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Payday 3 confirmed, Payday 2 ditches microtransactions

Crime does pay.

In a press release announcing Swedish studio Starbreeze has bought the full rights to the Payday franchise, Payday 3 was confirmed.

Starbreeze's agreement with publisher 505 Games for Payday includes a note about money made from Payday 3.

The note says 505 gets a 33 per cent revenue share of Starbreeze's net revenues from future sales of Payday 3, capped at $40m (around £27m), and after Starbreeze has fully recouped its development and marketing costs.

That's all we have on Payday 3, unfortunately. There's no word yet on a release window, platforms or features.

Starbreeze gets full net revenue from Payday 2 on Steam, however. Money made by the console version (Payday 2: Crimewave Edition) will continue to be split between the companies as before.

Starbreeze bought the rights to the game for $30m (£20m), adding an installed base of 14 million users.

Starbreeze boss Bo Andersson Klint said developer Overkill, which it owns, will continue to support Payday 2 for at least another 18 months. That takes players through until the end of 2017.

Meanwhile, in an update on Payday 2's Steam page, Overkill said it was making the game's black market free for everyone going forward. That means it's ditched the controversial microtransactions that angered the community earlier this year. Overkill explains how it works in the video below.

Watch on YouTube