Starbreeze is “never going to do free-to-play”

Free-to-play is the hot new thing in the gaming industry today, it seems, but not everybody is convinced – including Starbreeze boss Mikael Nermark, who reckons the real money is in affordable games instead.

“We’re never going to do free-to-play, because then you have to cater to everyone out there – that’s costly and it’s hard,” he told Edge Online. “We’re probably going to go down the road of cheap to play. Would we go all out? No, I don’t think I’m going to bet on just one business model.”

Although the Riddick and Syndicate dev won’t be dumping triple-A titles any time soon, the studio is also busy with smaller projects. The big idea, he thinks, is to cover all your bases. One of those smaller projects is P13, a game he’s not saying much about just yet, although Nermark promises it’s something “unique and new”.

Last month, Starbreeze finalised its acquisition of Payday: The Heist developer Overkill Software, and is already at work on a sequel.

“We’re going to keep [triple-A] and do the smaller, downloadable self-funded stuff like P13 and Payday 2 and we’re going to dabble in other areas too. Multiple different business models, multiple different games,” he added. “To rely on one business model is very risky.”

So all that everything, but back in March, Starbreeze confirmed that its next game, Cold Mercury, would be – wait for it – free-to-play. Either that’s changed, or some office flunky forgot to pass on an important memo.