Is the game getting canceled?

[Lys91]

There have not been any words from the devs in a very long time.

They only announced a small hotfix patch without answering any players' questions afterward (though they may be again communicating through some other channel other than the forum that I am not aware of).

The region packs haven't done much for player count in the long run (if anything it is lower than it was a year ago). CS1 has roughly twice the number of players and more than it had a year ago (though it is going down following a parallel trajectory to CS2). The paid DLC for CS1 attracked more players than free content for CS2. Sales on CS1 attracted more players than those on CS2.

Should the further decrease in communication be interpreted as things shutting down behind the scene? The state of the game and the engagement with the community is honestly depressing.

If that's not the case, could we have an update on what is coming and the work being done? Ideally not something about "working on the console release". I am not sure there is many people left that interact with the forum that care about this. Given the apathy the game is building on PC, it is not even clear how much a console release would sell. I am obviously not in the know nor a business expert, but I don't see a huge crowd waiting with trepidation for CS2 to finally release on their favorit game platform. I would personally love for an *honest* breakdown of the features that are working as intented and the one that are being fixed. When I play the game I am in constent state of perplexity: 1/ is this broken? 2/ is something happening the UI/tool don't let me understand; 3/ am I doing something wrong? I honestly don't want new content, I just want to feel that was is there is working + significant performance improvement.

CLARIFICATION: I would not blame PDX or CO if they decided to cut their loss at this point. I obviously don't know how things look from their side, but from a player perspective there does not seem to be any light at the end of the tunnel.

 

[nnnitram]

Obviously no one can tell the future, but in my opinion most likely they will meet their obligations from the pre-orders then drop the game. There just isn't anything here to salvage.

The Paradox annual report should come out in the next week or two. They have been pretty cagey about talking about CO / CS2 in their interim reports but the annual report should have more detail. It will show us how much CS2 fell short and Paradox might have something to say about how the future of their relationship with CO looks. Paradox have been dropping a fair amount of dead weight recently and it wouldn't surprise me at all to see them drop CO, or renegotiate the relationship.

You can find Paradox reports here.

 

[Civ5rako]

Obviously no one can tell the future, but in my opinion most likely they will meet their obligations from the pre-orders then drop the game. There just isn't anything here to salvage.

I agree with you.

They will try hard to deliver what they are obliged to deliver in the first half of this year. There is the missing content of the Ultimate Edition, and supposedly they are still bound to deliver the consoles versions (although I wouldn't count on the fact that they still have to do that).

If they will deliver the consoles versions it will depend on their success, I guess.
Given what we can observe from the outside (no news at all), I don't count on it being a huge success though which means I expect PDX to pull the plug at July 1st.

Taking into account that the unexpected new DLC for CS1 was quite a success, I wouldn't be surprised if already by now either a CS1 1.5 or a CS3 would be in the works by a third partie.
As far as I see it that would be the logical way for PDX to go. They most certainly don't trust CO anymore.

 

[nnnitram]

I don't believe Paradox owns the right to the Cities Skylines IP. I wouldn't be surprised to see Paradox build an in-house city builder, but it won't be branded Cities Skylines unless they purchase the rights.

 

[Caprea.Berlin]

I agree with you.

They will try hard to deliver what they are obliged to deliver in the first half of this year. There is the missing content of the Ultimate Edition, and supposedly they are still bound to deliver the consoles versions (although I wouldn't count on the fact that they still have to do that).

If they will deliver the consoles versions it will depend on their success, I guess.
Given what we can observe from the outside (no news at all), I don't count on it being a huge success though which means I expect PDX to pull the plug at July 1st.

Taking into account that the unexpected new DLC for CS1 was quite a success, I wouldn't be surprised if already by now either a CS1 1.5 or a CS3 would be in the works by a third partie.
As far as I see it that would be the logical way for PDX to go. They most certainly don't trust CO anymore.

For PDX to give another game studio the right to developer a CSx would mean that PDX must own the right to that. Even if very often publishers do own that right, do we know if that is the case here?

 

[martin4444]

CLARIFICATION: I would not blame PDX or CO if they decided to cut their loss at this point.

Hmmm I don't think so. They sold something like 12 million copies of Cities Skylines 1 and DLCs on top of that over 7 years etc.
So, clearly there is a lot of money to be made with CS2 still but they just need to get the base game fixed and once they win over the consumers again the sales will follow.

Have to spend money to make money as they say

 

[BoraBora]

I don't believe Paradox owns the right to the Cities Skylines IP.

According to wikipedia, they do:

The developer is closely linked to Swedish publisher Paradox Interactive,[7] which tests, markets, sells, distributes, and owns the intellectual property of all games by Colossal Order.

So a CS III could already be planned for a release in 3, 4 or 5 years. That would be the sensible thing to do.

they just need to get the base game fixed and once they win over the consumers again the sales will follow.

But we know it's not this simple. A lot of money has already been spent and the base game isn't yet fixed. Shareholders may be more interested in recouping their losses by low sales for a couple more years without any expense than spending more and more with a low to average chance of success, considering the game has already been developed for 7 years now.

 

[Caprea.Berlin]

I hope they get this game fixed and we will see some nice additions to it in the future. Would be much nicer this way

 

[HenktheSteamTank]

I dont know all there is a patch

 

[ClemiMD]

Personally I would love to see Paradox drop CO like a hot potato.

Yes, we would all benefit from that. Wouldn't we?

