Somehow, Outriders hit 3.5m players at launch and has didn’t turn a profit in by Dec 31st…

I’m piling on the Square Enix mystery math tour here, but it’s frankly astounding at how poorly finances are managed in that company if millions of games are sold and it isn’t enough. A brand new IP… clearly competing against its own games (Marvel Avengers) in a looter/shooter genre is beyond baffling. It sheds some further light on why Square Enix sold off so many IPs last week… their financials are a mess.

I’ve been on the wrong side of a contract in the past, and in most of those cases its the small print that gets you in the end. There’s no word of lawyers in public, but one would have to assume that there are some interesting conversations being held in the backrooms. Not much different that Fallout: New Vegas missing the bonus payment by about 1% on Metacritic.

Stories like these make you wonder why anyone would want to be at a large dev studio, or try to “make a deal with the devil” to get over the hump. Maybe it’s just a parachute to get out of the grind? Some crazy hope that you are going to be that exception? Blind faith? Perhaps it’s simply the lesser of evils.

Games are a weird microcosm of other pieces. They are a massive entertainment industry, nearly $120b worldwide. Money makes for some interesting choices…