Referring back to that latest interview with Colossal Order CEO - Mariina Hallikainen - I would like to see what you think they may have in plans, not what your wishes are (we all know them, and they are various ).
So here is the interview that dj97 was kind enough to post a link to (interview in GameInformer - https://www.gameinformer.com/interv...ks-development-mod-community-and-six-years-of).
Couple of take-outs:
"We had some serious SimCity fans in the dev team and wanted to achieve a spiritual successor to SimCity 4. Naturally, the ambition was much greater than our resources at the time, so we had to prioritize on the amount of content and different features." on starting development on Cities:Skylines and its inspiration.
"This was the dream from the start! (that's about current game - Cities:Skylines) We founded Colossal Order with the intent that one day “Colossal Cities” would see the light of day. This was back in 2009 and we were five people with limited funding, so we decided to start with something smaller to build toward greater challenges. (...) I’d say the most important learning from the CIM (Cities In Motion) games was getting to know the community and the meaning of modding for our games. We really see it as an integral part of the player experience we want to offer not only now but in the future."
"Our target at Colossal for copies sold was 300,000, so more than our previous games and enough to allow us to work on the game for a couple of expansions before starting something new. Now, six years later, it’s still quite difficult to understand what actually happened, but we have been so happy to have kept it going so long." - they did quite a few millions of copies, didn't they? Is it over 5 or 6 millions now?
On their biggest success:
"It has been absolutely fantastic, challenging, tiring, and yet always so rewarding to work on Cities: Skylines. I’m a big believer in continuous improvement and it's at the core of our development process at Colossal Order. I think we all regret our failure to get proper seasons in the game, but it was simply not feasible at the time and we decided to live with the winter maps feature in the Snowfall expansion. The game has evolved immensely over the years with improvements and new content and features, but the absolute biggest success is our relationship with the community, our endless source for inspiration. "
And the very end of the interview:
"What does the future hold for Cities: Skylines? Do you have plans for a follow-up game, or are you looking to continue developing upon the existing base?
Cities: Skylines, with its community, is the most important game Colossal Order has created. Beyond that, there isn’t much further we can say at the moment."
I think these are the most important bits telling us that something most important for companies is and should be - their customers, in C:S case, its community built around the game and the ability to adapt to different needs - they, as they said here ("We focused on the very basic building blocks: roads, houses, jobs. City services to support the needs of the citizens: health, education, recreation. We wanted there to be as much freedom as possible, ability to create something from the real world."), gave us "templates", very basic staff to play with, manipulate and mod, so each one of us can enjoy the game in their way. And I think it's pretty safe to say, that's the experience many of us (if not all) were looking for and are enjoying it. CO obviously can see that and it looks like they want to provide that to us. For as long as they can.
When creating C:S, after their Cities In Motions games, they had a bit of money, a lot more experience than when they started in 2009, and - I suppose - plenty of ideas. And I think that this game, C:S, was meant to be another stepping stone in their game development. To get some more room (especially financially) to create something even better later in future.
Their target of 300 000 copies has been reached very quickly (was it few months or weeks?) and it's pretty safe to say - they have resources now, alongside the experience.
Was it a tiny suggestion then, when dropping the name “Colossal Cities”, and not just reference to the company name, that one day there would be “Colossal Cities”? I remember a bit of a rumour at the end of 2019, when last DLC didn't turn up when expected (Sunset Harbour was delayed due to working on trolleybuses and plenty of issues they had with them), that they are working on something giving us much larger maps, to possibly build multi-cities on one map and have plenty of room to do that.
Maybe, that's a possibility, and a very pleasant one.
There was also news about a planned meeting between CO and major game community contributors, back in 2019, that I suppose took place and no one talks about its outcome - I could imagine that event as a meeting to exchange ideas, problems and issues with current game platform (which, as most of us experienced, is not very suitable for running even a small town with all DLCs on and no mods or workshop assets - which is not what CO would have wanted). What happened with it... well...
I am getting the impression that, when they stopped issuing DLCs - nothing for over a year now - but they keep us engaged on their community channel and - I suppose it's CO doing it as well - organizing global build-off competitions, that is all to keep us with them for their next... I'd say product and game.
Colossal Cities? Maybe.
Although they were successful in replacing SimCity, there is always that limitation - not enough room to let your ideas run free across a map.
But as at the same time the game community is very important to them (that's their life line enabling them their as well as ours dreams come true), I'm starting to believe tiny bit more (although it still sounds impossible) that if it is the next game that CO is working on and polishing for us (remember? they have money and time now) , maybe whole workshop and all those assets (I guess excluding mods) would be "transferable" to that new game too.
"Do you have plans for a follow-up game, or are you looking to continue developing upon the existing base?" was the last question, and I'm sure they are very aware of it since years ago now. And do you think, they wouldn't splash few details on what they are working on if it was yet another DLC?
"Cities: Skylines, with its community, is the most important game Colossal Order has created. Beyond that, there isn’t much further we can say at the moment" was the answer, which screams a lot, although it's still just guessing.
