Embracer Group CEO Lars Wingefors has acknowledged that he's disappointed with the reception to the Saints Row reboot, though he hopes that ongoing bug fixes and upcoming content updates will help to push the game to a successful financial future.
"I think I stated before the release that we were confident in the financial profile of the investment," Wingefors said in a Q&A session at Embracer Group's annual general meeting. "Obviously, personally I had hoped for a greater reception of the game. It's been a very polarized view. There is a lot of things that could be said in detail around it. But on one hand I'm happy to see a lot of gamers and fans happy. At the same time, I'm a bit sad to see lots of fans not happy. It's difficult.
"I think we need to wait for the quarterly report in November to have more details around this. We are still fairly early in our release window, and still collecting data. There's a lot of bug fixing, and there is more content coming."
When talking about the business perspective of releasing Saints Row, Wingefors had a bit of an awkward pause. "On the financial side, I know… or I'm confident we will make money on the investment. Will it have as great return of investment that we have seen in many other games? Not very likely. But we will make money, and that's a very good starting point, at least."
Fans have been worried that the buggy launch of the new Saints Row would spell the end of the franchise, but when asked about what the reception of the new Saints Row means for the future of the series, Wingefors did not have a concrete response.
"You know, obviously, you always want every installment of any IP to be greater than the last one. This is quite a process, to evaluate your position, the outcome. There is hundreds of people engaged in this game within the group. So I still have great trust in those people, and I'm sure they will recommend things for the future."
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