Starbreeze posts record financial results, thanks to Payday 2 & Brothers

PayDay 2 and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons developer Starbreeze has posted record financials, helped along by the release and warm reception towards both games.

The news comes from a company financial briefing, in which studio boss Bo Andersson explained said, "To put the past six months in perspective, I would like to highlight that Starbreeze historically, from 1998 to June 2013, accumulated a total loss of SEK 94 million (£8.66m).

"Thanks to our new business model, reorganisation and a focus on our own brands, we have - in only two quarters - generated a profit before tax of SEK 104 million (£9.59m). I would like to think that is what they call a turnaround."

Starbreze's net sales for Q2 saw the firm earn SEK 40.1 million in net sales, a SEK 27.0 million increase over the same period last year.

Of that sum, Payday 2 accounted for SEK 35.5 million, Payday: The Heist SEK 3.0
million and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons made SEK 1.6 million. All games are in profit. Last year; I spoke with Payday 2's David Goldfarb at length about the game's creation, and to reflect on the fact that it made a profit before it released, due to Steam pre-sales.

The turnaround is stark, following on from Starbreeze's poorly-received Syndicate reboot.

Andersson added, "We now have a large cash reserve, have created a stable cost structure, a modern business model. We have continued full control of our own brands and have placed ourselves into a position where we have three games [including the original Payday] that generate royalties every single day."

What do you make of the studio's success?

Via Eurogamer.