The publisher of Steam hit medieval city builder Manor Lords has hit back at claims it has become the latest Early Access game to fail to provide players with enough content to keep them interested and therefore has suffered a significant drop-off.
In a post on Linkedin, publisher Hooded Horse boss Tim Bender took issue with another Linkedin post from a video game developer that called Manor Lords “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.”
“As a result of the lack of updates, the concurrent users have plummeted since launch (which isn’t that unusual — it’s the current trend for a lot of Early Access titles that blow up these days),” the post continued.
“But given the huge number of wishlists and hype around it leading up to launch, this is something the developer and publisher should have been better prepared for, in my opinion.
“Early Access is a marathon, and when you launch you need to have your next major content expansion pretty much in the queue. The game has been out for 2.5 months and there have been three fairly small patches with no new features or content.
“As such, I’ve put the game aside and don’t expect to look at it again for another six months, at which point I’ll probably be focused on playing something else. It’s really hard to get people’s attention back once you’ve lost it.”
Bender responded directly to this post by calling it “exactly the kind of distorted endless growth/burden of expectations/line must go up perspective that causes so much trouble in the games industry.”
Bender said Manor Lords sold 250,000 copies in the last month after selling over two million copies in its first three weeks, and pointed to its ‘very positive’ Steam user review rating of 88% and its median playtime of eight hours and 48 minutes per player.
“Players are happy, the developer is happy, and we as publisher are thrilled beyond belief,” Bender said. “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’ (one of the patch notes being called ‘small’ here runs over 3,000 words and over 10 single-spaced pages) leading to “concurrent users have plummeted since launch” (yes, we didn’t maintain the 173,000 concurrent player peak) and the apparently dark reality that some people, after enjoying their purchase of a premium, single-player title, might decide to go on and play another game (The horror! The horror!).”
Solo developer Greg Styczeń, aka Slavic Magic, debuted Manor Lords on Steam priced $39.99 and straight into PC Game Pass in Early Access form on April 26. IGN’s Manor Lords Early Access review returned a 7/10. We said: “Manor Lords is a gorgeous medieval city-builder that kept me occupied for hours building my perfect, cozy hamlets, but it definitely feels very early in its Early Access development.”
Manor Lords hit its impressive Steam peak concurrent player count two month ago, and is now sitting on 10,671 peak concurrent players in the last 24 hours. That’s not enough to make Steam’s top 100 most-played games list, but it’s not far off.
Not every game should be aimed at becoming some live-service boom or bust.
Bender said that before Manor Lords came out, he told Styczeń to expect “all sorts of commenters talking about missed opportunities because he failed to grow as fast as they wanted, and judging the game a failure by some kind of expectation they formed.”
“I told him to ignore all that — to focus on his core vision for the game, and to keep in mind that the Early Access road is long and that he should not feel any sense of pressure from the expectations of others — for both his own health and stress levels over the coming years and for preserving the state of calm and peaceful mind that supports his creative vision.
“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.”
Bender’s comment drew praise from Pocketpair community chief Bucky, who called it “a fantastic response.” Pocketpair’s controversial ‘Pokémon with guns’ survival and crafting game Palworld has itself been accused of becoming a “dead game” after peak concurrent player numbers on Steam fell dramatically following the game’s record-breaking launch earlier this year. Palworld, incidentally, is currently Steam’s 14th most-played game with 110,182 peak concurrent players in the last 24 hours following the Sakurajima update in June 2024.
Tim Bender, CEO of Hooded Horse, with a fantastic response to someone saying “Manor Lords is a pretty interesting case-study in the pitfalls of Early Access”.
I didn’t think Hooded Horse could get any cooler but here we are 👑 pic.twitter.com/Rrff3UrIww
— Bucky 🔜 BitSummit | Palworld (@Bucky_cm) July 7, 2024
The “dead game” moniker is often used to describe games that have seen a fall in player numbers, but it’s also often used without context or the understanding of a developer or publisher’s metric for success. Arrowhead’s Helldivers 2, for example, has been called a “dead game” in recent weeks because Steam peak concurrents are not what they were in the months after the game came out, but it sold well enough to become the fastest-selling PlayStation game of all-time.
While the live service ‘numbers go up’ burden is one that all publishers and developers who dare to enter this most crowded and competitive of markets must shoulder, when it comes to premium, single-player Early Access games made by a small team, perhaps, as Bender suggests, a new way of thinking is required.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
