The Starbreeze Studios team issued a message to investors announcing a change in management. The company's CEO Tobias Sögren is leaving his post after the failure of the shooter Payday 3, which was released last fall. The unsuccessful start of the project and protracted work to improve it, against the backdrop of which the game lost its audience, led to the resignation of the general director after 3 years in office.
Jürgen Goeldner has been appointed as interim CEO of Starbreeze. He has been a member of the board of directors since 2023 and has over 40 years of experience in the gaming industry. Geldner previously served as CEO of Focus Home Interactive.
Jürgen Goeldner said that Starbreeze will use its strengths and existing intellectual property to improve financial performance. It is emphasized that Jurgen holds the post temporarily and the company is currently looking for a new CEO.
Let us remember that in February of this year, the Starbreeze studio outlined plans for the development of Payday 3. In particular, in addition to fixing technical problems and balance, they promise to implement a single offline mode.
At the moment, on Steam the audience for the game Payday 3 is tens of times lower than the audience for Payday 2. While only about 200-400 people play the new part of the series, online Payday 2 is at the level of about 20,000-40,000 players.
Payday 3 has been available on Game Pass since release.