Payday developer Starbreeze has said that it’ll focus on making co-op and multiplayer games going forward as single-player games are no longer financially viable. Speaking at the Reboot Develop conference, developer Almir Listo said that although the studio received “lovely emails” about Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons – a critically-acclaimed single-player game Starbreeze published in 2013 – “it doesn’t pay the salaries.”
You need to find the thing that makes it replayable. One of the problems that Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons had for sure was that it’s not replayable. It’s a beautiful story, but it ends.
Payday, however, because the game is replayable like few other games… it allowed us to continue pushing out content for the game, which allowed us to keep monetizing the players who were interested in the game.
We’re great at doing co-op games and multiplayer games. That’s why The Walking Dead game we’re making is a co-op game, that’s why the Crossfire game we’re making is a co-op game.
This doesn’t mean Starbreeze is closing the door on single-player games, however. Listo went on to say that the studio wants to focus on what it’s good at and leave single-player games to its publishing partners. “We’re interested in all kinds of deals,” he said.
[Source: Games Industry]
