Starbreeze: Strategic Repurchase of Payday 3 Publishing Rights From Plaion
– 2 min read
With the buyback of the Payday 3 publishing rights, Starbreeze apparently wants to break away from contractual commitments. In any case, the purchase is intended to accelerate the content development roadmap and broaden the strategic opportunities for the IP. In return for the rights, Plaion's parent company, Embracer, will receive newly issued shares in Starbreeze.
It is rather unusual for the publishing rights to a title to be sold 18 months after the game's release. Nevertheless, Starbreeze and Plaion have agreed on exactly that. According to Starbreeze, both companies have concluded an agreement that gives Starbreeze all publishing rights to Payday 3. The Payday IP has belonged to Starbreeze since the company took over the original developer, Overkill, in 2012 (in German).
The payment is apparently indirect. With the repurchase of the rights, it was also announced that Starbreeze is issuing new shares worth SEK 33 million, approximately XY euros. These will go to Plaion's parent company, Embracer Group.
Thomas Lindgren, Board Member of Starbreeze, gives an idea of what Starbreeze hopes to gain from the deal: "This agreement enables Starbreeze to fully acquire the publishing rights to Payday 3 from Plaion, significantly accelerate our content development roadmap, and pursue broader strategic opportunities for the Payday franchise as a whole. We appreciate Plaion’s support, which underscores their confidence in Starbreeze’s future and strengthens our strategic alignment with major global industry players."
The "acceleration of the content development roadmap" indicates that Starbreeze was unhappy with the agreed post-release plans, as these may have been extended over too long a period.
In 2021, Starbreeze and Plaion, then still operating as Koch Media, signed a co-publishing deal worth around 50 million euros, which explicitly included post-release support as part of the agreement (in German).
It is also conceivable that Starbreeze wants to utilise new marketing levels 18 months after the release of the title, which were either not provided for in the agreement with Plaion or were addressed differently. This could involve subscription-based marketing strategies such as Game Pass or PlayStation Plus services.
It doesn't just have to be about the catalogue business; marketing via Game Pass or as an Essentials title can also activate target groups for an IP—for example, if there are plans for a new release from the brand. What is also interesting about the newly agreed deal is that, on the one hand, Starbreeze states that the repurchase of the rights marks the end of the previous publishing agreement, but on the other hand, "it also lays the groundwork for a long-term partnership between Starbreeze and Plaion on future Payday franchise projects." That doesn’t sound like they will be going completely separate ways from now on.
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