The authors of the Outriders have not yet received a -apkrig paid from Square Enix
The events surrounding the game Outriders are starting to take a rather unpleasant direction. PCF Group, which owns the People Can Fly studio, told investors in a report yesterday that it had not yet received anything from Square Enix publishers. At the same time, PCF Group should be entitled to profit shares if the set conditions are met, ie the sale of a certain number of pieces, which would cover all costs associated with development, marketing and distribution. However, Polish developers reportedly have no sales information and can therefore only assume that sales were not as strong as expected after the release of Outriders and / or increased costs by Square Enix, but PCF Group is not aware of this either.
“We have no data on Outriders sales – we estimate them at 2 to 3 million units and we assumed that this was the result that would make the project profitable in the first quarter of sales,” say PCF representatives. However, the fact that the publisher did not pay anything even after the expiry of the 45-day period after the end of the first quarter of the financial period (April-June) suggests that sales were not enough. “It is possible that this was due to some elements of Square Enix’s sales policy, the details of which we do not know,” says Sebastian Wojciechowski, CEO of PCF. It then lists that these could be specific partnerships between the publisher and the distribution platforms or entities offering Outriders in addition to their other products, typically graphics cards. “I do not want to speculate, we will continue to analyze the situation. However, it should be noted that such explanations take time and our influence on the publisher’s attitude is limited, “adds the director of PCF amicably.
It is possible that the agreed percentage of sales will arrive after the end of the second quarter, ie by mid-November, but even this cannot be estimated with certainty. It is also worth noting that the game Outriders was also available on the Game Pass from the day of its launch, which may have affected sales, but we must add that it was only possible to play the Xbox version in this way. On all other platforms, ie PC, PlayStation and Stadia, it was necessary to pay the full price. Therefore, the impact on sales may not have been so great, especially since Microsoft undoubtedly paid the game publisher for the Game Pass release. But Wojciechowski does not give up hope that Outriders will not just be for them zero project and outlines that the title still has a long way to go.
“We are working on further support and development of our game, so I hope to be able to tell you the details soon and we look forward to further promotional activities on the part of the publisher,” said the director of PCF Group. The fact that the Polish company does not burn the bridge behind it and does not end the partnership with Square Enix is underlined by information about another game that is being created within the project – it is codenamed Gemini and is not the only one People Can Fly are working on. Another project – Dagger – is created in the presence of Take-Two Interactive and, unlike Gemini, studios are working on it in North America, specifically in New York, Montreal and Chicago.
