{"id":4730,"date":"2026-11-03T11:25:34","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T10:25:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.goranked.gg\/en\/news\/south-of-midnight-director-might-not-have-funded-it\/"},"modified":"2026-11-03T11:25:34","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T10:25:34","slug":"south-of-midnight-director-might-not-have-funded-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/goranked.gg\/en\/news\/south-of-midnight-director-might-not-have-funded-it\/","title":{"rendered":"South of Midnight Director Says He Might Not Fund It"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">David Sears, creative director of Compulsion Games\u2019 South of Midnight, said he probably would not have approved funding for the game if he had been in charge of Xbox. He described the company\u2019s spending under its previous leadership as unsustainable in hindsight.<\/p><p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sears recalled warning colleagues that Xbox\u2019s funding approach could have severe consequences for studios and projects. He said someone could eventually close the \u201cmoney tap,\u201d producing \u201creally traumatic results downstream.\u201d<\/p><p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When asked whether he would have ended the spending earlier, Sears replied, \u201cYeah, probably.\u201d He said he wanted to make South of Midnight, but acknowledged that he likely would have stopped funding other projects before reaching his own. \u201cI\u2019m not completely selfless,\u201d he said.<\/p><p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">South of Midnight was released in April 2025 and received positive reviews. Microsoft has not released sales figures. SteamDB records an all-time peak of 1,438 concurrent players for the PC version. The figure excludes players who accessed the game through Xbox Game Pass, where it was available from launch.<\/p><p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A PlayStation 5 version was released later. Compulsion Games was one of four Microsoft-owned studios that the company parted ways with in July as part of a restructuring under Xbox CEO Asha Sharma.<\/p><p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sears\u2019 comments followed remarks from Double Fine Productions in a documentary. Members of the studio described presenting Microsoft with a project they considered difficult to approve and being surprised when the company agreed to fund it. The project became Keeper, which did not achieve major commercial success. Double Fine was also among the studios Microsoft parted ways with in July.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Compulsion Games creative director David Sears said he probably would not have approved South of Midnight if he had led Xbox during its previous spending period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-title":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-description":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-title":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[19,20],"class_list":["post-4730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest","tag-pc-gaming-news","tag-playstation-news"],"newsroom_tags":[{"id":19,"title":"PC Gaming","slug":"pc-gaming-news"},{"id":20,"title":"PlayStation","slug":"playstation-news"}],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- 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