Behind the Line: Cities Skylines, and Sequels

Cities Skylines was released recently to almost universally glowing reviews, and already seems to be a massive success for developer Colossal Order and publisher Paradox Interactive, selling 250k units in its first 24 hours available. It seems that the general consensus is that this is the SimCity update that we all wanted but didn’t get from the last EA installment,so how could it be that the torch has so suddenly passed for a whole genre, and what does that mean for other games and their sequels?
The Setup

When EA released the latest SimCity, it was eagerly anticipated by the series’ fanbase. It had been a decade since SimCity 4 was released, and that game has held up quite well today, so fans were eager to see what an update could bring to the table. As the initial information started to leak, it got more exciting. The initial demos of the Glassbox engine looked wonderful, the potential to have another player represent a neighbor city and allow for trade was intriguing, and everything seemed to be in place for a glorious re-emergence of the genre leader.

No matter what else the game may be, it certainly is pretty.

No matter what else the game may be, it certainly is pretty.

Then it was released, and people saw what was actually in, or not in the game. Gone was the detailed traffic system, one of the most engrossing elements of 4. Gone were the vast cities, with player being limited to a very small footprint to build upon. Added were questionable online requirements, leading to the predictable server problems, citizens who would go “home” to the nearest house, rather than where they lived, and other features of the daily lives of the citizens weren’t delivered as advertised.

The Opportunity

Here is where Colossal Order enters the story. They had the ability to make a SimCity like game, but the prevailing wisdom was that there was no point entering a genre so dominated by SimCity. Because of that, they were never able to secure funding for the venture. Instead they stuck to making “Cities in Motion”, which focused entirely on transit management, and not city building and management. However, when SimCity was released, it became abundantly clear that not only was there market demand for a new SimCity game, but the offering from EA was far from satisfying that demand.This made it clear to Colossal Order’s publisher, Paradox, that there was an opportunity to enter the market, and finally gave the green light for development of a full city simulator game.

What does this mean about sequels

There are many lines of thinking as to why the latest SimCity failed in the ways that it did, from an overly ambitious design, pressing deadlines, problems that can be inherent with a new engine, misunderstanding what the players really want, and the accusations that the online requirement was nothing more than a thinly veiled DRM system.

I can’t say exactly what went in to the development of SimCity, as that is probably only known by the development leads at Maxis and some of the people at EA. Some of these problems would be particular to the execution of this project, but there are universal lessons that can be learned examining what led to this.

When making a sequel, there has to be some careful consideration about how far the game and mechanics should be pushed, where they should be pushed, or how close it should stick to its own formula.

Sequels as refinements or new installments – Stagnation

If the game is a refinement on itself, or another installment with no new element, it will likely only appeal to its current audience. This can be a perfectly fine option. Madden games can experience significant changes sometimes, but year to year generally don’t see huge game play changes. Perhaps a better example of this approach is the Mega Man franchise. Mega Man 9 and Mega Man 10 were nearly straight out of the Nintendo era playbook, but were reasonably successful because of the size and devotion of the established audience. That audience is eve large and devoted enough that when Capcom wouldn’t keep feeding them, they rose up as one and threw gobs of money at Mega Man designer Keiji Inafune to fund his Kickstarter for obvious Mega Man clone Mighty No. 9 which was even sold on a video saturated with Mega Man references.

The problem with this approach is that it requires either a very large, or very devoted audience. If you don’t have enough of those elements to reach a certain critical mass, then each sequel will likely lose some of the fan base as they either don’t have money or time to keep up, or simply lose interest and move on to other things.

Sequels with expanded or new features – Innovation

The other option when creating a sequel is to try to tweak things, or add features, trying to appeal to new players. Some pundits will decry attempts to appeal to a wider audience. If any of you have followed Jim Sterling, you can probably hear him spit the phrase “appeal to a wider audience” with venomous disdain in your head right now. Generally those objections are based on the premise that attempts to attract new players would be to make the game more generic, stripping of it of its identity in order to make it palatable to more consumers. However a developer can keep a game distinct and true to itself without stagnating either the franchise or the player base.

