Outriders developer People Can Fly claim they’re yet to make a profit from the game

Polish studio People Can Fly has inferred that multiplayer shooter Outriders has failed to make a profit in the first quarter since launch.

That’s according to a note to investors from parent company PCF group (as spotted by GamesIndustry.biz). The note claims it has yet to receive royalty payments from publisher Square Enix, which it says were to be paid after the latter’s costs were covered. Any royalties generated were supposed to be paid within 45 days of the end of the quarter following the game’s launch, putting the deadline at Monday.

However, according to People Can Fly, no such payment has been made. The note to investors reads (as translated by Google): “We don’t have any sales figures for Outriders – we estimate it at between 2 and 3 million units and assumed that this was a result that would ensure profitability for this project in the first quarter of sales. This probably means that, according to Square Enix, the game Outriders did not break even after the first quarter of sales.”

It’s unknown why the shooter  hasn’t made a profit yet, if true. President of People Can Fly’s management board Sebastian Wojciechowski suggested that it may be related to distribution costs or other publisher expenses. However, he also says he doesn’t “want to speculate” and says the studio will look into it. He adds “Despite this disappointing information, we believe that [People Can Fly] will receive the first royalties from the sale of Outriders this year.”

Outriders seemed to be doing quite well since it’s release, reporting player numbers of over 3.5 million in its first month on sale. Many of these players may be attributed to the game being available at launch on Xbox Game Pass, but it’s unknown how that might have affected the game’s performance financially.

Outriders is available now on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4 and PC. You can read up on our verdict on the game over here.