New TEA on the cancellation of Life By You! 😱 (Dev speaks out...)
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#TheSims4 #LifeByYou #Pixelade - Ігри
It’s not really surprising that the developers lost their jobs in the way they did but it’s just so sad and disgusting
i mean the company needs to not go bankrupt so what are they supposed to do? if paradox went out of business then all the employees would lose their jobs
@@inspectorspinda
But they seemingly wouldn't have lost money as stated the team looked for more investors and had a green light.
Even if they where losing money they should view their staff as people and sit down with them and say "We're firing you" instead of making them find out when the public did. That's disgusting.
It’s crazy that you would dump money into a game. Then just throw away all that time and money right before it was suppose to release. Seems idiotic to me honestly.
Seems like tax write off to me.
To me it seems crazy to throw it away when you think about how many assets are needed for a life simulator, plants, build mode items, gameplay items, the ENTIRE world 🤯 They either had to make each of those things by hand or they bought them from someone else (which is what I assumed most of the game was bought assets just based off of how they looked) either way seems like such a waste of time and/or money
They fumbled their own bag
6 Years and $20M for a game that only used free assets. Do you seriously think another 6 Years and $20M would get them anywhere?
I think (not proven) ea paid them a lot to shut it down
feels like Paradox was doing the unprofessional, but common corporate thing of blagging them off. Telling them it was all okay when it wasn't. I mean before cancellation- they had already moved the date twice. Clearly, things weren't okay.
From the outside looking in. Now knowing the game was 5-6 years into development...idk man. Game seemed to lack direction.
why do games companies keep firing people through social media posts, this is so stupid and should be allowed to happen, that's so fucked up. this sounds almost as bad as the bendy and the ink machine team, they had a similar story to this where the whole team was laid off, but that was after a botched launch, i wonder what the hell happened here. I'm not gonna buy anymore paradox games this is so fucked up.
You mean "shouldn't be allowed to happen." Yes, it is a bad way of doing it for the employee and it is wrong but from the companies poinnt of view, it saves them a lot of hassle. Bigger companies even employ outside companies to do it for them, they bring in outside people just to do the firing. It becomes very inpersonal as the company avoids directly firing people they worked with and may know.
I suspect Paradox were tightening their money outlay after CS2 didn't do so well. With LBY failing to meet 3 early access releases, which means no money coming in and even more going out, it became a casualty. There's that old saying of "throwing good money after bad" and I suspect that's how Paradox saw it. I wouldn't be surprised if other games we didn't know about, ones in very early development, were also canned.
Agreed
Sometimes, you turn up to the office for work to find the door locked. Then someone comes out to tell you that you can collect your things later. The games industry is generally pretty horrible in terms of job security :(
It is worth considering that by deciding to never buy other paradox games, you're also boycotting the other devs in the same position as these ones. And if enough people were to boycott Paradox games, then this would also probably happen to more of Paradox's devs, since the engagement wouldn't be high enough for the corporate people to think it's worth it.
Not saying you can't boycott them, if you weigh it yourself and think it's the right decision then that's fine, though I personally don't think it's a very effective choice with the current state of the industry.
Firing them with a public announcement is insane! And the way I see it, it says that they don’t fear the workers suing them for wrongful termination at all! They have money, time, power, and the courts in their favor! We have to stop giving these corps our money and labor, build more worker-owned businesses, and do better than them, taking care of workers.
I'm so sorry for the devs.. They seemed so passionate about everything they did and seemed so sincere whenever they'd explain features to us.
Fr! Now not only is their game never gonna release, but they are also without jobs.
God my heart goes out to all the people who have lost their jobs. It’s absolutely disgusting imo that they found out via public announcements. Wow what a crappy company paradox. Couldn’t even have the heart to tell up them on the day to expect news, just something rather then nothing. Whatever we thought of this game, at the end of day many people have lost their jobs and I hope everyone who been involved are able to find new work soon. ❤
As someone interested in both Paralives and LbY there is something I keep noticing that I find funny. When the Paralives team focused on looks more so than features and core mechanics first there were a lot of people complaining that the game was all about looks and hadn't shown any substance (though they had but those same people said it was fake). People were even saying that the looks should be the *last* thing focused.
