Paradox Interactive has faced significant challenges with recent game releases, leading to cancellations and delays. The company has now shared insights on how they plan to move forward, taking into account the valuable lessons learned from their player base.
Paradox Interactive Explains Recent Games' Cancellation and Delay
Players Have Expectations, and Some Technical Problems are Hard to Fix
In a recent interview with Rock Paper Shotgun during their Media Day, Mattias Lilja, CEO of Cities: Skylines 2 publisher Paradox Interactive, along with CCO Henrik Fahraeus, discussed the evolving expectations of gamers. Lilja highlighted that today's players have "higher expectations" and are "less trusting" that developers will resolve issues post-launch.
Reflecting on the troubled release of Cities: Skylines 2, Paradox Interactive is adopting a more thorough approach to addressing in-game issues. They believe that involving players earlier in the development process can significantly improve the final product. "If we could have brought players in to try it on a larger scale, that would have helped," Fahraeus remarked about Cities: Skylines 2. He also emphasized the importance of fostering "a larger degree of openness with players" before launching future titles.
In response to these insights, Paradox Interactive decided to indefinitely delay their jail management simulator, Prison Architect 2. Lilja expressed confidence in the gameplay, stating, "We're pretty confident that the gameplay [of Prison Architect 2] is good. But we had quality issues, which means to give the players the game they deserve, we decided to delay it." This delay contrasts with the cancellation of their life simulation game, Life By You, which was abandoned due to unmet demands. Lilja clarified that the delay of Prison Architect 2 stemmed from not being able to maintain the desired development pace, rather than the kind of challenges that led to Life By You's cancellation.
Lilja explained, "So it's not the same kind of bucket of challenges that we had with Life By You, which led to cancellation. It's more that we haven't been able to keep the pace that we wanted." He added that certain issues were "harder to fix than we thought" during peer reviews and user testing.
For Prison Architect 2, the primary issue is "mostly certain technical issues rather than design," according to Lilja. He emphasized the need to ensure the game reaches a "technically high-quality enough for a stable release." He also noted that fans, facing a squeezed budget for games, have higher expectations and are less willing to accept post-launch fixes.
Lilja described the gaming industry as a "winner-takes-all type of environment," where players are quick to abandon games that don't meet their expectations. He observed, "and this is even more pronounced now, [during] maybe the last two years. That's at least what we read from our games, and also from others in the market."
The launch of Cities: Skylines 2 was marred by severe issues, leading to a fan backlash that prompted both Paradox Interactive and developer Colossal Order to apologize and propose a "fan feedback summit." The game's first paid DLC was also delayed due to performance problems. Meanwhile, Life By You was canceled earlier this year as further development was deemed insufficient to meet the standards expected by both Paradox and its community. Lilja admitted that some problems were not fully understood by the team, stating, "that's totally on us."
