Hooded Horse CEO hits back at claims that Manor Lords slipped up in early access: 'Not every game should be aimed at becoming some live service boom or bust'

Over the last couple of weeks, the same old debate about what makes a game successful and how devs can hold on to that success emerged yet again. Some decided that Helldivers 2 losing 90% of its playerbase was an issue despite the live service game having a healthy 40,000 or more concurrent players each day. And now Manor Lords, the small city builder that managed to climb to the most wishlisted game spot on Steam, is also apparently showing cause for concern. 

Over the weekend, Hinterland's CEO Raphael van Lierop posted a lengthy take on the city builder and how it's failed to make the most of early access to LinkedIn: «Manor Lords is 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.» 

Lierop stresses his love for Manor Lords and how these comments are in no way a reflection of a lack of quality or passion. Instead, the problem is that «there's very little to it.» 

«It launched with a pretty strong base game but without much content,» Lierop says. «A heavily systems-centric game needs either a range of maps, game modes, or some amount of proc-gen dynamism to keep it fresh. Manor Lords has none of those things. So once you [have] played 5-10 rounds of the game, there's nothing more to do.»

This problem is then apparently exacerbated by the lack of major updates that developer Greg «Slavic Magic» Styczeń has released. «As a result of the lack of updates, the CCUs (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),» Lierop says. «But given the number of wishlists and hype around it leading up to launch, this is something the developer and publisher should have been better prepared for, IMO.» 

It's fair to say that you've personally had enough of Manor Lords and have found a natural end to it while still hoping for more added content in future