Starbreeze‘s situation looks more and more hopeless…
Last week, Starbreeze was mentioned several times, and they are now in dire financial straits due to The Walking Dead‘s underperformance on PC. A Swedish site, Expressen, reports that Sweden’s Economic Crime Authority (ECO) has held a razzia at Starbreeze‘s headquarters, and they arrested an employee, too.
Dagens Industri adds that the incident is related to „gross insider crimes,” which means someone at Starbreeze might have performed insider trading, which is why there was an arrest. (And Ubisoft’s Canadian arm also suffered from insider trading in the past few years.)
According to the known information about the razzia, the authorities have seized computers and documents. The timing is suspicious, though: Starbreeze already requested at Stockholm’s courts to be reorganised, although the company collaborated with the ECO. They claim the company (who might lose their previously confirmed publishing deals for Psychonauts 2 and System Shock 3!) is not affected by the potential crime.
If the insider trading becomes confirmed, Starbreeze is likely to go down with it – they are already on their knees, and they probably wouldn’t survive another blow at the moment.
Source: GamesIndustry
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