Remedy CEO steps down, two weeks after it issued a profit warning due to FBC: Firebreak’s “weak sales”
Tero Virtala has stepped down from the CEO role “with immediate effect”
Remedy Entertainment has announced that CEO Tero Virtala has left his role “with immediate effect”.
In a statement to investors, the company explained that Virtala and the board of directors had “mutually agreed that Tero Virtala will step down from his position as the company’s CEO with immediate effect”.
Virtala was appointed CEO in August 2016, and will now “continue at the service of the company” during a transition period where he will help with the handover of duties to the new CEO.
Remedy co-founder Markus Mäki has been appointed as interim CEO until a permanent replacement can be found, and will step down from his role as Chairman of the Board as a result.
“I want to thank Tero Virtala for his substantial contribution to the management of Remedy since 2016,” Mäki said in a statement. “I personally thank Tero for good cooperation and wish him all the best for the future.”
Although the statement doesn’t specify the exact reason why Virtala is no longer Remedy CEO, the announcement does come just 12 days after the company issued a profit warning to shareholders due to “weak sales” of FBC: Firebreak.
The PvE first-person shooter, which is set in the Control universe, is Remedy’s first full multiplayer game. When it was released in June, Remedy reported that launch sales had underperformed, but committed to improving the game based on player feedback.
However, in its profit warning earlier this month the company warned investors that sales of the game had still not reached its internal targets, and that it was lowering its outlook for its current business year as a result, with a hit of around €14.9 million expected.
As a result of the profit warning, the Alan Wake and Max Payne studio has now changed its outlook for the current business year from expecting a revenue and operating profit increase, to expecting operating profit to be negative.
According to SteamDB, FBC: Firebreak got off to a modest start on Steam, hitting a peak of around 2,000 concurrent players at launch. In the 12 days since Remedy’s profit warning, the game has failed to hit a peak of more than 100 players, and in the past week that number has stayed permanently below 50.
