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The Cities Skylines Paradox: how the sequel stumbled

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Re: The Cities Skylines Paradox: how the sequel stumbled

#31

Post by master-lincoln »

hypeatei wrote: post #16
gyomu wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Development teams are expensive to fund, and people who have bought a game will pay full price for a sequel, but won’t pay full price for updates/DLC. And releasing a sequel gets you hype and press coverage - potentially expanding your customer base - in a way that releasing updates won’t. There are some exceptions (No Man’s Sky?) but they are very few and far between.

> will pay full price for a sequel, but won’t pay full price for updates/DLC. I'm not sure this is true, see Factorio as an example. They released Space Age as a "DLC" but for full price and with clear messaging that it's version 2.0 of the game.

To claim Factorio Space Age as counter example would require to show that it was as successful as DLC as it would have been as a new game. Probably not easy to show...

Re: The Cities Skylines Paradox: how the sequel stumbled

#32

Post by anon191928 »

dfxm12 wrote: post #23
voidUpdate wrote: post #3

I still don't know why we needed a sequel... Couldn't they just keep working on the original game, which already worked really well and lots of people loved? I had similar feelings about kerbal space program, but at least there it's somewhat understandable, given the jank that crept in over time

You can only sell a game once. Once you have your customers' money, you've achieved your goal. What else is there to do? DLC has a hard cap on your possible sales... You could work on a totally new game, but, I think companies are looking to cut costs by reusing content.

or you go "online" and milk customers for decade? yeah that is done by Rockstar.

Re: The Cities Skylines Paradox: how the sequel stumbled

#33

Post by stetrain »

voidUpdate wrote: post #19
zamadatix wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both could definitely have used a completely updated engine at the very least (not just graphics, but scaling/capabilities around the core gameplay had grown quite a bit beyond what made sense originally), which would enable a lot of things which weren't as feasible in the original games, but it's hard to do that kind of reset and match 10 years of building and tweaking on the original. Hopefully KSA (Kitten Space Ag…

As far as I remember, KSP did keep pretty on top of engine updates. And I never thought the graphics were that bad, TBH. Sure, its not raytraced to hell and back, but I thought it looked just fine. However, there was a lot of physics jankery that never really got fixed (the kraken likes to eat complicated ships), and it did have performance issues in some areas. I think the community kinda wanted multiplayer and colo…

There isn't much of a business model in paying developers for a year for updates that won't generate more revenue.

If I told my boss that I wanted to spend 12 months refactoring our entire system in ways that would benefit our existing customers (who have paid once and won't ever pay again) but likely result in no additional revenue being generated, I doubt that project would be green-lit.

Re: The Cities Skylines Paradox: how the sequel stumbled

#34

Post by jjk166 »

gyomu wrote: post #7
voidUpdate wrote: post #3

I still don't know why we needed a sequel... Couldn't they just keep working on the original game, which already worked really well and lots of people loved? I had similar feelings about kerbal space program, but at least there it's somewhat understandable, given the jank that crept in over time

Development teams are expensive to fund, and people who have bought a game will pay full price for a sequel, but won’t pay full price for updates/DLC. And releasing a sequel gets you hype and press coverage - potentially expanding your customer base - in a way that releasing updates won’t. There are some exceptions (No Man’s Sky?) but they are very few and far between.

People will pay for DLC what the DLC is worth, which should in theory be directly proportional to how much effort it makes to produce the DLC. 4 small $20 expansions could be much more lucrative than an $80 new game which needs to not only include those changes but also make the rest of a functional (and presumably higher quality than the original) game.

