"Obviously, we made a wrong decision on several projects, and this situation must be changed."
July this year, Swedish gameFredrik Wester, CEO of Paradox, pointed this in the companys financial report.Faced with the failure of the new game and the cancellation of several projects, Paradox hopes to communicate with players in a frank and transparent way. The company will also re -focus on its best field -strategy game.
In the past 12 months, the P agency encountered a series of setbacks.In October last year, the strategy game "The Lamplights League" caused the company to suffer $ 22 million in economic losses; about 1 month later, "City: Skyline 2" was deeply plagued by performance optimization.Forced to postpone the release of DLC.In January of this year, P News on Double Eleven, the developer of "Prison Architect 2", parted ways, and soon announced that the work would be postponed indefinitely.By June, they suddenly canceled the "Life By You" -like "Sims" game "Life By You" and closed the R & D Studio.
Where are the problems with these projects?How do I plan to solve it?In the recent communication with the media, Mettias Lilja, deputy CEO, and creative director Henrik Föhraeus, talked about why the new project of the company encountered frustration succession.And actively carry out the logic behind strategic adjustment.
"Lantern League", a game that has announced commercial death after listing
" We were too confident when we set up the project, and invested too much of funds in the early days. "Lilia said," This has led to the project team too huge from the beginning.. We have invested so much, do we really need to stop now? Should we persist for a while and see what else can I do?The front was pulled too long.EssenceFahrez added that sometimes manufacturers can realize that there is a defect in a certain concept early, but you have gone too far. I hope that the shortcomings can be supplemented on the basis of the original basis, or the project is promoted in another direction.At this time, the development team must figure out how long it takes to repair the problem and how much costs need to be invested for this.In the recently abandoned project, "Life By You" is a very typical example.This is a life simulation game that deviates from the core of the P agency. It takes a long time to polish it well."We trust the development team very much. I thought that we could achieve our goals as long as we gave it more time. But in the end, we realized that it would only be worse to continue, so we had to stop." Lilia revealed.
"In fact, many flaws are very obvious." Fahrez said, "As the release date of the first experience version is getting closer, we try to concentrate on solving each one.The problem found that it was too late.Rezs saying, although "Life by You" provides players with rich custom functions, the game itself is insufficient.From the perspective of development, all the problems in the game can be repaired, but the P agency also needs to consider time and financial costs."Once the players first impression of the game is not good enough, it will be difficult to change it in the future. Some times, the first experience is useful, but you must ensure that you can provide users with a very solid experience."
If they first plan "Life By You", they will have to compete with "Sims 4" and KRAFtons new "Inzoi" that will have to continue to operate with EA.Fahrez emphasized that people will definitely compare horizontally."We must bring some new things to players, and make people feel better than existing games ... This is the problem. To achieve this goal, it takes too much time to spend."
"Life by You" in time stops loss, which may be the optimal solution for everyone
Lilia acknowledged that the current situation of P agency was not very good.When asked how the company intends to reverse the situation, he responded: "What we have to do now is to start from a young age and listen to the players opinions as soon as possible. The most important thing is to adhere to the core and no longer deviate from the track we are good at.Get honest feedback as soon as possible, we will conduct a wider and earlier peer review.The more the project risk and investment scale. The farther the project is from our core track, the lower the investment should be."We are best at developing strategic simulation games, and we need to continue to maintain a leading advantage on this segment track." Inside the company, PCA uses the "alice" letters to outline the characteristics of its project. TheseFeatures include encouraging players to play with energy, real world, invital, testing intelligence, and endless experience.
"We must provide players with what they want and do our best to provide the best experience, which means that they need to communicate with players as soon as possible." Fahrez said"We will make the game director and other members of the development team interact with players, even if this may make some people feel uncomfortable." The P agency was good at it through Tinto Talks (a blog produced by the team of P agencies, showing the work content of the work content) and otherSimilar channels come to communicate with players, but Fahrez admits that the company has gradually deviated from the direction in this regard, and it has become worse and worse."So you need to go back to the right track. Remember that we are also players, and we should make games that the target audience likes to play."
Lyia believes that for P agency, communication is communication, communication, communication, communicationIt is the key to satisfying core fans, and it is also the reason why the company can achieve success with the "stars", "Victoria" and "King of Crusaders"."The game is like a painting, we don’t know when to complete the creation. Players can tell us what they want us to continue to develop the game, or what are not fun enough."
