Swedish games firm Starbreeze has reported an eight per cent increase in net sales for the three months ending September 2021.

The firm brought in SEK 34.7 million ($3.96 million) for the period, the majority of which – SEK 31.2 million ($3.56 million) came from the company's Payday IP. Starbreeze is slowly but surely bringing down its pre-tax losses, too. For the third quarter of 2021, these clocked in at SEK 7.98 million ($911,288), a decrease on SEK8.2 million ($935,726) it reported 12 months previous.

As mentioned earlier, Payday is still very much the cornerstone of Starbreeze's roster. The company reports that it has been averaging 823,000 monthly active users for 2021 to date, an increase on the 742,000 MAUs it clocked in the second half of 2020. Starbreeze also reports a high of 1,223,104 Payday 2 MAUs during the third quarter of this year, a figure which CEO Tobias Sjögren (pictured) says is a record for the title.

"This is the highest level since we started tracking the number of active players in Payday 2 and
200 000 more players than in the third quarter of 2020," he said.

"At the same time, we increased net sales on Steam, against a strong third quarter of the preceding year. Successful sales during Steam's summer sale made some contribution."

He continued: "Overall, we see continued strong growth for Payday 2 and on-track development of Payday 3. With the launch of our customer portal, we are working hard to create the best possible foundation for the successful launch of Payday 3 and other future games. The fact that we are continuing to improve our finance performance demonstrates the strength of our strategy and the skills of our team. We are continuing to work on delivering on our long-term goals: to create games where players can collaborate and take part in creating their gaming experience, and to create a basis for launching additional games in the future."