Shift UP CEO Hyung-Tae Kim has spoken in regards to the troubles confronted throughout Stellar Blade’s growth, together with doubts from traders in regards to the sport’s capacity to interrupt even, and quickly depleting funds to pay employees with.
Talking to Korean gaming outlet Inven (translated into English with Google Translate), Kim mentioned: “Through the growth of Stellar Blade there was a time when the corporate was in a state of affairs the place it might solely pay salaries for about three months.”
Kim went on to clarify that Shift Up visited numerous traders to safe monetary assist for Stellar Blade’s growth, solely to be informed it was too dangerous. Many requested why they had been making the sport when “it was apparent it could not break even”, and Kim claimed he was informed that in the event that they pursued a special mission the corporate could be valued extra.
Kim had his personal doubts on the time, apparently.”There have been instances after I questioned whether or not it was actually proper to make a sport like this in Korea,” he mentioned. “Nevertheless, we by some means managed to develop it to the tip, and it was the customers’ selections that proved the trail we had chosen was not fallacious.”
Fortunately for Kim and Shift Up, Stellar Blade proved fairly the success. Whereas actual console figures are unknown, it offered tens of millions of copies on PS5 and later was a record-breaking launch on PC, breaking 1m gross sales inside three days. Shift Up is presently engaged on the sequel Stellar Blade: Blood Rain, which has but to obtain a launch date.
It is a good story, particularly given the broader context of South Korea’s rising presence within the triple-A growth house in recent times. One other Korean developer that additionally discovered massive success lately was Pearl Abyss, with Crimson Desert, which offered exceptionally properly as properly.