Pravis Vice President Mattias Lilia (Figure Left) and creative director Hendrick Fahrez (Figure Right)
But a more urgent question may be: Why should players believe in P agency?After all, this is not the first time that the P agency has canceled the project or suffered economic losses, and it intends to win the trust of the players again?
"I understand, the text may make people feel pale and weak." Lilia pointed out, "The facts are better than the argument, and we hope to use practical actions to fulfill their promises. If a project belongs toThe companys core category, even if we make mistakes and released a game that may not meet the standard, we have the ability to polish it and we will not stop, and we will not give up those projects.It can prove that we know what the players want, and it can definitely meet the needs of players.Performance -related issues have been widely criticized, but over time, the P agency has been improving this game.Fahrez revealed that the Colossal Order is currently developing the asset editor of "City: Skyline 2" in order to attract more new players to enter the game."We hope to encourage creativity and participate in the creation of the game. This is a key component of the companys core concept. I think this is not a new thing, but more like a return. I also hope that people will look at it in this way."
At the same time, although the P agency has delayed the release time of" Prison Architect 2 "indefinitely and parted ways with the studio responsible for the project, this game is still still responsibleContinue development."It will not cancel." Fahrez said. "" Prison Architect 2 "is not short of interest, but there is still a UI and BUG problem. We hope to ensure that the game can achieve the expectations of players in these aspects.It is necessary to provide more time for the development team, rather than the urgent semi -finished product that will be considered not perfect and lack of polishing.Same.Unlike "City: Skyline 2" and "Prison Architect 2", this game developed by The Chinese Room is not a category that P agencies are good at, but according to Faheres, it is the companys aim to expand the categoryProduct of old strategy."This is likely to be the last game we released under that strategy. It is a alien, too far from our core track. In any case, we still want to work hard to launch a good game.It is undoubtedly a difficult task.Pre -order rewards will also be added to the game body
Lilia added, and the company has also undergone some changes.In 2021, the media reported the "silent culture" of P agency: according to a exposed internal questionnaire survey, the Swedish publisher existed in "bullying and gender discrimination", and employees were also suffered by an executive.sexual harassment.Today, the P society is conducting internal investigations on a regular basis, allowing employees to say their own thoughts anonymously."We never avoid the problem, whether they are related to game development, or workplace compression, bullying, or other problems."
is similar to the development of the game.Discover internal problems as early as possible and correct it."Compared with the past, employees are more confident in our way of dealing with internal problems." At the same time, P agency also hopes to work hard to achieve gender equality in salary, and also provide employees with prevents bullying and anti -harassment training every month.
At the moment of layoffs that swept the game industry, many manufacturers, including P agencies, are experiencing a cruel and turbulent period, but Lilia emphasizes that he is full of the future of the company.confidence."Everything will pass, I am convinced of this. Many things happen at the same time, making people feel tremendous. Players have less money at hand. If they trust you and are willing to spend money to buy your game, then you must never take youIn the other hand, some of them are often invested in the project, but the results are not so good.Views of the AI.Fahrez said that although the company will use AI for conceptual design, he still appreciates the value of human creation compared with the content generated by AI.Lilia pointed out that the development team can use AI as a tool when constructing a prototype, but the generation AI is not an important part of the game.In a game, the creation of almost all content requires real people."Even if the ethical issues that the generatory AI may involve may not be considered, at least at this stage, it still has no particularly large impact."
From the statement of the two executives,The P agency seems to be making the right voice to soothe the players: manufacturers hope to strengthen transparent communication with players, focus on developing and distributing their best strategy games, and to continuously improve the companys internal culture.Of course, they also need to consider other long -term issues, such as continuous rising game development costs, increasingly long R & D cycles, and how to compete with other popular games for players.Fahrez said that he will deeply learn the lesson of "Life By You" and try to avoid being dragged into the mud by these issues.
"What we need to calculate is that how many players are willing to take that step compared to" Simulation Life 4 "to try our game." Fahrez said"Any new product has to compete with the overlords of the market segment. Over time, competition has become more and more cruel. Old brands have obvious advantages. If new brands want to enter the market, it will only become increasingly becoming moreThe harder it is. I think the only way is to launch high -quality games because the winner eats.ID = "35ado70k"> Original title: "Paradox Must Refocus to Rebuild Trust and Survive, Bosses Say, after Life by You Cancellation"
Original Author: ED Nig htingale
