The Square Enix game, which had more than 3 million players the month it was released on Xbox Game Pass, obviously never reimbursed its production costs.
Released on April 1, 2021 (it’s not a joke), Outriders has apparently already been forgotten by everyone. Launched with a lot of bugs and servers that didn’t support the load, Square Enix’s game, although not so bad, fell like a bellows over the months. The studio nevertheless revealed a good figure exactly a year ago, with 3.5 million players, but it was thanks to its presence in the Xbox Game Pass and a large promotional campaign around this day one release. Bad strategy?
Still not profitable for the developer
On the financial side, it’s a different story. The developers had announced the color while protesting against a delay in payment for their services. According to the studio, this lack of royalties was due to the simple fact that the game had still not reimbursed its costs. And now, a new confirmation is given.
In effect, a year after its launch, People Can Fly explains in a financial report that Outriders made no profit for 2021.
The group has not received any royalties from the publisher for the period up to December 31, 2021, meaning that as of the closing date, the net proceeds from the sale of Outriders were insufficient to recover costs and expenses incurred by the publisher to develop, distribute and promote the title.
Even more serious, the studio estimates qThere is no certainty that the game (also sold on PlayStation and PC) will be profitable in 2022. Maybe never evengiven that the title does not offer micro transactions either (and we can’t blame them for that).
An assertion that resonates with the net loss of 200 million dollars for Square Enix’s Marvel games, an industrial disaster that would have led the Japanese group to sell its European branch to Embracer. Ironically, Outriders was not announced in the list of sold IPs.
