Outriders developers didn’t earn any royalties from Square Enix last year

According to a recent deployment report from the developer studio People Can Fly, the online loot shooter pioneer has not made a profit until the end of 2021.

Continue reading: Millions of players later, Outriders developers are still waiting for money

As originally reported by TweakTownthat report stated that publisher Square Enix failed to pay the studio royalties due to insufficient sales. Despite the dire financial situation, PCF intends to continue development of the post-launch DLC as originally agreed with the publisher.

From the document: “The Group has not received any royalties from the publisher for the period ended December 31, 2021, which means that the net proceeds from the sale of Outriders as of the reporting date were insufficient to cover the costs and expenses incurred by the publisher made for development, distribute and promote the title.” It also stated that there would be no “assurances” that sales of the game would be sufficient to continue to generate royalties.

The day-one deal with game pass wasn’t enough to put the game’s winnings in the black. The studio’s CEO called in August 2021: “Despite this disappointing news, we assume that the first license fees will be paid out pioneer

Sales will come … this year.” Despite everything, his statement turned out to be an overly optimistic forecast The Square Enix announcement that pioneer was “on track to become the company’s next big franchise.” my box have reached out to Square Enix and People Can Fly but have not received a response at the time of writing.

pioneer initially seemed to have a promising future. The demo became the Top Downloaded Game on Steam

because players wanted to pre-farm the game for rare loot. However, pioneerThe official start on April 1st was much more restless. It had debilitating Problems with the online connectionand items disappeared from players’ inventories. The first patch didn’t really fix any of these issues, and annoyed the “best” class in the game. One of the most important patches released in May would kill players instantly. At the end of the loot shooter couldn’t make a comeback.

Square Enix recently sold many of its western studios and their associated IPs, but it still keeps those pioneer IP according to the original development agreement. The publisher yet intends to publish the DLC Outriders Worldslayer sometime in 2022.