Starbreeze Studios

Starbreeze Studios AB
Public company
Traded as First North: STAR
Industry Computer and video games
Founded 1998 (as O3 Games)
2002 (as Starbreeze Studios)
Founders Magnus Högdahl
Headquarters Stockholm, Sweden
Key people
 Bo Andersson Klint (CEO)
Products Video game
Revenue 180 MSEK (2013/2014)
110 MSEK (2013/2014)
Number of employees
 ~50 (2013/2014)
Subsidiaries Overkill Software
Website starbreeze.com

Starbreeze Studios is a video game development studio and publisher, based in Stockholm, Sweden. Notable games developed include The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, Payday 2 and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons.

Founded by members of the demogroup Triton, the company was merged with O3 Games in 2002 but the name Starbreeze was retained. The company produced titles including Enclave and Knights of the Temple: Infernal Crusade. In the early 2000s, cancellations of their projects due to conflicts with publishers, and a failed acquisition, led to a severe financial crisis, resulting in staff lay-offs during the development of Starbreeze's fourth game, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. This game received critical acclaim and helped Starbreeze establish a reputation for producing a good licensed game. The company worked on The Darkness, whose sales were considered satisfactory.

Starbreeze partnered with Electronic Arts to develop a reboot to the Syndicate series, but it ended up being a commercial failure, and many staff members moved to rival company MachineGames, established by Starbreeze's founders. As a result, the company shifted part of its focus to developing smaller games, such as Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. Starbreeze began expanding the company in 2012 with its acquisition of Overkill Software. Overkill's first title after the acquisition, Payday 2, helped Starbreeze make a record profit after suffering an accumulated loss of $14.4 million since its inception. In 2015, the company announced that it would start publishing video games from independent developers, and that it had begun the development of a virtual reality headset named Project Star VR.

History

Founding and merger

The company was founded by Swedish programmer Magnus Högdahl. Högdahl was a former member of the PC demoscene group Triton,[1] and specialized in making tech demos. He decided to leave the company after his project, an action role-playing game named Into the Shadows, was cancelled.[2] He then decided to found his own studio and began crafting his own game engine.[1] He actively recruited staff among his acquaintances and the studio was officially established in 1998 in Härnösand, Sweden.[3]

Högdahl serving as the company's head and tech lead, was responsible for creating a new game engine for future games, and looking for publishers willing to help publish its games.[1] At that time, the company had only about five employees,[1] and had created a prototype for a video game and pitched it to publishers at E3 1998.[2] Gremlin Interactive agreed to publish the game, and the deal was finalized in late 1998. The company grew to have roughly eleven staff members. The game was a first-person action role-playing game named Sorcery. With a high fantasy setting, the game featured 3D visuals and its gameplay was similar to that of Diablo and Quake.[2] However, Gremlin Interactive was acquired by Infogrames in 2000 and the partnership with Starbreeze dissolved, resulting in the game's cancellation.[4]

O3 Games was founded by Lars Johansson, who also worked at a demoscene company. Its first game was The Outforce, a real-time strategy space game that was released in 2000 and subsequently became a success for the company. O3 needed to expand so that it could continue video game development.[5] After Sorcery's cancellation, Starbreeze ran into financial difficulties. Unable to support itself financially, Starbreeze needed to merge with another developer to continue in business.[1] The two companies discussed a merger in Uppsala and merged shortly afterwards, retaining the name Starbreeze Studios.[5]

Post-merger

After the merger, the company began working on Enclave, a medieval fantasy, multiplayer-only video game inspired by Team Fortress. The game also became the company's first project with international appeal, enabling Starbreeze to partner with various publishers including Swing Entertainment, Conspiracy Entertainment, and Vivendi.[5] However, Swing Entertainment faced bankruptcy at that time, and decided to turn the game into a single-player action-adventure video game with the goal of sending it to market as soon as possible.[1] The game was released in 2002, and Starbreeze had to lay off staff after its release.[4] Enclave II was also in development. The sequel was said to feature a more elaborate story, 28 different maps, 10 playable characters, and an improved fighting system.[6] However, these features were axed when Starbreeze got into legal troubles with the publisher, resulting in the game's cancellation.[1] Another game, Knights of the Temple: Infernal Crusade, was successfully released with help from publisher TDK Mediactive. However its sequel was shifted to another developer.[1] Starbreeze attempted to acquire another studio, Rock Solid Games, but the agreement between the two fell apart and brought both companies financial problems.[4]

