Thank you so much. Welcome everyone. Ladies and gentlemen, I have some very exciting news to share with you today. Myself and the whole team here at Starbreeze are very excited about our news today, and I am to share that with you. Let us move to slide number two. Starbreeze, as you might know, is a company with a long history. We have offices today here in Stockholm and development studios in Paris and Barcelona. Our focus is on the PAYDAY IP and the PAYDAY 2 game that has up to date, sold over 28 million base games historically. Today, I'm going to talk about our next game in development and the publishing agreement we've announced this morning together with Koch Media. Let's move to slide number three. What I'm going to cover today is mainly about our work together for the future here with Koch Media, and slightly about what this means for the game. Let us move to slide number four. Our co-publishing agreement with PAYDAY 3 with Koch Media announced this morning is about taking the PAYDAY 3 game that we started development of in October 2019 to its release in 2023. This is joint operations getting this game out there, but it also stretches beyond the release, of course, because this is a co-publishing agreement for a Games as a Service game. Which means this is meant to work in the same fashion as PAYDAY 2 have done previously, where we continuously develop and enhance the feature set and the content of the game. After the release, there is a long plan of continuous work that's going to be put into the game and to engage the community and keep on selling way beyond its release. We think that Koch Media is the perfect partner for this. Let me tell you a little bit more about that if we move to slide five. Koch Media, in short, is an independent producer, marketer, publisher, distributor of all kinds of entertainment products. They have, which has been very important for us, an international presence. They've had a lot of experience of making games and entertainment products to the market. They are also part of a bigger family, the Embracer Group. For us, Koch Media really stood out in the discussions that we had with a lot of various publishers out there because they shared really our passion, not only for the game itself, but for Games as a Service, where you take this type of game and continuously monetize it. For us, when we were looking for a partnership in PAYDAY 3, that was obviously something that was a significant factor for us. Koch has a long experience of working with game developers and publishers, and we feel very at home with the discussions we've had with them, and are really looking forward to now continuously getting into our relationship and deliver the best possible PAYDAY 3 game. Let's move to slide number six. The strategic rationale for doing a publishing deal on PAYDAY 3 is here at Starbreeze, we want to focus on making this game. PAYDAY 3 is a big undertaking in terms of product. We want to focus on that and really put all of our efforts into that. To be able to have that focus, we need somebody who helps us with the financing, of course, and to that point, this is a deal that secures the PAYDAY 3 publishing, and helps the game to get out there. It's also a publisher that brings so much more. They share the passion for the game, as I said, and the vision for how you during the duration of the game, monetize it. We said this is a co-publishing deal. What does that mean? Both parties are working with the development of this game, sharing the efforts of producing and marketing it throughout the whole game cycle. This really is a partnership. For us, being able to focus on the game means that we need a partner who has this international presence in terms of local offices and experience in distribution and community management. With Koch Media, we really found that partnership. I'll move to slide number seven. The partnership in detail, while this is not a deal where we disclose any of the specific details, we want to give an understanding of what kind of investment would go into a project like this. As we've written in the press release, if you calculate the total investment being put into this game by us and Koch Media over its duration of the development time and up to 18 months after release, the estimated investment can be over EUR 50 million. This is a significant game and significant resources put into this. We think this really secures the position on the market that we expect PAYDAY 3 to be able to have considering its historical performance of PAYDAY 2, for example. Starbreeze remains the owners of the IP. This is of course important for us. In a partnership, we will of course coordinate with Koch Media in making sure PAYDAY 3 is the best possible. For owners, it's good to know that Starbreeze is the owner of the PAYDAY IP. The continued game development is something that we continue to do here at Starbreeze in our studios in Stockholm and Paris and Barcelona. It's not only up to the release as mentioned, but further than that. What Koch Media will help us to do here is really reach the market, both from a digital and physical standpoint. Koch have worked with physical distribution for a long time, over 20 years, but digital distribution is something that they are also very experienced with. Obviously already very important, and in two years from now, likely even more importantly. We feel very