South of Midnight director David Sears has expressed criticism of Xbox's funding strategy for non-mainstream titles, stating that he wouldn't have funded the game if he was in Xbox's position. He believes that the plan was unsustainable and destined to fail due to the nature of big companies cutting the least profitable parts of their business.
Sears cited the 'Cassandra complex', where someone accurately predicts a problem but their warnings are ignored, saying that he was hopeful for South of Midnight's success but believed that Microsoft would eventually stop funding it. He praised Microsoft for giving Compulsion Games the chance to go indie again instead of shutting it down, citing its previous acquisition and closure of Ensemble studio in 2001 and 2009 respectively.