What are your thoughts on this interview?
So here is the interview that dj97 was kind enough to post a link to (interview in GameInformer - https://www.gameinformer.com/interv...ks-development-mod-community-and-six-years-of).
Couple of take-outs:
"We had some serious SimCity fans in the dev team and wanted to achieve a spiritual successor to SimCity 4. Naturally, the ambition was much greater than our resources at the time, so we had to prioritize on the amount of content and different features." on starting development on Cities:Skylines and its inspiration.
"This was the dream from the start! (that's about current game - Cities:Skylines) We founded Colossal Order with the intent that one day “Colossal Cities” would see the light of day. This was back in 2009 and we were five people with limited funding, so we decided to start with something smaller to build toward greater challenges. (...) I’d say the most important learning from the CIM (Cities In Motion) games was getting to know the community and the meaning of modding for our games. We really see it as an integral part of the player experience we want to offer not only now but in the future."
"Our target at Colossal for copies sold was 300,000, so more than our previous games and enough to allow us to work on the game for a couple of expansions before starting something new. Now, six years later, it’s still quite difficult to understand what actually happened, but we have been so happy to have kept it going so long." - they did quite a few millions of copies, didn't they? Is it over 5 or 6 millions now?
On their biggest success:
"It has been absolutely fantastic, challenging, tiring, and yet always so rewarding to work on Cities: Skylines. I’m a big believer in continuous improvement and it's at the core of our development process at Colossal Order. I think we all regret our failure to get proper seasons in the game, but it was simply not feasible at the time and we decided to live with the winter maps feature in the Snowfall expansion. The game has evolved immensely over the years with improvements and new content and features, but the absolute biggest success is our relationship with the community, our endless source for inspiration. "
And the very end of the interview:
"What does the future hold for Cities: Skylines? Do you have plans for a follow-up game, or are you looking to continue developing upon the existing base?
Cities: Skylines, with its community, is the most important game Colossal Order has created. Beyond that, there isn’t much further we can say at the moment."
I think these are the most important bits telling us that something most important for companies is and should be - their customers, in C:S case, its community built around the game and the ability to adapt to different needs - they, as they said here ("We focused on the very basic building blocks: roads, houses, jobs. City services to support the needs of the citizens: health, education, recreation. We wanted there to be as much freedom as possible, ability to create something from the real world."), gave us "templates", very basic staff to play with, manipulate and mod, so each one of us can enjoy the game in their way. And I think it's pretty safe to say, that's the experience many of us (if not all) were looking for and are enjoying it. CO obviously can see that and it looks like they want to provide that to us. For as long as they can.
When creating C:S, after their Cities In Motions games, they had a bit of money, a lot more experience than when they started in 2009, and - I suppose - plenty of ideas. And I think that this game, C:S, was meant to be another stepping stone in their game development. To get some more room (especially financially) to create something even better later in future.
Their target of 300 000 copies has been reached very quickly (was it few months or weeks?) and it's pretty safe to say - they have resources now, alongside the experience.
Was it a tiny suggestion then, when dropping the name “Colossal Cities”, and not just reference to the company name, that one day there would be “Colossal Cities”? I remember a bit of a rumour at the end of 2019, when last DLC didn't turn up when expected (Sunset Harbour was delayed due to working on trolleybuses and plenty of issues they had with them), that they are working on something giving us much larger maps, to possibly build multi-cities on one map and have plenty of room to do that.
Maybe, that's a possibility, and a very pleasant one.
There was also news about a planned meeting between CO and major game community contributors, back in 2019, that I suppose took place and no one talks about its outcome - I could imagine that event as a meeting to exchange ideas, problems and issues with current game platform (which, as most of us experienced, is not very suitable for running even a small town with all DLCs on and no mods or workshop assets - which is not what CO would have wanted). What happened with it... well...
I am getting the impression that, when they stopped issuing DLCs - nothing for over a year now - but they keep us engaged on their community channel and - I suppose it's CO doing it as well - organizing global build-off competitions, that is all to keep us with them for their next... I'd say product and game.
Colossal Cities? Maybe.
Although they were successful in replacing SimCity, there is always that limitation - not enough room to let your ideas run free across a map.
But as at the same time the game community is very important to them (that's their life line enabling them their as well as ours dreams come true), I'm starting to believe tiny bit more (although it still sounds impossible) that if it is the next game that CO is working on and polishing for us (remember? they have money and time now) , maybe whole workshop and all those assets (I guess excluding mods) would be "transferable" to that new game too.
"Do you have plans for a follow-up game, or are you looking to continue developing upon the existing base?" was the last question, and I'm sure they are very aware of it since years ago now. And do you think, they wouldn't splash few details on what they are working on if it was yet another DLC?
"Cities: Skylines, with its community, is the most important game Colossal Order has created. Beyond that, there isn’t much further we can say at the moment" was the answer, which screams a lot, although it's still just guessing.
What are your thoughts on this interview?
- 3
- 2
- 1