Paradox Interactive completely cancelled Life by You (update Paradox Tectonic to close)
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Paradox Interactive announced today that Life by You from their studio Paradox Tectonic is now fully cancelled, after previously being delayed.

Very surprising. The game looked like it had a lot of potential and could’ve been the most popular sims alternative, but it’s suddenly been cancelled.

    • OsaErisXero@kbin.run
      2·
      3 months ago

      Endless DLC is literally the paradox business model. I happen to find it an acceptable compromise for continuous development of the games I like, at least the way paradox does it, but lets not pretend like this was going to be different from a business model perspective.

      • greenskye@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        3 months ago

        My problem with endless DLC isn’t the cost, but the fragmented result of each ‘feature’ needing to stand separately and not interact with any other DLC feature. You end up with some really janky gameplay where nothing works intuitively and the stuff you can implement is all hurt by those limitations.

        Not to mention the sheer code hell that all this results in with an exponential increase in possible install states to account for. Which the devs just give up on and the game becomes a little buggier with every new expansion.

        Honestly think they should move to a sort of MMO model. Charge for the most recent expansions and older DLC eventually gets merged into the base game. Cuts down on complexity and most of your sales will happen in the first year anyway.

        • Alxe@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          3 months ago

          While PDX-published games may suffer from the decouplement of features between DLCs, at the very least PDS-developed games have a built-up expertise when it comes to managing this.

          As for MMO model, it’s a hard sell because purchased things get made “free” for new comers. It’s one of the crux that EU4 faced when they rolled many DLC features into the base game.

        • skulblaka@startrek.websiteEnglish
          1·
          3 months ago

          I mean, you say that, but a new player looking to get into Stellaris or CKII is looking at a $300 bill if they want all the content. In fact that’s what prevented me from getting into Stellaris, I own the base game, but when I discovered I’d need to shell out an additional several hundred dollars, even during a sale, for not only new species but just for base game mechanics, I stopped in my tracks.

          Compare with Civilization, I own Civ V and Civ VI and all the released content for each, pretty sure I bought each of those for less than $20.

          • Buddahriffic@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            3 months ago

            I did see an announcement earlier this year that they were folding some DLC into the base game for either CK3 or HoI4 because it was difficult to balance the game with all of the different DLC permutations possible. I think it would be smart of them to do this in general, maybe after a DLC is past a certain age, pull it into the base game.

      • Echo Dot@feddit.ukEnglish
        1·
        3 months ago

        Paradox DLC tends to have quite a bit of content in it though. Certainly more than EA tends to give you.

        • Kraiden@kbin.run
          1·
          3 months ago

          Lol, I’m not sure I’d describe it as anime, but I understand what you mean. Personally I quite like the aesthetic of it. It makes them feel just the right amount of fake to me that I won’t feel bad deleting the pool ladder. I can totally see how it would bug you though. Hopefully it’ll be easy to mod out, or at least turn down.

      • LordSinguloth@lemmy.caEnglish
        01·
        3 months ago

        Wow people here don’t comprehend the third order calculation

        Ea regularly buys out or pays off anyone who makes sim competitors.

        Look it up.

        • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          0·
          3 months ago

          In order to buy out Paradox, EA would have to make an offer for their entire existing share float, which would then have to be accepted by the shareholders. This means that they would almost certainly sell their stock at over market value (because why would they accept less?).

          From their point of view, this would be a good thing. So why then would the shareholders allow this project to be cancelled if it was about to net them a huge payout, according to your theory?

  • DarkThoughts@fedia.io
    0·
    3 months ago

    No surprise. I was really shocked when I saw the videos they released a while ago. Game ran like shit and looked even worse.

    • Dark Arc@social.packetloss.ggEnglish
      01·
      3 months ago

      Yup… It looked like a really bad attempt at photo realism in 2024. At this point you either need to use cartoon-like graphics or some sort or actually pull off the photo realism.

      It was pretty obvious that game was never going to reach either of those marks.

      I was definitely excited for the prospect of a Sim’s competitor, but this wasn’t going to be it… I think they did the right thing pulling the plug.