good about their experience in that field. This is a game that's developed on the Unreal Engine. Previously, we worked with our own internal engine for PAYDAY 2. This iteration of PAYDAY 3 is based on a well-known industry standard engine called Unreal, that enables us to launch this game on PC and consoles like PlayStation and Xbox. We can launch the same game at the same location. We can move to slide number eight. To wrap this up, what does this mean for the PAYDAY IP and the future? Well, for PAYDAY 3, which is a game that started its development in 2019, it means we can securely move it into the production phase during this year. As a company, we have recruited people to the team previously and continue to do so for the ramp-up to the production phase here in 2021. We are aiming at a release in 2023. As mentioned, using the Unreal Engine, it really helps with finding people on the market, recruits to the company who can get into the studio and start working directly on the game when we need to. The last two points there, IP developed and owned by Starbreeze and really focusing on the Games as a Service model. For the PAYDAY IP, what does this mean? Well, continuously a strong brand. This has been a brand that have benefited from merchandising already with the built-in properties you have with the masks, for example. It's been a popular item to pick up for our fans. We think the PAYDAY 3 game as a cornerstone here will really help us to build on the IP for the future as well and develop this IP well beyond only being a game so to say. This PAYDAY 3 is a really strong pillar product that helps us to build that pathway forward. That is what I have to tell you this morning. I'm happy to move to the questions and the Q&A, and move to slide nine if you would like to. We have got some questions here over email. I'll refer to them here then. Do you know I'm still the interim CEO, that's correct. The interim CEO since end of October. My focus has been to make this deal happen. The board is working on the CEO question, so to say, so that's not really for me to comment on. We also got some questions about what resources is building PAYDAY 3. Well, the PAYDAY 3 game is built by an internal team here at Starbreeze, our studios in Stockholm and Barcelona and Paris. We're using reasonable amount of outsourcing as any game production does at this point in time. Also a question, of course, I understand that the question we got here is, when do we get to see something from PAYDAY 3? Well, today we have an announcement about the deal with Koch Media, not really an announcement about PAYDAY 3. The more information about the game itself will be revealed when the marketing teams there at Starbreeze and Koch Media decides it's a good timing for that. I honestly don't know exactly when that's going to be. That's going to be for them to optimize and to make sure that when we take that step, it's done for building up to the release of the game. We also have some questions here about our deals with 505. Yes, 505, we're working with them continuously here for the console versions of PAYDAY 2. The company have some outstanding debts as described in the reconstruction documents. I think the important point to note here is with this deal in place and what we're communicating around this, is that we have a financing for the game and Starbreeze for the future that we are happy with and can continuously work with. Let's see. What is the latest regarding VR, we have questions for. Well, not sure what that question refers to. We haven't announced anything specific new about VR. I think that's pretty much it. I think I catched up on the email questions that we got here. Yeah, we can open up for any other questions. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you do wish to ask a question to the speaker via the audio line, please press zero one on your telephone keypad now. If you wish to withdraw your question you may do so by pressing zero two to cancel. Our first question comes from the line of Jacob Edler of Handelsbanken. Please go ahead. Your line is now open. Yeah. Hello, Tobias, and first of all, congratulations on today's announcement and thank you for taking my questions. I have a couple of short ones here. First of all, are you able to comment on the deal structure here? What would be the rev split between you and Koch Media? Is it 50/50, 60/40, higher than that? If you can shed some light on how the dynamics now will look given the EUR 40 million clause of digital gross. I have some further ones as well. Yeah, we don't communicate the details of our agreement with Koch Media and the exact levels of the royalty splits and investments into the game in that sense. The guidance we try to do here is to show how big of an investment it gets to be total over a period of time. We're not going to be further going into the details. Okay. I understand. Are you able to say something about will you have majority or you can't comment on it at all, or how does it look? No, I think if we start going into the details, we're going to end up even further into the details. I think the notion of this being a co-publishing deal and joint venture, so to say, some indications that it is exactly that. It's a joint venture into this. Okay. That's very clear. A second one here. You mentioned that the total investment will be over EUR 50 million in terms of the development