"The company was shutting down around us. This is something I'm not very proud of, but [the Riddick team] actually cut ourselves off from the rest of the company. We moved to the third floor...we knew that people were getting fired upstairs and everything. But we just sort of closed the doors, we didn't talk about it, and we just stayed focused on finishing the game

— Jens Andersson, lead designer of The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay

Another project being worked on by Starbreeze at that time was The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. Set in the The Chronicles of Riddick movie universe, the game was published by Vivendi. The team took inspiration from films such as Escape from Alcatraz and video games such as GoldenEye 007 and the Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell series.[7] However, the company was downsizing due to its financial problems and the number of employees dropped from 80 to 25, and the entire development team moved away from the main Starbreeze floor to prevent it from being affected by low morale, and to allow it to focus on the game's development. The game enjoyed an 18-month development cycle, which was significantly longer than typical licensed games. A PlayStation 2 version of the game was also in development, but was ultimately cancelled as the then head of Vivendi's publishing division, Michael Pole, ordered its cancellation to "make his mark".[1] Universal Motion Pictures intervened and kept the game's Xbox version. Escape from Butcher Bay received critical acclaim upon its launch, with many critics regarding it as one of the best licensed games ever made. Its gameplay element including the puzzle-solving mechanics, the stealth segment, and its ahead-of-its-time visuals, also received praise from critics.[1] Despite receiving critical acclaim, it was not a commercial success for Starbreeze.[4]

After the release of Escape from Butcher Bay, Starbreeze again encountered financial difficulties after having not received a significant royalty payment from Vivendi. It sold part of its motion capture and animation department to a British company, Centroid.[4] However, the game helped set Starbreeze's reputation as a studio capable of making good licensed titles. With the help of Union Entertainment, an intermediary company, Starbreeze signed an agreement with Majesco Entertainment for a new title set within the The Darkness universe owned by Top Cow Comics on July 16, 2004.[8] Midway through the game's development, Majesco underwent restructuring because of financial difficulties, shifted its focus, and dropped the game.[9] 2K Games stepped up and acquired the publishing rights. 2K extended the game's development cycle, and asked Starbreeze to develop a multiplayer mode for the game. The Darkness was released in 2007. It fared worse than the team expected critically, but its commercial performance was satisfactory, selling more than 1 million copies worldwide.[1]

After working on two different licensed games, the team intended to develop its own games. A game named Kano, involving mind-reading, was started but was never completed. After the release of The Darkness, the company signed a two-project contract with Vivendi. One of the games was a new property known as Polaris. The game was set in a post-apocalyptic environment. Players were tasked to overcome snowstorms, and defeat terrorists and monsters cooperatively with other players. Vivendi was not convinced the game would succeed and adjusted the contract to a remake of Escape from Butcher Bay, The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena. Vivendi originally named the game Riddick 2 but Starbreeze disagreed claiming the name would raise expectations among gamers that the remake might not be able to deliver.[1] Vivendi's subsidiary Sierra Entertainment was set to publish the game.[10] After the merger between Activision and Vivendi, the new company began streamlining Vivendi and put the game, along with Brütal Legend, and Ghostbusters: The Video Game up for sale.[11] Atari eventually acquired the publishing rights and the game was released in 2009.[12]

2010—2016

Starbreeze then partnered with Electronic Arts for two different games, one was known as Project Redlime, while the other was an action-adventure video game set within the Bourne universe. The Bourne game was cancelled as a direct result of Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass not participating in the fourth Bourne film.[13] Project Redlime had a larger scale than the Bourne game. It was said to be a reinvention of one of Electronic Arts' franchises.[14] The company shifted from a technology-orientated company to focus more on the core gameplay mechanics of their new project. Syndicate was announced in September 2011.[15] The game suffered from a troubled development, with Starbreeze completely reworking the game one year after its initial development.[16] There were also many creative differences between the developer and the publisher, and the two companies suffered from an inharmonious relationship. During the game's development, seven senior members of the company, including Högdahl, left to form their own smaller studio. Some of them formed MachineGames to work on their own original games.[1] With a budget that was less than other typical AAA video games, Syndicate received average reviews and was a commercial failure.[17] Grefberg left the company after the game's completion,[5] and 25 employees were laid off.[18]

