Square Enix has celebrated the sales of one of their newest looter-shooters, Outriders, developed by People Can Fly. So it's surprising to find multiple reports from Forbes, Gamesrader, Eurogamer, and others claiming that the developers behind the game are speaking up about not being paid their royalties; even after their title has been out since April 1st of this year. That's four months without income.
Initially, Square Enix boasted about Outriders' success which was bolstered by Xbox Game Pass on its release. Square Enix's President, Yosuke Matsuke, boasted about Outrider's numbers stating that it was "on track to become the company's next major franchise" with over 3.5 million players at launch. He said, "We believe that our decision to make Outriders available with Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass as soon as the title launched also worked in our favor. (to build an installed base for the game)." But it's possible that lackluster sales after launch have led to the game not being as profitable as they initially hoped.
The developers announced in a note on their investor website that their agreement with Square Enix says they should have been paid by August 16, 2021, for the first quarter of sales. This is only after Square Enix's investment had been recouped. People Can Fly believes that their game may have not broken even yet meaning that the sales have not surpassed the cost of creating the game. Even so, it's odd that People Can Fly is also revealing that they have no idea how many sales Outriders actually has because Square Enix hasn't disclosed this information to them yet.
At this time, it is unclear what exactly is going on between Square Enix and Outriders' developer, People Can Fly. It does raise some other relevant questions: Did the release of Outriders on Xbox Game Pass hurt sales? While it does help increase a new title's initial player base, it does potentially hurt its revenue as players avoid paying the full cost of the game.
Lastly, how might this example and others like it potentially change the conversion around launching new titles on Xbox Game Pass? Only time will tell, but developers may want to pay close attention to the cause of this recent debacle to avoid a similar situation.
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