14 DAY TRIAL // Starbreeze is the Swedish developer behind the Payday series. One would think that such a popular franchise would certainly bring financial security to a not so big studio like Starbreeze, but one unfortunate decision was enough to put the company in danger.
It appears that Starbreeze bet everything on Overkill's The Walking Dead game, which flopped last year, causing major financial problems that haven't been solved yet. At that time, CEO Bo Andersson was forced to leave the company, which is still struggling for survival.
In a surprising note published a few days ago, Starbreeze mentions for the first time plans to launch a third game in the Payday series. However, this is more of a long term plan, as Payday 3 won't be released until 2022-2023, Starbreeze says in the memo. This begs the question: will Starbreeze survive until 2022?
Starbreeze seems to think that its new strategy will be successful, so it laid out a roadmap that includes an estimate of cash flows from operations for the coming four years.
The first thing mentioned in the graph is the release of Payday 3 estimated to take place in 2022-2023. Then, there's the publishing agreement for Payday 3 concluded during the first half of 2020 and an initial payment received by the company.
Starbreeze expects another important publishing agreement for Payday: Crime War during the first half of 2020, which comes along with an initial payment installment.
The Swedish studio revealed that as part of the reconstruction, assets and staff belonging to its core business have been transferred to two new companies: New Starbreeze Publishing AB and New Starbreeze Studios AB. IP rights, which make up the majority of the assets, have been transferred to New Starbreeze Publishing AB.
One last thing mentioned by Starbreeze is that the information revealed in the memo is not a forecast, but a cash flow estimate meant to let creditors form an opinion about the future repayment ability of the company.