Re: The Cities Skylines Paradox: how the sequel stumbled

#35

Post by zamadatix »

voidUpdate wrote: post #19
zamadatix wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both could definitely have used a completely updated engine at the very least (not just graphics, but scaling/capabilities around the core gameplay had grown quite a bit beyond what made sense originally), which would enable a lot of things which weren't as feasible in the original games, but it's hard to do that kind of reset and match 10 years of building and tweaking on the original. Hopefully KSA (Kitten Space Ag…

As far as I remember, KSP did keep pretty on top of engine updates. And I never thought the graphics were that bad, TBH. Sure, its not raytraced to hell and back, but I thought it looked just fine. However, there was a lot of physics jankery that never really got fixed (the kraken likes to eat complicated ships), and it did have performance issues in some areas. I think the community kinda wanted multiplayer and colo…

> As far as I remember, KSP did keep pretty on top of engine updates. And I never thought the graphics were that bad, TBH. Sure, its not raytraced to hell and back, but I thought it looked just fine. However, there was a lot of physics jankery that never really got fixed

This is what I mean by engine updates that aren't just about graphics but the scaling/capabilities around the core gameplay. Updating Unity again or adding raytracing graphics wouldn't have fixed the actual problems with the rest of the engine.

Re: The Cities Skylines Paradox: how the sequel stumbled

#36

Post by bluetidepro »

> The Paradox Mods platform will remain the only officially supported mod hub, so deep code mods akin to CS1’s may never return.

As someone else pointed out, this is false. I have also created mods for both CS2/CS1 and I would even say it's the opposite. In my opinion, CS2 allows for even deeper code mods because they have mod tooling built right into the game unlike CS1. The host of the mods (Steam Workshop vs Paradox Mods) doesn't change anything related to mod capabilities.

> ...its long-time partner Colossal Order announced a quiet but monumental shift.

Ah yes, "quiet", like how it's been posted on every CS2 social media account, and blasted in every possible space of CS2. Haha Absolutely nothing "quiet" about it.

Re: The Cities Skylines Paradox: how the sequel stumbled

#37

Post by scrollaway »

voidUpdate wrote: post #9
gyomu wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Development teams are expensive to fund, and people who have bought a game will pay full price for a sequel, but won’t pay full price for updates/DLC. And releasing a sequel gets you hype and press coverage - potentially expanding your customer base - in a way that releasing updates won’t. There are some exceptions (No Man’s Sky?) but they are very few and far between.

Well ok, I know "value to shareholders" is a good enough reason for some people... I guess I'm not thinking capitalistically enough about stuff

I don’t want to harp on as you had a couple answers on this already but if you need to pay your devs, what is your suggested alternative to “having money in the bank”? The latter only happens with more sales, and that only happens if you have something to sell.

Re: The Cities Skylines Paradox: how the sequel stumbled

#39

Post by TylerE »

bob1029 wrote: post #14

> The engine lacked occlusion culling and relied on high-resolution shadow maps, causing “an innumerable number of draw calls”. The engine does not lack or cause these things. The fact that the developers chose the HDRP pipeline for this game should be the most obvious dead bird in the entire coal mine. These games should be running on URP without question. We don't need advanced lighting systems in a top down city b…

Cities skyline is not top down. It’s a fully three d environment

Re: The Cities Skylines Paradox: how the sequel stumbled

#40

Post by ndriscoll »

stetrain wrote: post #30
voidUpdate wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well ok, I know "value to shareholders" is a good enough reason for some people... I guess I'm not thinking capitalistically enough about stuff

Even before you get to "value to shareholders" you have to actually pay your developer salaries to update the game. Where does that money come from when you're updating a game that's been on the market for 10 years and sales of new copies have tapered off? Free major updates make your existing customers happy but don't pay salaries. This is why so many games have moved to some kind of ongoing revenue model with Battl…

This is one reason why we should either cut back copyright to more like 10-15 years and require source escrow (so public domain materials can come with source) to obtain copyright, or just require all computer programs come with source code as part of consumer protection laws. Then people can fix the engine themselves, or find a way to fund someone to do it.

Or just eliminate copyright entirely and focus on economic models that are based on funding creation. You raise money to build the thing, and once it's built, it's there for all.

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