Many employees left Starbreeze when MachineGames recruited. Then CEO Johan Kristiansson also stepped down, and was replaced by Mikael Nemark. Nemark took the studio in a new direction. Besides focusing on AAA video games, it would also allocate resources to develop smaller, downloadable games in order to broaden the company's portfolio. These new games would no longer use the engine created by Högdahl. In 2011, Starbreeze announced that it was partnering with Epic Games to use their engine, Unreal Engine, for their first small titles. In 2012, Starbreeze announced Cold Mercury, a free-to-play video game and a project codenamed P13.[19] Prior to that, Josef Fares, an award winning Swedish director, had been unsuccessfully pitching game ideas to several Swedish developers. Starbreeze was in need of new, original properties, and accepted Fares' pitch.[20] P13 later became Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. Focusing on creating an emotional and "personal" experience,[21] Starbreeze partnered with publisher 505 Games to publish the game. It was released in 2013 to critical acclaim and received numerous awards and accolades.[22] The rights to the Brothers intellectual property was later acquired by 505 Games in 2015.[23] After the success of Brothers, Fares announced that he had established a new studio named Hazelight and is working on a project with Electronic Arts.[24]

In 2012, Starbreeze also announced that they had acquired Overkill Software, the developer of Payday: The Heist, granting them rights to all of Overkill's propriety technology and intellectual properties.[25] At the time, Overkill was working on the sequel, Payday 2, a game that was set to "broaden the Payday template".[26] The game was a massive commercial success, and was profitable from pre-order sales alone.[27] Payday 2 also became Starbreeze's best selling game of all time, and helped the company to make a record profit for the first time after suffering an accumulated loss of $14.4 million between 1998 and June 2013.[28] The game's success also prompted publisher 505 Games to invest $5 million in Starbreeze in March 2015 to continue to improve and develop additional content for Payday 2 over twenty months.[29] The game was ported to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One under the title Payday 2: Crimewave Edition.[30]

Starting in 2014 the company began broadening its business. On 25 September 2014, Starbreeze Studios announced that they had acquired a Los Angeles-based studio called Geminose for $7 million. The studio is currently working on a toys-to-life game.[31] In May 2015, Starbreeze announced that the company would start publishing video games from independent developers. The first independent title set to be published by Starbreeze is Raid: World War II, an upcoming four-player, World War II shooter, being developed by Lion Game Lion.[32] During E3 2015, Starbreeze Studios announced Project StarVR, a virtual reality headset, which is currently under development by InfinitEye, a firm acquired by Starbreeze.[33] The company also acquired Payday Productions and the film rights to Payday in July 2015.[34] In terms of projects, Starbreeze subsidiary Overkill is working on Overkill's The Walking Dead, which is set to be released in 2017 with the help of publisher 505 Games,[35] and Storm, which was merged from Starbreeze's own Cold Mercury.[36] Starbreeze is also set to publish a John Wick game developed by WEVR and Grab for virtual reality platforms.[37] The core Starbreeze team also received investment from Korean publisher Smilegate to develop a new first-person cooperative game set within the Crossfire universe.[38] Starbreeze also announced that it will be publishing Dead by Daylight, an asymmetrical, multiplayer, survival horror game developed by Behaviour Interactive.[39]

On 30 May 2016, 505 Games announced that it had sold the Payday franchise and intellectual property to Starbreeze in exchange for US$30 million worth of stock.[40] Starbreeze also announced that they had acquired the name and the franchises of Cinemaware a day later.[41]

Developed Products

Year Title Publisher Platform(s)
PS2 Xbox Win GCN X360 PS3 XBO PS4
2000 The OutforceA Strategy First No No Yes No No No No No
2002 Enclave Conspiracy Entertainment No Yes Yes No No No No No
2003 Knights of the Temple: Infernal Crusade TDK Mediactive Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No
2004 The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay Vivendi Games No Yes Yes No No No No No
2007 The Darkness 2K Games No No No No Yes Yes No No
2009 The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena Atari Inc. No No Yes No Yes Yes No No
2012 Syndicate Electronic Arts No No Yes No Yes Yes No No
2013 Payday 2B 505 Games No No Yes No Yes Yes No No
2013 Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons 505 Games No No Yes No Yes Yes No Yes
2015 Payday 2: Crimewave EditionB 505 Games No No Yes No No No Yes Yes
2017 Overkill's The Walking DeadB 505 Games No No Yes No No No Yes Yes
Notes

A Developed by O3 Games before O3-Starbreeze merger
B Mainly developed by Starbreeze's subsidiary Overkill Software

Published Products

Year Title Developer Platform(s)
Win XBO PS4
2016 Dead by Daylight Behaviour Interactive Yes No No
TBA Raid: World War II Lion Game Lion Yes Yes Yes

Philosophy

We don't even talk about games any more at the studio... We don't talk about games, we don't talk about genres, we just talk about building the best experience, whatever that means for that particular project.

