LogInDevelopers should stop chasing expectations.
Slavic Magic
Manor Lords was the most wishlisted game on Steam for a long time, so naturally, expectations were high despite the small size of the team developing it. Still, it left most people satisfied, considering its Very Positive reviews and around 10,000 concurrent players every day. This number, of course, can't be compared to the peak of 173,178 fans, but what game can keep up with its initial success?
While it could be said that any title is bound to be dropped after a while, Raphael van Lierop, the CEO of Hinterland (The Long Dark), thinks the hype could have been prolonged. On LinkedIn, he called Manor Lords "a pretty interesting case-study in the pitfalls of Early Access development when a game with a small team ... hits the reality of a hungry audience."
He criticized its lack of content and major updates, saying the developer and publisher should have been better prepared for the concurrent player numbers' fall.
"If you're about to launch a highly anticipated game on Early Access, have a clear content plan for the first three months of post-launch development! You need to release 2-3 major updates with new content and features (in addition to whatever hotfixes you need to roll out) within that timeframe, to keep people engaged and confident that the game will continue to evolve."
Slavic Magic
Lierop's post was not taken well by Manor Lords' publisher Hooded Horse. Its CEO Tim Bender released a similarly lengthy response, stating that the industry should stop endlessly chasing expectations and "move away from takes like [Lierop's]."
"Success should not create an ever raising bar of new growth expectations. Not every game should be aimed at becoming some live-service boom or bust. And a release should not begin an ever-accelerating treadmill on which devs are forced to run until their mental or physical health breaks down."
Bender said he had talked to Manor Lords' developer Greg Styczeń and warned him about "commenters talking about missed opportunities because he failed to grow as fast as they wanted." He advised him to focus on his vision and use the long Early Access road to realize it without any pressure from others' expectations.
It looks like Bender took Lierop's opinion to heart, and the game's fans joined, supporting Hooded Horse's CEO in the comments. Lierop, in turn, claimed that his words were misinterpreted as he is "deeply anti-crunch" and wanted to "suggest how new devs might avoid the risks of losing community momentum post-launch."
Slavic Magic
"The game's publisher took umbrage with my characterization, and turned it into an anti-corporate screed that somehow positioned me (?!) as a greedy corporate looking to milk what's good out of a developer. Anyone who knows me knows I'm about the most pro-dev developer around. The whole thing is absurd!" he shared in a new post.
Lierop said his comments had been removed by the publisher so he couldn't clarify his stance. He found the whole interaction "disappointing" as he was trying to help without hurting anyone's feelings. He reiterated that he was "pro-dev" and "anti-crunch" and suggested people read the words instead of "conveniently presenting an interpretation of those words that benefits them."
To me, both creators chose to focus on only one part of the whole situation and could have dialed it down a bit without generalizing. But what do you think? Whose side are you on?
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