Why Manor Lords Beat All Odds and Defied the AAA Studios
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- Опубликовано: 28 апр 2024
- Manor Lords has beaten all expectations and become the highest concurrently played city-builder on Steam of all time, and it did so pretty much within its first 24 hours of release. Manor Lords received 3 million wishlists on Steam and must have sold in the hundreds of thousands, all despite being mostly developed by one person, and being this person's first game. In other words, Manor Lords has surpassed the initial sales and player numbers of most if not largely all major AAA strategy game studios out there, which is an insanely impressive accomplishment.
But what lead to this triumph, and how was it made possible? How did Manor Lords come out of seemingly nowhere and rival or even surpass the AAA games with established and loyal audiences and fanbases?
I think it's because of Manor Lords' dedication to authenticity, freedom, player choice and last but not least, to history itself, aspects which many studios seem to forget about or prioritize less. Manor Lords follows in many ways in the footsteps of other accomplished and celebrated indie history or history-like titles, like Kingdom Come Deliverance or Mount and Blade Bannerlord, all games developed by indie studios, and all games doing incredibly well, especially relatively speaking. I think AAA studios need to be more open with their audiences, open their lines of communication, and understand what the players want, because so many of them seem to have no idea, despite players everywhere screaming at the top of their lungs for change, and being very specific about it.
But what do you think? Why did Manor Lords succeed, and can its success continue? And what of the AAA studios? Let me know in the comments, and don't forget to leave a like and subscribe to the channel!
#manorlords #manorlordsvsaaa #manorlordsvstotalwar
Devs used to make games that they would want to play themselves. That's the most important thing in gaming craftsmanship.
The truth about gaming industry or all industry is that each company is started by enthusiasts, then it is being taken over by businessmen and it ends its lifetime with lawyers behind the wheel. The creators of titles like Manor Lords or Songs of Syx see the player base as people whereas for example CA or Blizzard take us for an excel table. Great vid and comment Andy, thx!
You know why it beat the odds? Even though it wasn’t what a lot of total war players like myself would’ve wanted out of a medieval 3, it’s still a very fun game. The graphics for the type of game it is are great. You can tell that the dev put a lot of love into it. It doesn’t feel like a corporate soulless yearly release, it feels like a game the devs would play themselves. It feels like a game made before the video game industry got consumed by greed. Hopefully CA learns from this game’s success and actually tries to do what works in their next game.
I really hope Greg (the single dev) will use some of the 40+ Millions of dollars he made to bring this title to the next level. The only thing missing, tbh is the scale. If this game gives us a huge map, with castles and level 4 or 5 buildings and siege weapons with several factions, this game will be everything.
I don't have a powerful laptop and this game runs, in EA, so flawlessly and bug free. The performance alone helps with the immersion. I've been really impressed.
havnt been this inmersed in a game for atleast 10 years
It’s also great seeing the entire community backing the fact that this ONE developer created something that’s making BANK. MAYBE THEY WILL SEE HOW WELL THIS GAME DOES AND FINALLY STOP GIVING US 1/4 GAMES.
Totally agree, games like Manor Lords only can be done with passion, not with the intend to please the stakeholders.
It's crazy to think that a company like CA cannot even make a game where the armor of units represents the types of materials you actually have access to... I know this was a thing in ME2 but my god am I missing the old Total War games.
As i got older i spent time playing videl games less and less but now with this one, it ignated again the passion in me
I mean just take this: Every soldier you have, is literally the most important resource you can have, not ONLY because hes a soldier, but he's also your hunter, your woodcutter, your cobbler, your smithy, your forager, etc.
This seems like a reasonable outcome for 7 years of solo dev IMO, he certainly did a good job, but the fact massive studios put out even less just seems dysfunctional
The music in this game.... 👌👌
I have never worry as much as I do in manor Lords about the little guy, my foot soldiers. I hire mercenaries to be the frontline because my little guy have actual value
MN is essentially a slower version of Age of Empires rather than Total War
Perfectly said, there is just not enought historical games. Every second citybuilder is a viking one or another grid shittygraphic looking version of banished... there are so many more interesting periods and not enought games.
0ad kept me alive the past few years
CA - we must create game for casual player and by this way we will sold more copies
Don't forget, we recently also have a party ... Ubisoft .... that claims to build AAAA games. They are serious about it at Ubisoft.
The reason is actually very simple, creating a video games is a creative process, it's an art. The problem is that AAA companies are run by businessmen that don't understand this concept who only see videogames as an opportunity to make more money, so what ends up happening is that when a greedy businessman funds a video game, from the beginning the intention of the development is to make money and in summary they end up destroying the creative process and creating a bad game. People can notice very easily when a game is created with the intention of making money rather than actually making a good beautiful game.