Hooded Horse CEO rebuts the claims made against the unsuccessful model of Manor Lords in early access. Read on to learn more about his statement and the initial claim.
Manor Lords Publisher CEO Says Not All Games Have The Same Metric
Different Parameters of Success
- [1] Image taken from LinkedIn
Taking to LinkedIn last weekend, Hinterland’s CEO, Raphael van Lierop, posted his view on how city-builder and real-time strategy Manor Lords failed to make the most of its early access release. He captioned his post with "Manor Lords is a pretty interesting case-study in the pitfalls of Early Access development when a game with a small team (and heavily marketed as such) hits the reality of a hungry audience."
While the initial statement made it seem like he dislikes the game, he addressed the "unwarranted attention" his quote received. Lierop said he actually has a copy of Manor Lords and praised developers Slavic Magic, saying their body of work is of high quality.
Lierop explained in his post that "there’s very little" to the game, where one could easily experience everything there is to be offered within five to ten rounds of the game, which is a few hours of gameplay. This is where the problem lies, according to Lierop, as the momentum that the game generated pre-release is completely gone and the small patches and lack of new content cannot keep players engaged.
Manor Lords is a medieval city-builder, real-time strategy game that managed to be the most wishlisted game on Steam before the game was released on early access. It launched with massive success, with a record-breaking 170,000 concurrent player count, and sold over a million copies within the first day of its release.
Lierop ended his statement by saying, "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!" and added that there should be two to three major updates within these early months so that you could keep people’s attention that the game will continue to develop.
The Pitfalls of Live-Service Growth
- [2] Image taken from LinkedIn
This statement, of course, ruffled some feathers.
Hooded Horse’s–the publisher–CEO, Tim Bender, made his own post in reply to Lierop’s statement, saying, "This is exactly the kind of distorted endless growth/burden of expectations/line must go up perspective that causes so much trouble in the games industry." He pointed out that Manor Lords has just sold 250,000 copies in the last month after selling over 2 million in its first 3 weeks, has a Very Positive review rating on Steam, and has an average playtime of over 8 hours per player.
Bender pointed out that Manor Lords is not a live-service game but a premium, single-player title. He even recounted his experience where he talked to one of the developers prior the game’s release, telling him to focus on the vision they laid out for the game and not feel pressured by the expectations of other players for his sake and the future of the game.
Bender added that "if the industry is to find a more sustainable path forward, we need to move away from takes like the below (in reference to Lierop)." He also follows this by saying that "Success should not create an ever raising bar of new growth expectations," and that "not every game should be aimed at becoming some live-service boom or bust."
- [3] Image taken from LinkedIn
The worst part about the whole back-and-forth is the confusion it caused for both parties. Any attempt to mend whatever burnt bridge or hurt feelings is now considered moot, as Lierop expressed his frustration that his comments were being deleted in Bender’s post in an attempt to further explain his point. Lierop even expressed that "context collapse is real, and it would be nice if people would READ your words vs. conveniently presenting an interpretation of those words that benefits them."
Source(s):
Hooded Horse CEO hits back at claims that Manor Lords slipped up in early access: 'Not every game should be aimed at becoming some live service boom or bust'
[1]LinkedIn - Raphael van Lierop Post Early Access Pitfalls
[2]LinkedIn - Tim Bender Reply
[3]LinkedIn - Raphael van Lierop Reply 2
