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[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

Paradox Interactive has decided to cease further operations in the wholly owned studio Paradox Tectonic (Tectonic) in Berkeley, California. The studio has since 2019 led the development of the game Life by You, whose release is canceled, and employs 24 people.

This is difficult and drastic news for our colleagues at Tectonic, who’ve worked hard on Life by You’s Early Access release. Sadly, with cancellation of their sole project we have to take the tough decision to close down the studio. We are deeply grateful for their hard work in trying to take Paradox into a new genre, says Fredrik Wester, CEO of Paradox Interactive.

Paradox Interactive to close down Paradox Tectonic - Paradox Interactive

Paradox Interactive is a world leading PC games publisher known for games such as Cities: Skylines, Europa Universalis and Crusader Kings.

www.paradoxinteractive.com

 

[Mownoc]

With this, Cities Skylines 2 and Lamplighters League it's not been a good year for Paradox at all.

 

[xrnzaaas]

With this, Cities Skylines 2 and Lamplighters League it's not been a good year for Paradox at all.

I'd actually like to purchase Lamplighters League, but it seems to avoid bigger price drops despite the slow sales. At least Harebrained Schemes wasn't closed and just parted ways with Paradox.

 

[Bluecondor]

Man, what a rough week for the people who work at this studio. You spend all of that time and effort making a game and they completely cancel it, and then you lose your job.

As I said in the other thread, I respect Paradox for taking this stand on not releasing the game.

Still though, you can't help but feel for the people who work there.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

“ Today I am devastated to announce that for the second time in two years, my game has been cancelled, and I've been laid off. And this time it was a real shit show, ya'll.

First and foremost, nothing expressed here represents the sentiments of Paradox Interactive or Paradox Tectonic. These are my thoughts and my thoughts alone.

I've known for some time that we might be getting shut down. We were actively working on a hyper-moddable life sim called Life By You. An indie answer to the aging IP that is the Sims but instead focussed heavily on UGC.

And as far as it goes, we were doing extremely well.

I cannot share specific numbers, but I can say that we had an internal metric we were aiming for that had been approved, and that we exceeded that number by a significant portion. We also got a thumbs up a few weeks before launch.

Then two weeks before launch we were told we wouldn't be launching. And just now that we've all lost our jobs. We were only informed of this via a public announcement.

We were not told why. Instead we spent a month in purgatory, and did everything we could to prove to them we were worth launching, including things like finding potential buyers or suggesting cutting ties and going indie. We heard virtually nothing back.

I was warned against writing anything about this experience. That it may hurt my future career or even that legal action could be taken against me. I have chosen to ignore these warnings.

To be honest, I have guesses about what happened. And while I can't conjecture, I'm sure you have guesses too. As a business owner, some of them are understandable, but many of them are not. We were a strong team on a strong project ready to launch to a strong audience.

Really I'd like to be much more fire and brimstone about it. I'm pretty pissed, not gonna lie. But I'm trying to stay kind and respectful. So instead I'll say: this industry has become a place in which you can deliver more than expected, have AA money behind you, and still have the rug pulled two weeks before launch."

 

[Hudo]

With this, Cities Skylines 2 and Lamplighters League it's not been a good year for Paradox at all.

Good. Maybe that will cause them to rethink their policies. Maybe not releasing games in a barebone state, only to serve as a DLC platform...

Although I am actually happy that Harebrained Schemes managed to free themselves from Paradox.