‘Manor Lords’ publisher Tim Bender has hit out at the calls for “endless growth” on live-service games.
Manor Lords publisher Tim Bender has hit out at the calls for 'endless growth' on live-service games
The strategy title - which was developed by Slavic Magic and published by Hooded Horses - enjoyed wide success when it released in early access form in April, though came under fire after some voiced their annoyance at the lack of frequent updates.
Now, the Hooded Horses CEO has come out to quash these criticisms, and insisted developers shouldn’t be “forced to run on a treadmill until their mental or physical health breaks”.
Responding to a LinkedIn post from Hinterland boss Raphael van Leroy - who reflected on ‘Manor Lords’ small team being hit by “the reality of a hungry audience” - Bender wrote: “This is exactly the kind of distorted endless growth perspective that causes so much trouble in the games industry.
“‘Manor Lords’ just sold 250,000 copies in the last month — after selling over 2 million copies in its first 3 weeks — and has a Very Positive review rating of 88 per cent with a median playtime of 8 hours 48 minutes per player.
“Players are happy, the developer is happy, and we as publisher are thrilled beyond belief.
“And yet here we are — ‘Manor Lords’ is apparently a ‘case-study in the pitfalls of Early Access’ because the ‘game has been out for 2.5 months and there have been three fairly small patches’.”
Bender emphasised developers shouldn’t have to be put under the constant pressure of committing to a live-service game, and insisted the industry needed to “move away” from the model if it wanted to “find a more sustainable path forward”.
He continued: “If this industry is to find a more sustainable path forward, we need to move away from takes like the below.
“Success should not create an ever raising bar of new growth expectations. Not every game should be aimed at becoming some live-service boom or bust. And a release should not begin an ever-accelerating treadmill on which devs are forced to run until their mental or physical health breaks down.”