Boss Key’s Cliff Bleszinski: LawBreakers Is ‘A Marathon Not A Sprint’, Press Can ‘Fuck Off’

LawBreakers continues its downward spiral a month after Boss Key Productions revealed their plans to reformulate the game’s marketing strategy. Over the last 30 days, the game has averaged around 130 concurrent players, that’s a 29% decline from last month’s average player count.

In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Boss Key Co-Founder Cliff Bleszinski reiterates that the game’s growth is “a marathon not a sprint”, and that all they have to do is maintain a viable playerbase and keep “enough” players hooked. Bleszinski also believes that the media seems to be fixated on the game’s failures which the co-founder had a few “choice” words about.

“They're just looking for clicks, man. They're just looking for ad revenue. We're going to keep doing what we're doing, and they're welcome to print whatever they want - but as far as I'm concerned, they can fuck off. We're going to keep making our game for our fans.”

In spite of the media’s apparent “negativity”, Bleszinksi says that there are still hardcore fans of the game that they can build on. “Everyone who's played it loves it,” he says. “You look at the Steam reviews and we're damn near 90% positive.”

“Players are so used to games coming out and being abandoned. If you can have that core group of fans that you continue to reward, that feel like they were early enough so that as you grow it they become almost these high priests that evangelise the game to other people - it's all part of that slow growth.”

Co-founder Arjan Brusee is also fairly optimistic about the game’s future, citing CS: GO’s relatively slow start. “CS:GO's user numbers were pretty flat for almost two years, and the moment they started doing crates and trading, or when they started doing competitive esports for real, it took off,” says Brusee. “I'm not saying we have the solution yet, but those are the things we're looking at now to build it up over time.”

Boss Key’s first order of business? Ditching the ominous Deadzo symbol in their marketing campaigns and leading with a more lovable character like Sunshine the Harrier. Bleszinksi also says that they will be targeting the 30-40 age demographic to help spread the word about the game and that he’s convinced there’s a space for LawBreakers in the shooter market. “When it comes to character-based shooters, I've always said there's room for three, maybe four and I'm hoping we can start beginning to crack into that space,” he says. “I want to carve out my space and be Pepsi or RC Cola of that market - I'm not going to be Coke because Overwatch has too much of a stranglehold.”

Boss Key is staying true to its promise of continually developing and supporting LawBreakers for its fans. The studio recently rolled out a massive content drop called the All-Star Update which features two new maps and a new ranked competitive mode called Boss Leagues. You’ll find the official update trailer below and the All-Star Dev Update right down below.