— Mikael Nermark, former CEO of Starbreeze Studios

According to Starbreeze, the studio both develops and produces intellectual properties and licensed projects which allow it to have creative control. According to Starbreeze's CEO Johan Kristiansson, in 2008 the company did not wish to recruit numerous employees because of the time that is needed to integrate them into the company.[42] After the 2012 departure of many employees, and the disappointing commercial sales of Syndicate, Mikael Nermark, the company's CEO, decided to shift the company's focus from producing standard licensed games to creating new and original intellectual properties. He stated that he believed strongly in Starbreeze's ability to make games that are more than typical AAA games, and that its employees would consider making games their "daily work", taking ownership of their projects.[43]

As an independent company, Starbreeze believes that in addition to developing AAA games, it must develop some smaller-scale projects like Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, or free-to-play games like Cold Mercury to survive. Nermark added further that he is confident that the studio is capable of bringing its "style" and business model to all genres and that gameplay innovation is one of the most important elements when developing a game.[43]

Sources

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Leone, Matt (June 2, 2011). "The Secret History of the Riddick Team". 1UP.com. Archived from the original on April 28, 2015. Retrieved January 24, 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 "Starbreeze: An interview with Starbreeze, the Swedish company behind fantasy role playing game Sorcery". Eurogamer. November 11, 1999. Archived from the original on 21 February 2016. Retrieved January 24, 2016.
  3. ↑ "Starbreeze: About Us". Starbreeze Studios. Retrieved January 24, 2016.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Peter Zackariasson (2012). The Video Game Industry: Formation, Present State, and Future. Routledge. p. 143. ISBN 0415896525.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Pitts, Russ (15 May 2014). "Making Wolfenstein: a fight club on top of the world". Polygon. Vox Media. Retrieved 19 May 2014.
  6. ↑ "Enclaved II First Look". IGN. March 6, 2013. Retrieved January 24, 2016.
  7. ↑ Perry, Douglass C. (September 2, 2004). "Epilogue: The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, Pt. 2". IGN. Ziff Davis. p. 2. Retrieved April 5, 2009.
  8. ↑ "Majesco to publish The Darkness on next-gen consoles". GamesIndustry.biz. 2005-03-22. Retrieved 2015-04-13.
  9. ↑ "2K Games Grabs The Darkness From Majesco". Gamasutra. 2006-03-03. Retrieved 2015-04-13.
  10. ↑ "Chronicles of Riddick redux confirmed for '07". GameSpot. May 17, 2007. Retrieved January 24, 2016.
  11. ↑ Sinclair, Brendan (July 28, 2008). "Activision Blizzard 'streamlining' Vivendi". GameSpot. Retrieved April 5, 2009.
  12. ↑ Nicholson, Brad (February 23, 2009). "Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena coming April 7". Destructoid. Retrieved January 24, 2016.
  13. ↑ Ransom-Wiley, James (March 14, 2011). "'Bourne Ascendancy' was canceled Starbreeze game, corroborates ex-dev". Joystiq. Retrieved January 24, 2016.
  14. ↑ Haywald, Andrew (February 21, 2008). "Starbreeze to Reinvent Mystery EA Franchise". 1UP.com. Retrieved January 24, 2016.
  15. ↑ "Syndicate reboot officially announced". Metro. 12 September 2011. Retrieved 3 November 2015.
  16. ↑ Yin-Poole, Wesley (27 February 2012). "EA: Syndicate reboot as FPS "the right choice"". Eurogamer. Retrieved 3 November 2015.
  17. ↑ Dutton, Fred (19 June 2012). "Starbreeze: Syndicate was "a lost battle from the get-go"". Eurogamer. Retrieved 11 November 2015.
