South Of Midnight Director Says He Doesn't Think Xbox Should Have Funded It
Sears says Xbox backed the game for prestige and cultural impact, even though he and Microsoft expected it to lose money.
- Now independent from Microsoft, Compulsion Games is seeking new collaborative partners as creative director David Sears recently questioned the financial viability of South of Midnight.
- Xbox funded South of Midnight and Double Fine's Keeper as prestige projects, intending them as cultural cornerstones despite knowing they would likely not generate significant profit.
- Sears warned development teams that "the money tap" would close, predicting "traumatic results" downstream, and described the project's financial outcome as "shocking" in hindsight.
- Microsoft is "more humane" than companies from earlier decades, Sears concluded, as the corporation allowed Compulsion Games to spin off rather than shutting the studio down.
- Future projects for Compulsion Games will likely be "very, very different" from South of Midnight or 2018's Happy Few, as the studio seeks new collaborative partners.
17 Articles
17 Articles
'There's Always a Night When Rome Burns' — South of Midnight Creative Director Would Have Turned Off Xbox 'Money Tap' Earlier, Says Funding Was 'Unsustainable'
David Sears, creative director of South of Midnight, said in a recent interview that he was always worried about the previous era of Xbox's infamous development funding "money tap," and admitted he would probably have turned it off earlier.
South of Midnight’s creator opens up about Xbox funding – he would not have risked his own money
Without Xbox’s earlier willingness to finance riskier ideas, South of Midnight probably would never have been made. Creative director David Sears is deeply grateful for Microsoft’s backing, but admits he would not have invested his own money in the project. The post South of Midnight’s creator opens up about Xbox funding – he would not have risked his own money appeared first on theGeek.games.
He said that he had questioned the long-term sustainability of the Xbox financing model from the beginning. In his view, the large corporation was sooner or later starting to reduce the least profitable business. Sirs, who had left the Collection Games in March 2025, noted in an interview with MinnMax that Microsoft had financed many studios and games.
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