A now-fired developer at Paradox has claimed the team behind its competitor The Sims spent “a month in purgatory” before the studio was shut down.
Game designer Willem Delventhal took to LinkedIn to say they were “devastated” by Life by You’s cancellation, calling the recent events “a real s**t show.” Paradox declined to comment when contacted by IGN.
Swedish game company Paradox, best known for Crusader Kings, Cities Skylines and Stellaris, shut down Berkeley, California-based Tectonic just hours after canceling Life by You in a move that affected 24 studio staff.
“This is difficult and drastic news for our colleagues at Tectonic, who have been working hard on Life by You’s Early Access release,” said Fredrik Wester, CEO of Paradox Interactive.
“Sadly, with the cancellation of their solo project, we have to make the tough decision to close the studio. We are deeply grateful for their hard work in trying to bring Paradox into a new genre.”
Life by You, which Tectonic had been working on since 2019, originally set an early access release date of September 2023, but was pushed back to May 2024 before Paradox announced an additional delay to June 4. Two weeks before June 4th, Paradox delayed the game indefinitely.
Delventhal claims Paradox told Tectonic Life by You it wouldn’t launch until two weeks before its June 4 release date, and staff only found out they’d lost their jobs when the studio’s closure was publicly announced this week. Delventhal said Tectonic tried to save Life by You by finding potential buyers or even going indie, but to no avail.
“I’ve known for some time that we could close,” Delventhal said. “We were actively working on a hyper-mod life sim called Life By You. An indie answer to the old IP that is The Sims, but instead focused heavily on UGC.
“And in terms of it, we were doing extremely well.
“I can’t share specific numbers, but I can say that we had an internal metric that we were aiming for that was adopted and that we exceeded that number by a significant margin. We also received a bravo a few weeks before departure.
“Then two weeks before departure we were told we weren’t going. And only now that we’ve all lost our jobs. We have been notified of this only through a public announcement.
“We have not been told why. Instead, we spent a month in purgatory and did everything we could to prove to them that we were worth launching, including things like finding potential buyers or suggesting we cut ties and go indie. We heard almost nothing.
“I was warned not to write anything about this experience. That this may harm my future career or even that legal action may be taken against me. I have chosen to ignore these warnings.
“To be honest, I have assumptions about what happened. And while I can’t guess, I’m sure you have guesses too. As a business owner, some of these are understandable, but many are not. We were a strong team on a strong project, ready to go for a strong audience.
“I really wish I was a lot more fire and brimstone about it. I’m pretty pissed off, not gonna lie. But I’m trying to be polite and respectful. So instead I’ll say: this industry has become a place where you can over-deliver, have AA money behind you, and still have the carpet pulled two weeks before launch. .”
When Paradox announced the cancellation of Life by You, Wester released the following statement, insisting that the game would not “live up to our expectations”.
“For a long time, we’ve held out hope for Life by You and the potential we saw in it, but now it’s clear that the game won’t be able to live up to our expectations,” Wester said. “A version we would be happy with is a long way off, and therefore we are making the difficult decision to cancel the release.”
It’s a tough time for Paradox after a string of high-profile failures. Wester admitted that “we have underperformed in recent releases” in his statement, while insisting “we have a very solid financial position and a strong core portfolio of games, which keeps us confident about our future.”
Last year’s disastrous release of City skylines 2, which developer Colossal Order is still working to address, was just one title that hit Paradox’s bottom as well as its reputation. In October 2023, Paradox called The Lamplighters League a “huge disappointment” after it was forced to record a $22 million impairment. The paradox has also delayed the prison card Prison architect 2 several times, most recently this September after discovering “unexpected issues that happen too often”. Paradox-published Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 has also endured a tumultuous development, though a release date now seems on the horizon.
Tectonic’s closure is the latest in a string of studio closures and layoffs that have hit the video game industry hard in recent years. Thousands of staff have been affected by cuts across the industry, with layoffs at companies such as Microsoft, Sony and Embracer, to name a few. Only this week Embracer shut down Pieces Interactive after Alone in the Dark failed to meet sales expectations.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can contact Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].