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[Draugoth]

Payday 3 maker Starbreeze has explained the co-op shooter is currently performing at "significantly lower levels" than it would like. The developer explained sales and player activity are way below expectations, and said rehabilitating the title remains its "biggest focus and absolute priority."

Payday 3 launched for Windows PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X | S in September 2023 but has seemingly struggled to win over players. The title currently has a 'mixed' rating on Steam with over 36,000 user reviews, although the vast majority of recent reviews have been 'mostly negative.'

"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," wrote the company.

That is exactly what we are now doing with Payday 3. Few companies are blessed with a brand as strong as Payday. At a time when our most recent game is lagging, Payday 2 has fared slightly better than expected financially and with more than 400,000 active players in single months during the quarter. It shows the strength of the brand, and our potential to convert these to Payday 3 as we deliver on our commitments."

Via GamerIndustry

 

[wipeout364]

Stacy’s mom has got it going on.

Has nothing to do with the topic but likely will be one of the few posts in this thread about a game that thought about monetization before anything else.

 

[Arsic]

I just don’t see how you can turn this ship around.

The amount of content payday 2 has is staggering, and payday3 would take 5+ years to catch up. No one is that patient or cares.

They should’ve just updated the visuals to payday 2, added some of this new revamped controls, missions, etc to payday 2 and charged $20-$40 for it to inject new life into it.

 

[StueyDuck]

This honestly could of had helldivers2 style success with already an install base of fans and the industry being larger than ever and more than willing to bring in outside players. but they made a series of dumb decisions including not actually finishing the game for release.

 

[SJRB]

Zero sympathy for those morons.

 

[Lucifers Beard]

They would have been better off upgrading the visuals of the second game since it already had a good sized player base. No point in building a brand new title in those cases, there's absolutely no way you can get as much content into it.

The game is fucked.

 

[clarky]

Just like Microsoft. Release unfinished broken and games and nobody wants to play them.

Who would have thought?