It appears that the state of Starbreeze is worse than people may have originally thought. As a result of low sales of Overkill’s The Walking Dead, the Swedish company has filed for reconstruction. In addition, CEO Bo Andersson will be stepping down from both his position and the Board of Directors. Fellow Board of Directors member Kristofer Arwin is also stepping down, as well. This move means that Starbreeze’s financial targets for Q4 2018 and 2020 are no longer applicable.
The bad news for Starbreeze began ever since Overkill’s The Walking Dead released on PC in November 2018. It faced low sales right from the start, forcing Starbreeze to review costs. A last-ditch price cut was offered, in an attempt to revive sales, but it appears that didn’t help matters. These low numbers led to severely reduced forecasted revenue, resulting in “a shortfall of cash” for January 2019.
The press release noted that the reconstruction will let operations “continue as usual,” which includes paying current employees. However, no payments can be made to suppliers for any goods or services provided prior to the announcement of the reconstruction.
While the future certainly doesn’t look bright, there is a chance that Starbreeze can find investors and pull through. Starbreeze has multiple projects in the works, but it is unknown if this move will have any impact on them. Console ports of Overkill’s The Walking Dead are currently slated for a February 2019 release. In addition, it was set to release both Psychonauts 2 and System Shock 3, though it should be noted that Starbreeze is only acting as publisher for both titles.
[Source: Starbreeze]
