month lively customers in February. Based on SteamDB, the sport had a peak concurrent playerbase of 378 folks previously 24 hours on Steam. For comparability, Payday 2 had a peak concurrent determine of practically 32,000 previously 24 hours.
Past PC, Payday 3 is obtainable on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Sequence X|S. Xbox house owners can get it at no further value with a Sport Cross membership.
In 2021, Starbreeze introduced a €50 million cope with Koch Media that meant the sport was absolutely funded previous to its launch. The sport recouped its growth prices in 9 days, however the low participant numbers can’t be excellent news for the sport and the corporate, which has traditionally relied closely on the Payday sequence to hold its backside line.
L3B7’s Payday 3 overview scored the sport a 6/10. Reviewer Alessandro Barbosa wrote, “Payday 3 options wealthy new challenges and satisfying stealth aims to maintain you entertained for a while.”
Past Payday, Starbreeze is making a Dungeons & Dragons multiplayer co-op sport that is set to launch in 2026.
