Now that Saints Rows has released and was met with lukewarm reception, it stands at an average critic score of 64 on OpenCritic at this time. These numbers disappointed the Lars Wingefors, CEO of Embracer, who are the parent company of publisher Deep Silver and developer Volition.

Lars spoke during Embracer’s AGM where the polarizing response of Saints Row was discussed.

“Personally, I had hoped for a greater reception to the game,” Wingefors said. “It’s been very polarizing. There are a lot of things that could be said in detail around it, but I’m with one hand happy to see lots of gamers and fans happy, and at the same time I’m a bit sad to also see fans not happy, so it’s difficult.”

However, he did express that they should be patient with determining if the game is a success or not.

“I think we need to wait for the quarterly report in November to have more details around this,” he said. “We’re still fairly early in our release window and still collecting data, and there is also bug fixing and more content coming.”

He added, “On the financial side, I know, or I’m confident we will make money on the investment. Would it have as great a return on investment as we have seen in many other games? Not very likely, but we will make money, and that’s a very good starting point at least.”

Wingefors concluded with believing that the game will still become profitable down the line, though it will most definitely not be as big of a return of an investment as originally hoped for.

However he remains confident in the the Saints Row franchise despite the recent release’s poor reception. “Obviously you always want every installment of any IP to be greater than the last one,” he said.

When asked about the series’ future, Lars said: “And what you do is, this is quite a process to evaluate your position, the outcome, and there are hundreds of people engaged in this game within the group, so I still have a great trust in those people and I’m sure they will recommend things for the future.”