Today, The Polish PCF Group, which controls the People Can Fly Studio, revealed in a new statement today that they have yet to receive royalties for their latest game, Outriders, from publisher Square Enix. “According to the agreement, the Publisher would pay them 45 days from the end of the calendar quarter, ie by 16/08/2021 at the latest. Today, however, the money has not been transferred to the Company’s account. The Polish PCF Group thinks that by Square Enix’s standards, the game did not make a profit. According to the publisher, the revenues from the sale of the game are lower than the total costs of its production, distribution, and promotion.
The Polish PCF Group says that the provisions of the production and publishing agreement concluded between Square Enix and PCF Group S.A., the royalties from the sale of Outriders are due to the company after all game costs are covered by the publisher. Sebastian Wojciechowski, President of the Management Board of PCF Group S.A. said, “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. The lack of payment by the Publisher probably means that, according to Square Enix, it is not so.”
Regardless of everything, the Polish PCF Group and People Can Fly are moving foward. “The sales tail of the Outriders game is ahead of us. We mentioned in the brochure that we are working on further development support for this game, and I hope to be able to share some details soon,” Wojciechowski said. “We are also counting on further promotional activities on the part of the Publisher. Despite this disappointing information, we believe that the Company will receive the first royalties from the sale of Outriders this year. We will try to maintain the most detailed and open communication with investors on this matter, because I know that this is what they expect from us. At the same time, please remember that our information policy is closely related to the business model based on cooperation with a global Publisher.”
People Can Fly is currently working on the Dagger project for Take-Two Interactive and the Gemini project for Sqaure Enix. In May 2021, they have begun preliminary work on new titles, including development work on a new game with the intention of producing it in a self-publishing model.