LawBreakers‘ publisher Nexon has officially written the game off as a loss, bringing an end to hopes that developer Boss Key Productions would somehow be able to turn the fortunes of the FPS around.
In its Q3 2017 earnings report, Nexon stated that its earnings in North America had dropped as a result of LawBreakers‘ performance. “Our results in North America in the third quarter were below our outlook, mainly due to the sales from LawBreakers being below our expectations,” Nexon CFO Shiro Uemura said. “LawBreakers is a unique FPS developed for core users.”
While Nexon’s revenues were up by 36 percent overall, LawBreakers had a notable impact upon its bottom line. With the game struggling to reach even 50 concurrent players over the past few weeks, it has been a huge flop for everyone involved, with Nexon partially blaming PUBG for the difficulties it experienced in reaching an audience.
“We had very high expectations for its launch,” Uemura continued. “However, the timing of its launch turned out to be unfortunate, specifically the blockbuster PC online game PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds came out right about the same time, making the market environment very tough for first-person shooters in general and for LawBreakers.”
LawBreakers and PUBG‘s release dates didn’t coincide, with the former releasing in August 2017 while the latter went into Early Access in March. While PUBG has been a landmark success for PUBG, it’s questionable whether or not it could have had that much of an impact upon LawBreakers, or if Nexon is offering excuses for its investors. Either way, it’s a sad end for what was a promising FPS.
(H/T PCGamesN)
