Sometimes, it just takes a bit of reorganization and a hit game or two to revive a dimming company. Swedish studio Starbreeze had been in the financial hole for just about as long as it had been active, but the success of Payday 2 and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons has helped produced some stunning numbers for the company.
“To put the past six months in perspective, I would like to highlight that Starbreeze historically, from 1998 to June 2013, accumulated a total loss of SEK 94 million (approximately $14.4 million),” Starbreeze CEO Bo Andersson Klint wrote in the company’s half-year earnings report. “Thanks to our new business model, reorganization and a focus on our own brands, we have – in only two quarters – generated a profit before tax of SEK 104 million (approximately $16 million).
“I would like to think that is what they call a turnaround.”
It’s hard to argue with those numbers, or the critical success of something like A Tale of Two Sons. Starbreeze is now in the green, and that could only mean good things for its future.
“We now have a large cash reserve, have created a stable cost structure, a modern business model, we have continued full control of our own brands and have placed ourselves into a position where we have three games that generate royalties every single day,” Klint confirmed.
