Summary
Despite selling nearly two million copies, theSaints Rowreboot was deemed such a failure thatEmbracer completely shut down Volitionafter 30 years. Publisher Deep Silver claimed thatthe series, and Red Faction, would “live on"despite the studio’s closure, but that seems increasingly unlikely.
Saber Interactive CEO Matthew Karch had some choice words for the Saints Row franchise and, more broadly, Volition. “They were so expensive for what they were,” Karch said in an interview withGame File(viaGamesRadar). “They didn’t know what they were building. They didn’t have any real direction. It couldn’t last. And so, who’s going to fund them for the next game after that disaster?”
Saints Row Reboot Was A “Disaster”, Says Saber Interactive CEO
The “disaster” in question seems to be the reboot, which was thenumber one game in the UK boxed chartsat launch, selling five times the number of copies that spin-off Agents of Mayhem did, even competing with Sony flagshipHorizon Forbidden West.
A former Volition community manager, Tyrin Stevenson, lateralleged that it sold 1.7 million copies. While that’s the lowest figure in the series, it far exceeds Agents of Mayhem’s mere 300,000 sales. However, due to its reported $100 million budget, 1.7 million sales simply didn’t cut it.
“It would be nice in an ideal world for everyone to have a job,” Karch said. “But games with nine-figure budgets are making eight figures in revenue and that’s dooming a lot of developers. The days of throwing money at games other than maybe the GTAs of the world is over. It’s over. This business needs to mature. If it doesn’t, the whole business is in trouble. Unfortunately, that means layoffs.”
Saints Row’s fate is now in the hands of Plaion, but with the reboot labelled a “disaster” and the enormous budget of the last game looming overhead, I wouldn’t hold my breath if you were waiting for the series to return.
