Cities: Skylines 2 Publisher: Fans Are Less Accepting You Will Fix Things Over Time
I wonder why.
Paradox Interactive
Cities: Skylines 2's publisher Paradox Interactive hasn't had it easy lately, with its Sims competitor Life by You canceled and Prison Architect 2 delayed. But perhaps it's for the best because when it does release games, they are sometimes not what players expect.
The most obvious example of this is Cities: Skylines 2, which launched with tons of issues, criticized left and right – so much so that its developer Colossal Order asked the community to be less toxic. When the game's first DLC was released, it was so poorly received that Colossal Order apologized and issued refunds.
Speaking about it with Rock Paper Shotgun, Paradox Interactive's deputy chief executive officer Mattias Lilja admitted that while the company knew the release of the base game would have some problems, it didn't expect to see that many. Chief creative officer Henrik Fåhraeus added that the team underestimated players' reactions. This taught it to try to be more open with fans from early on.
Now, the company is more aware of players' levels of tolerance toward imperfections.
"It's also based on the fact that we, in all transparency, see that fans right now, with a squeezed budget for games, have higher expectations, and are less accepting that you will fix things over time," Lilja said. "That's our take. The gaming space has always been the winner-takes-all type of environment. A few games bring in most of the players, and most games are dropped quite quickly, and this is even more pronounced now, [during] maybe the last two years."
Paradox Interactive
Hopefully, this means we will see fewer sloppy games in the future, and studios partnering with Paradox Interactive will spend more time testing their games on real players.
What do you think about Cities: Skylines 2? Read the interview here and join our 80 Level Talent platform and our Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Reddit, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.
