Starbreeze Loses Over $18 Million in 2024, PAYDAY 3 Sales Numbers Remain Undisclosed

Over the past several weeks, we have published several reports based on accounts from former and current Starbreeze developers, highlighting the quiet layoffs the Payday developer carried out behind the scenes in November, December, and January. Throughout this period, we were eagerly awaiting Starbreeze's 2024 Year-End financial report to shed light on the situation, and now that it has arrived, we finally have much-needed context on why the company decided to cut around 15% of its workforce.

Addressing the topic of layoffs, the company's interim CEO, Mats Juhl, issued a brief statement about "reducing the ambition" and "adapting the organization to market realities," acknowledging the firings but emphasizing that the number of affected workers was in the single digits, with the studio's current workforce totaling 189 employees.

The discrepancy between the numbers provided by Juhl and those reported by laid-off developers, who claimed around 25-30 workers were let go in recent months, might be explained by the studio quickly replacing the affected employees with new, presumably less experienced and therefore cheaper, workers in Sweden, which aligns with Starbreeze's plans to consolidate entirely within their home country. Additionally, the company compared the employee distribution between Q4 2024 and 2023, showing a decrease in total staff from 196 to 189, a reduction in male employees from 161 to 149, and an increase in female workers from 35 to 40.

Regarding Starbreeze's financial achievements, the report reveals a sharp decline in both the company’s net sales and earnings in 2024 compared to the previous year. Fourth-quarter sales amounted to around $4.3 million, down from $6.4 million in the same period last year, while total net sales for the year were $17.3 million, a significant decrease from $59.1 million in 2023. Overall, Starbreeze reported a loss of SEK 199.1 million – roughly $18.5 million – before taxes, compared to a profit of $19.3 million in 2023.

The document also offers insight into the sales performance of Starbreeze's game titles, highlighting that PAYDAY 3 has generated approximately $52 million in total revenue since its release in 2023, with the figure including all platforms (Steam, Xbox Game Pass, Xbox X/S, PlayStation 5, and Epic Games Store), various editions of the base game, licensed versions, and DLC sales.

Unfortunately, the total number of copies sold has not been disclosed, however, considering the game's poor 3.3/10 rating, daily player counts barely reaching 1.5 thousand concurrent players on Steam, the default price on Steam dropping from $40 to $30, Starbreeze's previous reports stating that PAYDAY 3 generated less revenue than expected, and Mats Juhl himself saying three months ago that the title hadn't made any profit at that time, it's fair to assume that, no matter how many copies were sold, it wasn't enough.

You can learn more insights by checking the full report over here. Also, don't forget to join our 80 Level Talent platform and our new Discord server, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, TikTok, and Threads, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.