  18. ↑ Martin, Matt (February 17, 2013). "25 jobs cut at Starbreeze following Syndicate completion". Gameindustry.biz. Retrieved January 24, 2016.
  19. ↑ Bradford, Matt (March 26, 2012). "Starbreeze going free-to-play with Cold Mercury". GamesRadar. Retrieved January 24, 2016.
  20. ↑ Mahardy, Mike (October 27, 2013). "Brothers: How A Film Director Shook Up Starbreeze". Polygon. Retrieved January 24, 2016.
  21. ↑ John Agnello, Anthony (April 28, 2013). "Starbreeze's CEO discusses the rebirth of the studio". Retrieved January 24, 2016.
  22. ↑ "Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons critical review". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved January 24, 2016.
  23. ↑ Matulef, Jeffery (January 16, 2015). "Brothers IP sold to 505 Games". Eurogamer. Retrieved January 24, 2016.
  24. ↑ Mahardy, Mike (December 5, 2014). "Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Creator Announces Hazelight Studios". IGN. Retrieved February 10, 2016.
  25. ↑ Crapple, Craig (April 19, 2012). "Starbreeze swoops in to acquire Overkill Software". Develop. Retrieved January 24, 2016.
  26. ↑ Cook, Dave (December 13, 2013). "The making of Payday 2: from '1.5' project to heavyweight sequel – part two". VG247. Retrieved January 24, 2016.
  27. ↑ Gaston, Martin (August 8, 2013). "Payday 2 turns a profit from preorders alone". GameSpot. Retrieved January 24, 2016.
  28. ↑ Maiberg, Emanuel (February 28, 2014). "Payday 2 helps developer Starbreeze post record profits". PC Gamer. Retrieved January 24, 2016.
  29. ↑ Wawro, Alex (March 23, 2015). "505 invests $5M in Starbreeze on the back of Payday 2's success". Gamasutra. Retrieved January 24, 2016.
  30. ↑ Nunneley, Stephany (May 7, 2015). "Payday 2: Crimewave Edition has a release date for PS4 and Xbox One". VG247. Retrieved January 24, 2016.
  31. ↑ Tom Ivan (25 September 2014). "Starbreeze acquires studio making toys-to-life game". Computer and Video Games. Retrieved 25 September 2014.
  32. ↑ Futter, Mike (May 8, 2015). "Payday Developer Starbreeze Announces Move Into Publishing With Raid: World War II". Game Informer. Retrieved May 9, 2015.
  33. ↑ Futter, Mike (June 13, 2015). "Starbreeze Unveils Project StarVR With The Walking Dead Demo". Game Informer. Retrieved June 14, 2015.
  34. ↑ Handrahan, Matthew (July 10, 2015). "Starbreeze acquires Payday film rights". Gameindustry.biz. Retrieved January 24, 2016.
  35. ↑ Scammell, David (January 22, 2016). "Overkill's The Walking Dead delayed to 2017". VideoGamer.com. Retrieved January 24, 2016.
  36. ↑ Devore, Jordan (January 22, 2016). "Starbreeze's Storm pitched as 'Payday in space'". Destructoid. Retrieved January 24, 2016.
  37. ↑ Hilliard, Kyle (August 8, 2015). "Starbreeze Announces John Wick Virtual Reality Game". Game Informer. Retrieved January 24, 2016.
  38. ↑ Jarvis, Matthew (January 21, 2016). "Starbreeze receives $40m investment to develop new Crossfire game". Develop. Retrieved January 24, 2016.
  39. ↑ Skyes, Tom (February 6, 2016). "Dead by Daylight is an asymmetrical slasher horror". PC Gamer. Retrieved February 10, 2016.
  40. ↑ "Starbreeze buys rights to Payday franchise, discusses future support and sequel". Polygon. Vox Media. Retrieved 31 May 2016.
  41. ↑ Wawro, Alex (May 31, 2016). "With VR aims, Starbreeze scoops up Cinemaware name and games". Gamasutra. Retrieved June 1, 2016.
  42. ↑ Martin, Matt (June 10, 2008). "Starbreeze Studios' Johan Kristiansson". Gameindustry.biz. Retrieved February 10, 2016.
  43. 1 2 Handrahan, Matthew (April 13, 2012). "Starbreeze: More To Life Than AAA". Gameindustry.biz. Retrieved February 10, 2016.
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