Outriders Has Not Turned a Profit as the Dev Has 'Yet to Receive Any Royalties' - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 06 May 2022 / 2,326 Views
There is a long list of games published by Square Enix that have failed to meet expectations and People Can Fly's Outriders is one of these titles.
People Can Fly in its latest earnings report said they have yet to receive any royalties as the game has not turned a profit.
"Since the game was completed and placed on the market (which happened on April 1st 2021), the Company has been entitled to royalties payable if specific proceeds (as defined in the agreement) from its sales ensure that the publisher recovers a predetermined level of costs incurred in connection with the development, promotion and distribution of the game," said People Can Fly.
"The level of royalties depends on the amount of specific proceeds from the game’s sales. The Group received no royalties from the publisher for the period to December 31st 2021, which means that as at the reporting date net proceeds from the sale of Outriders were insufficient to recover the costs and expenses incurred by the publisher to develop, distribute and promote the title. This was confirmed by the royalty statement for the fourth quarter of 2021, received by the Group from the publisher.
"There can be no assurance that net proceeds from the sale of Outriders in future periods will be sufficient for the publisher to recover the costs incurred and to pay royalties to the Group."
Outriders did surpass 3.5 million unique players in its first month available with an average lay time of over 30 hours.
Outriders released for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, Stadia, and Xbox Game Pass on April 1, 2021.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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If I was a western developer/publisher, I wouldn't work with Square Enix.
Yeah, I feel it would be great for Square if they did what Capcom did and instead of partnering with outside 3rd parties, or buying subsidiary studios, Square focus solely on their internal development teams. Capcom has had a great turnaround since focusing exclusively on their owns teams, and it's paid off for them big time!
Why? It’s squares fault this game didn’t make money?
It's Square's fault a lot of their published games don't make money, but this one I wouldn't put blame on them. The game was in a pretty rough state at launch and I don't think many were looking forward to another Destiny/Borderlands style looter shooter.
I'm even surprised MS worked with them back during 7th gen, when Sony wasn't doing so hot early on with the PS3.
I mean, more or less after Sony got back on it's feet later that gen, SE basically sided back with Sony since. Kinda reaffirms that SE really doesn't like the West as much as it does it's own homeland territory.
It definitely seems that way, they mismanage the expectations overall, but always placed the blame on their western teams or western partners for the entire company not hitting targets.
I remember when the reboot of Tomb Raider happened, it sold tremendously well, but because the other slate of games failed to reach goal, they put the difference on the back of Tomb Raider. And when it didn't make up the overall difference they deemed it a failure.
Their games sell a lot better on Sony (and Nintendo) platforms than MS platforms, even in the US. Xbox isn't really a Japan-friendly platform, and Japan isn't a Xbox-friendly territory. That's just how it is.
Xbox doesn't really have any sort of chance in Japan with how their culture and bias is, but in the West it would have been fine to try growing the SE brand on there, but they hardly tried, and seeing them toss their Western stuff off the boat kinda tells me they cba trying period.
If a Jap publisher cba trying harder than the average indie studio, then really they're not in a good position to bother with almost anything, surely you notice that flaw.
Their game didn't meet the target so they didn't receive royalties but still profited from receiving to make the game, while SE likely suffered losses from this product, so why is it SE fault?
I believe Square Enix said shortly after launch that the game exceeded their expectations. So, maybe it didn't meet the developer's expectations, but I don't know if that's true of the publisher.
That's surprising to hear considering how many platforms Outriders released on, as well as the upfront payment for the inclusion on Game Pass. I remember there being rumors that Square just pocketed the Game Pass money though. I know the game had issues at launch but my friends that played it still had a really good time with the game as well as many gaming YouTubers that had a lot of praise. Hopefully the release of this new expansion will be good enough to bring in enough new purchases and players so the devs can finally start making money off the game.
This game also has DLC coming out which is surprising.
All the money the game makes is pocketed by SE, the royalties are based on milestones of sales after release which haven't been met, not sure why so many confusion in this thread.
Only confusion on my part was who got the game pass money. But that clears that up.
That is why I said thread not your post. One think that SE will use the money from the western sale, the other say western devs shouldn't work with SE, you implying as something unexpected for publisher to pocket the money made by a title published/funded by them without paying royalties when the goal haven't been met. For me that is plenty of confusion.
Gotcha. I'm just hoping that full expansion that's releasing next month is able to turn their fortunes around. Not my kind of game but I've heard good things since it's rough launch.
Honestly the game is ok. It's like a C level Destiny type game. It's not bad exactly just very sub par.
Sure thing. I would say anyone that work deserves a just compensation and if a game is improved it deserves more sales and devs money for it.
Gamepass dayone hurts initial sales,
Once they tried it they won't buy it coz it sucked on launch day
But but but it was on xbot rental pass day one! So it should've been profitable!...sure m$ 🙄
It released on 6 different platforms but Game Pass was the issue? Lol. The game wasn't that good and post launch support was terrible. At least Game Pass users didn't waste $60 on it at launch.
Nope, but on any thread that a game isn't on GP there will be couple people claiming that if it was on GP day one it would have been profitable... including the one for SE losing 200M on the avengers game.
One or 2 people making such claims doesn't mean much. Square Enix pocketed the GP money from Outriders so chances are they would have done the same for any other day 1 release.
Any and all publisher would have pocketed the money made from deals the do, no idea what you are impling here. And again, whatever MS would pay for those 2 games wouldn't amount to combined 200M. And in this particular case whatever MS paid also wasn't enough to make the game profitable. So your point is?
How much did it cost to develop Outriders?
Well for a new IP it should have done well. Nintendo would be impressed by these numbers, but they charge full price for each game copy and Outriders in contrary launched day one on game pass and was reduced in price heavily shortly after launch.
Well for a new IP it should have done well. Nintendo would be impressed by these numbers, but they charge full price for each game copy and Outriders in contrary launched day one on game pass and was reduced in price heavily shortly after launch.
i thought most gave a small percent until got back the investment
Maybe SE can finally pay them after getting that 300m.
How they receiving 300m turns into this game having meet its target?
