Starbreeze CEO Ousted as Payday 3 Company Seeks Different Leadership

Starbreeze CEO Tobias Sjögren has been let go from his position within the company, as the board of directors have decided the business strategy “needs a different leadership.” With Payday 3 still struggling to establish itself, especially in the same fashion as its still-successful predecessor, a call for new a new strategy and leadership isn’t terribly surprising.

“The company has a clear strategy centered around creating attractive games on our own and licensed IPs. The board’s consolidated assessment is that the execution of strategy needs a different leadership,” said Torgny Hellström, Chairman of Starbreeze. “On behalf of the board of directors, I would like to thank Tobias Sjögren for his achievements during the past three years. Tobias took over the helm of Starbreeze in a challenging phase of its journey and we wish him well in his future endeavors.”

Current board member and former Focus Home Interactive CEO Juergen Goeldner will fill Sjögren’s role as a new CEO is identified. In his own statement, Goeldner provided the following:

Starbreeze has a strong history of developing and publishing games globally. After launching Payday 3, the company is well-positioned to leverage the strengths of the organization to monetize and develop the IP portfolio. I am looking forward to assuming an operative position and, together with the management, ensure the execution of this strategy

Although not outright blamed, it’s hard to look at this news outside of the context of the floundering Payday 3. The once highly anticipated follow-up to the ever popular Payday 2 has barely managed a peak player count north of 300 players on Steam in the past 24 hours. For reference, Payday 2 sat at a much healthier player count of roughly 32,000 in the same period.

We’ll be on standby to see how Starbreeze manages their restructuring and refocus in the near future.