Any time a developer modifies the game, it will on some level be an attempt to become more successful, either financially, or as an experience. If a change is made exclusively for the experience, then it can succeed or fail on its own merits, as there are no other elements to consider. If it is for financial success, then it gets trickier, since then the ‘success’ of the change is measured on something outside of the game itself and therefore as a player you don’t have immediate access to that perspective. Even then, though, if it’s apparent that everyone dislikes it and wouldn’t buy another game in the franchise with it you know it went poorly. Conversely if the change is a significant selling point for new players, then it was good. Most of the time, though, the truth will be far less overt, and it would take a great effort from the developer and publisher to divine how much the change really drove changes in player adoption. This is where a good analytics system would come in to play.

Obviously some of these innovations are better considered than others. Features can be added to increase depth, removed to make things more streamlined, or completely re-jiggered because the developer thinks they have a better idea. Something may be implemented because it’s following a trend of similar titles in the genre, and that may enhance the experience, or what makes that title unique in its space could make the trend a terrible idea.

Example series

One series that goes all over the place in the “innovation versus stagnation” thinking over its tenure Zelda. The first game is a classic based on the adventures of exploration. The second is completely different in just about every respect, focusing more on combat technique. The third is a prequel that plays like a highly advanced, more narrative heavy version of the first game, though with less exploration. Ocarina of Time introduced the world to effective 3D adventure game play. Majora’s Mask was very similar with the engine to Ocarina of Time, but entirely different in terms of tone and world mechanics. Wind Waker used a completely different art style and was set in a unique world aesthetic. Twilight Princess had the most developed and realized presentation of Hyrule to date. Each of these games did something different. Some are looked at with confusion like Zelda 2 for how out there they were compared to the others. Some were not well received at the time to go on to become renowned favorites like Wind Waker.

"Zelda?  More like Celda!"  Players were going through a bit of a backlash against cell shading at the time.

“Zelda? More like Celda!” The fans were going through a bit of a backlash against cell shading at the time.

Yet, over time, Zelda games had become surprisingly formulaic. You get an item in a dungeon and you KNOW it will be needed for that dungeon. You KNOW you will get a boomerang. You KNOW you will get a bow. You KNOW you will get a hook shot. At this point, there are enough similarities in the Zelda formula that they may no longer feel compelling to some players. Even with innovation in some areas, the core experience had stagnated. Some of the newer games seem to be trying to break this, and with the premise of a more open world in the next major installment, well, we can only see what will come next for this series.

The “hidden” risk of innovation

Coming back to the SimCity example, here is a franchise that was so synonymous with its genre that competitors, GOOD competitors, would not even put forth an effort. They assumed that they would either be crushed, or the player base would reject them in favor of the market leader. This perception lasted for 10 YEARS after the last release.

Then, they released a sequel. They tried to innovate. These innovations were probably a mix of genuine interest in making a good title, and cynical business practices. Whatever the truth is, the game did not come close to living up to its expectations. Despite the fact that the previous game was still available, that same game that had held the market at bay for a decade, the backlash against the sequel was so strong that it served as a wakeup call to competitors. Players were angry because they wanted a new SimCity, and they didn’t get it how they wanted it. Maxis and EA had only served to put a beacon onto an underserved audience, and in their inability to satisfy that audience essentially announced loudly to the industry that there is money to be made here.

Final thoughts

In the end, it all comes down to weighing risks. Do you keep pleasing your fans, and face the possibility that they will dwindle as time goes on? Or do risk your base and try to appeal to new players. SimCity tried to do both and failed at both. Zelda does both, is mostly successful at both, and therefore is still one of the marquee franchises for Nintendo.

With that in mind I would ask players to consider the motivations for changes in their beloved franchises, and exercise some patience when judging. If a game is running on a new engine, there may be problems in the first installment. If a game has a new feature, is there something in the concept that sounds like a good idea? The ambition that goes into these changes can be a double-edged sword, and if it doesn’t work well, it can be difficult to tell efforts to improve the experience from lazy cash grab tactics. If the game is bad, no matter how noble the intentions, then it is a failure and should be treated as such. If the developer was sincere in their attempts, though, then they shouldn’t be treated as the failure that the game wound up being.

And hey, a sequel could wind up fixing those problems and be awesome.

 

 


 

Kynetyk is a veteran of the games industry.  Behind the Line is written to help improve understanding of what goes on in the game development process and the business behind it.  From “What’s taking this games so long to release”, to “why are there bugs”, to “Why is this free to play” or anything else,  if there is a topic that you would like to see covered, please write in to kynetyk@enthusiacs.com

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