 

[Civ5rako]

Another aspect speaking for cancellation of CS2 is the result of the free weekend in December. That actually was like a survey amongst potential customers - and the results have been devastating.
In the week of that free weekend, the number of ratings given roughly tripled and around 66% of those ratings were negative. People didn't like what they were seeing.
It is hard to imagine that these results have gone unnoticed.

 

[Civ5rako]

It's not CO mishandling things here. And they most likely would have been happy to keep working on that game instead of publishing it as they were ... "asked".

It isn't CO who is mishandling things?

Who is the company always being late in delivery?
Who is the company releasing patches introducing new bugs and causing side effects again and again?
Who is the company who created the worst rated DLC in Steam's history ever?

And of course they would have loved to keep working even longer. After all they were subsidized by PDX year after year after year without having delivered anything that far.
Unfortunately even a publisher has to make some money at some time.

 

[Sunbao]

But we know it's not this simple. A lot of money has already been spent and the base game isn't yet fixed. Shareholders may be more interested in recouping their losses by low sales for a couple more years without any expense than spending more and more with a low to average chance of success, considering the game has already been developed for 7 years now.

Well a lot of money, CO is just a small studio with around 30 people, so sure money have been spend, but its not like its like when you drop an big AAA title where 300-500 people are working on it. So if just the game has sold around 2 million copies, at lets say 25 bucs on average to the publisheer, thata 50.000.000 million dollars. The running og CO mabye costs lets say 5 million pr year. So thats would be 10 year just for those 2 millions sales made in the start.

 

[nnnitram]

CO had already delayed the game 3 years. Paradox have publicly stated that they did NOT force CO to push it out the door, and that CO believed the game was ready. This is straight from the horse's mouth and anyone who says otherwise is lying.

 

[BoraBora]

Well a lot of money, CO is just a small studio with around 30 people, so sure money have been spend, but its not like its like when you drop an big AAA title where 300-500 people are working on it. So if just the game has sold around 2 million copies, at lets say 25 bucs on average to the publisheer, thata 50.000.000 million dollars. The running og CO mabye costs lets say 5 million pr year. So thats would be 10 year just for those 2 millions sales made in the start.

CO also has subcontractors, they also paid for the region packs and moreover PDX people have to be paid. Publishing involves many professionals for many tasks: marketers, accounters, lawyers etc. Then you have the shareholders, not interested in investing for nothing or single digit dividends.

Even if your numbers were right, that would mean CO will have spent these 50 millions in less than 3 years. Meanwhile, the number of players is pretty much the same than in april after the economy patch and the Steam rating is pretty much the same too, a mixed 50/50.

 

[Lys91]

Of course they don't listen. They released an unfinished game with less content than CS1, which they couldn't finish in 8 years, and they will release CS3 without finishing it after dragging it out for another 8 years. (I think they are already planning it)

Looking back, I would have preferred they went for CS1.5 with better graphics, better art direction, larger cities, and QoL improvement. Most of the extra simulations they have added seem useless and/or somehow broken.

 

[Civ5rako]

CO also has subcontractors, they also paid for the region packs and moreover PDX people have to be paid. Publishing involves many professionals for many tasks: marketers, accounters, lawyers etc. Then you have the shareholders, not interested in investing for nothing or single digit dividends.

Not even to mention that the "development" time between 2018 and 2023 had to be financed as well. Costs which now have to be paid back by the incoming revenues.

 

[YYS-Etsu]

Approximately ten months ago, CO issued tearful apology and promises, even having their localization team translate it into multiple languages as a belated PR effort for the worst-rated DLC in history. Among their promises was a commitment to improved communication with the community. Now, people have found their communication has become even more infrequent. Setting aside technical and marketing failures, CO is a company completely devoid of credibility.

 

[The Aziz]

Yes. Source: trust me bro.

 

[Richeyboy]

There have not been any words from the devs in a very long time.

They only announced a small hotfix patch without answering any players' questions afterward (though they may be again communicating through some other channel other than the forum that I am not aware of).

The region packs haven't done much for player count in the long run (if anything it is lower than it was a year ago). CS1 has roughly twice the number of players and more than it had a year ago (though it is going down following a parallel trajectory to CS2). The paid DLC for CS1 attracked more players than free content for CS2. Sales on CS1 attracted more players than those on CS2.

View attachment 1246540

Should the further decrease in communication be interpreted as things shutting down behind the scene? The state of the game and the engagement with the community is honestly depressing.

If that's not the case, could we have an update on what is coming and the work being done? Ideally not something about "working on the console release". I am not sure there is many people left that interact with the forum that care about this. Given the apathy the game is building on PC, it is not even clear how much a console release would sell. I am obviously not in the know nor a business expert, but I don't see a huge crowd waiting with trepidation for CS2 to finally release on their favorit game platform. I would personally love for an *honest* breakdown of the features that are working as intented and the one that are being fixed. When I play the game I am in constent state of perplexity: 1/ is this broken? 2/ is something happening the UI/tool don't let me understand; 3/ am I doing something wrong? I honestly don't want new content, I just want to feel that was is there is working + significant performance improvement.

CLARIFICATION: I would not blame PDX or CO if they decided to cut their loss at this point. I obviously don't know how things look from their side, but from a player perspective there does not seem to be any light at the end of the tunnel.

Yes reckon they have no choice but to cancel xbox and ps5 versions due to having programmers that can't deal with the effort it takes so they can turn to easier tasks lol