Tobias Sjögren has stepped down from his role after the disappointing Unreal Engine-based asset flip, supposedly apart of the Payday franchise. Starbreeze Studios revealed this development, appointing current board member Juergen Goeldner as the interim CEO in Tobias’s place.
Juergen Goeldner brings four decades of experience in the gaming industry, holding various executive roles. Previously, he served as the CEO of Focus Home Interactive. Since 2023, Goeldner has served as a board member of Starbreeze.
Torgny Hellström, Chairman of Starbreeze, highlights the company’s clear strategy focused on developing compelling games within their own intellectual properties and licensed IPs. He emphasizes the board’s unified perspective that a different leadership approach is needed to execute this strategy effectively. With his extensive industry background, Goeldner is deemed a robust interim solution by the board.
Although no official reason has been provided for Sjögren’s departure, though the only logical answer would be the underwhelming failure of Payday 3.
Starbreeze Studios has missed the mark with their prized asset, Overkill’s Payday franchise, by transforming it into an always-online live-service title. While this approach may boast advancements in technology over the past decade, the end result of Payday 3’s development falls short. The game suffered from server matchmaking issues at launch and was paired with a disappointing progression system.
Moreover, the available “heist” content pales in comparison to its predecessor, despite years dedicated to the development of Payday 3 the game offers a diminished amount of playable levels, with majority of those being direct rehashes of the previous game let alone the far fewer customization options compared to Payday 2, coupled with the typical live-service model of enticing players to spend real currency for in-game tokens and you’ve got yourself a disaster.
Which is exactly why Payday 3 died in record time, Starbreeze and Overkill promised the world with the long-awaited sequel, however the final product was merely an always-online cash grab that prioritized extracting as much money from players with cosmetic DLCs, in-game currencies and a slow and tedious progression system.
The game launched for $40 USD for the base game, with various options to upgrade to “Silver” and “Gold” editions for $70 and $90 respectively, which would provide a season pass that lasted either six months to a year, including cosmetic items, new heists and weapon packs.
Despite a 35% discount, Payday 3 struggles with only 300 concurrent players on Steam. This figure pales in comparison to its predecessor, which boasts significantly more content and a cohesive storyline, attracting nearly 100 times more players.
Many players abandoned ship primarily due to the issues plaguing the game. Payday 3’s always-online nature coupled with a tedious progression system aimed to ensnare players, while heist rewards proved to be meager, seemingly designed to impede progress and push players towards purchasing microtransactional tokens for limited customization options.
Overkill’s incompetence was glaringly evident as they remained silent after the game’s launch, taking over two months to release the game’s first patch, which should have been available as a day one update.
The game is dead, neither Overkill nor Starbreeze can salvage the situation. It’s increasingly evident that the game was launched prematurely, offering limited content and failing to meet player expectations.
Overkill recently announced their “operation medic bag” initiative in the hopes of “clawing “reviving” Payday 3, by introducing an overhaul to the progression system to favor heist completion rather than barbaric challenges, and the introduction of an offline mode…. that still requires an online connection to save progression and unlocks.
Operation Medic Bag arrives as a belated effort, but it’s too insignificant, coming over six months after the game’s release. The player base has dwindled so drastically that even increasing Payday 3’s concurrent player count by tenfold would still be deemed a colossal failure.
This game stands as another catastrophic misstep in Overkill’s track record, reinforcing the notion that Starbreeze themselves couldn’t manage a Target as they’ve done nothing but misappropriate funds for years.
After the triumph of Payday 2, Starbreeze found themselves with a lucrative opportunity and went on a spending spree. Starbreeze Studios, in turn, invested $8 million for the publishing rights to RAID: World War 2, a title that looked and felt like a WW2 themed Payday DLC.
The game failed, peaking at over 1,500 concurrent players at launch with negative reviews.
Following this, Starbreeze allocated an additional $8 million toward Valhalla, advertised as a groundbreaking game engine. However, it was revealed to be merely a renderer, much to the disappointment of employees who found it unusable and impossible to work with.
The Valhalla engine stands at the core of why Overkill’s The Walking Dead met with such disastrous results.
The Swedish team invested years attempting to adapt Valhalla to their needs, causing continuous delays in development. Midway through the process, the realization dawned that Valhalla was unsalvageable, prompting a decisive shift to the Unreal Engine.
However, this decision meant that two years’ worth of work became obsolete, forcing the team to restart from square one with limited time to deliver a final product that wasn’t malnourished and broken.
In June 2015, Starbreeze acquired “InfinitEye,” a virtual reality startup, for approximately $2 million. Following this, they invested a further $10 million in a virtual reality theme park located in Dubai. Not stopping there, Starbreeze then allocated an additional 7.1 million euros to purchase another VR company named “Norzon,” with the intention of developing a virtual reality movie experience.
Additionally, Starbreeze expanded its presence by establishing several new offices in locations like Paris and Los Angeles.
Undoubtedly, former CEO Bo Andersson’s decisions significantly contributed to the downfall of the company. Despite his ousting from Starbreeze in 2018, Andersson remains a prominent figure, especially in relation to Overkill Software, due to the intertwined nature of their relationship with Starbreeze.
The success of Payday 2 has undeniably been the lifeline for both Starbreeze and Overkill. However, this success has unfortunately led to a sense of taking their fans for granted. Their latest offering is a subpar, unfinished live-service game that lacks the compelling incentives to keep players engaged. Compared to Payday 2, which now can be purchased for mere dollars, it offers an abundance of content with numerous heists, weapons, skill trees, and customization options, making it a far more enticing choice for players.
Starbreeze openly acknowledged that Payday 3 was performing well below their expectations, a situation that, frankly, they had brought upon themselves. Seeing such incompetent developers achieve success with regressive slop is disheartening, Operation Medic Bag certainly won’t salvage the company whose entire reputation has been ultimately shattered as it has become obvious that Payday 2 was their one trick pony.