and marketing of PAYDAY 3. How much of the budget can we expect to be attributed for the initial launch, and how much will be spared for future DLCs and other PAYDAY 3 related content? Yeah. Good question. Again, we try to give the indication that over up to the release and 18 months after, the development and the marketing efforts into this game can be over EUR 50 million. Exactly how is that divided, we haven't guided on. I think we have a notion and an idea, a prognosis today for how the game will perform for the future. The beauty of a Games as a Service model is that you can adapt to what happens on the market and adapt your investments into that. That's why it gets really difficult to say exactly how it's going to be for many years from now when the game is on the market. If you look at PAYDAY 2 as well, we have operated that game on the market since 2013 when it released, and we are continuously releasing content as late as Wednesday this week. We'll continuously do so up until the start of PAYDAY 3. These kinds of games, when they are done in the right way, they can really benefit from investments and work very long beyond its original release. Okay. Yeah. That's clear. Another question here. Given that you now have an established relationship with Koch Media and Embracer, would you say they have enough expertise within MOBA to be an eventual publisher for Crime War, or are you looking for a different publisher there? We have not put the Crime War game and the PAYDAY 3 games in one package, so to say. We have talked to publishers separately about those games. We're continuously working on the Crime War game to find a home for that one, and I think the discussions there is going well. Who we're talking to in that sense, we're not going to disclose at this point. Yeah. Okay. Just a small last one here. We saw in the latest DLC update here that you translated the game into Korean, obviously, a large market. Could this be a strategy you want to pursue in the future, expanding within the Asian market here with PAYDAY 3? Absolutely. I think we are reacting in the same way as the rest of the gaming market is reacting. This is a truly international business, and we have all seen the whole industry growing significantly over the last decades in the Asian region, and obviously we do with PAYDAY as well. I think it's a natural development that you open up for more and more local-directed content and adapt to the local markets. Again, I think this is why Koch Media is a great partner for us because they have presence on many of these markets as well, and can really be a fantastic support for us. Perfect. Yeah. Thank you so much for your answers. That was all from me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, once again, I remind you, if you do wish to ask a question for the speaker via the audio lines, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. We currently have no further questions. I will hand back to the speaker for any final remarks or questions via the webcast. This is Greg. Yeah. I have one more email question here about the pace of communication on the game, I assume is the question. Can we expect more information on a more frequent basis about the game? Well, if the question was about the game, yeah, it's going to be about the marketing teams for PAYDAY 3 to really ensure that they do the best, they spend their money and time in the best way for that game. Usually these days, you don't speak too much about the game until you really start closing into the release. What we are doing constantly and trying to improve from Starbreeze side here is communicating about what we do, for example, with PAYDAY 2. Exactly when we'll talk more about PAYDAY 3, it's going to be up to those teams. From Starbreeze perspective, we're working constantly trying to improve our ability to communicate about what we're doing and how we're doing it. Absolutely a big focus for me and the rest of the management team here to do on a frequent basis. We have one more question about the product, per se. Any plans to introduce battle pass systems or things like that for Payday 3? Well, it really is too early to comment on exactly how Payday 3 will be packaged and exactly when it will launch and so forth. Today we've just announced the Koch Media co-publishing deal with Starbreeze. Now these teams will start working together here at our respective companies to establish the best launch and the best strategy for PAYDAY 3 forward on the market. I think we'll have to come back to specific details about the game in the future. I hope I have, with that, answered all the questions we got through the emails as well. I thank you very much for your great interest this morning. What I can say to wrap this up, we have a really happy team here at Starbreeze today. The people here who, including myself, are playing PAYDAY 3 on a frequent basis. We are really excited about the time when we can finally then, in the future, show you what we're up to. For now, we're very happy with being able to start to work with our co-publishing partner and can announce that we have secured the publishing budget for PAYDAY 3. Tonight we're going to do some celebration here at the office, I am sure, through video conferencing, as you do these days. With that, thank you all for your time, and I look forward to speaking to you all in the future.
Loading workspace