Now when the LbY team focused on features and core mechanics more so than looks the opposite was the case. Some of the same people keep saying it looked like trash, it's ugly and looks should be the *first* thing they focus on. They also got accused of faking gameplay videos.
I feel like for some simmers, it doesn't matter what game comes along, if it's a potential Sims competitor they just don't want it to exist.
OMG EXACTLY!! I NOTICED THIS TOO!! 👏🏾 Most People honestly just wanted to complain & don't want real solutions in the end is what I am coming to the conclusion of.
Its almost like...There are multiple groups out there with varying opinions and the world isn't one big hive mind...
@@dibel3669 I never said there weren't, I'm specifically talking about people I've seen on UA-cam and other sites flip flopping.
Yikes! You're so right about this. People are never satisfied. They claim that they are sick of the sims, but when competitors come about, everyone loses their shit and complains still. I don't understand... 🤨
You’re right but not completely. The people speaking about paralives not having any gameplay yet (it was 2 years ago maybe?) were also kinda right. I mean they did focus almost entirely on visual stuff but it was early on in the process, that’s important. Now the difference is, life by you was close to the opening and early access. The game wasn’t visually pleasing for numerous people. And it wasn’t just a case to make few touches and retexturing some things. You couldn’t see the art style, everything looked like they didn’t have idea what direction to go and that was concerning. It was too late into the game to change those things. So as I said, you’re kinda right, but not really. What you said that it’s funny, it’s just some simplification.
There was a recent change in the US tax law that requires the capitalization of software development costs. Previously they were expensed as incurred. If you want to expense them all at once, such as if you are going through a merger, you can mothball a project forever. At that point it is considered to have a useful life of zero and everything is a deductible expense right away.
You might think the decision is still ridiculous, after all they are throwing away everything they already spent on the project. That is not how corporate America makes decisions. In the decision making model, those prior costs are called "sunk costs." The money is already gone. No decision made about the future can consider them. They consider two choices and weight the "Net Present Value" of both. Which ever has a higher net present value, even if both numbers are negative, is the one they go with
Spend money finishing the game
Mothball the game and fire all developers
Spending money finishing the game means they incur all future costs. They also get revenue but that revenue is discounted by the current interest rate, which recently went up from nearly zero to something meaty and substantive. Why does the interest rate matter? Because the money they spend on finishing the game could instead be spent on investing in securities. If it takes two years before the game generates revenue, then Present Value=Future Value/(1+r)^n. There's a more complex version where it generates revenue over the course of years starting with a future year. They have to make assumptions about revenue, about how much this game is likely to sell but also assumptions about the maintenance costs of patches.
Option 2 means they fire all of these loyal workers. They do not incur future costs. They gain an almost immediate tax benefit for what they already spent but the money they already spent is not considered at all. The money they might have otherwise spent is available to invest on something else that generates more money. They forgo future discounted revenues. It looks like they went with this one.
The tax code allowing companies to take all of the costs upfront if they cancel nearly completed projects, along with high interest rates is creating these incentives for Paradox and HBO to pull this nonsense. While I do agree development costs should be capitalized for the sake of consistency and because of the matching principle. I would suggest deterring this behavior by amending tax law so that they can no longer deduct these costs for mothballed, nearly completed projects or in the case of HBO, outright completed projects that are in the library already. I would also like it if they refrained from increasing interest rates any further.
This was really well explained, thank you for this
thank you!!
This should be the only relevant comment, honestly. The ramifications this has, not only for the Simulation genre, but the entirety of the industry, let alone other industries, are major, and horrendous IMO.
Also, are you referring to what HBO pulled with Westworld? Because let me tell you, I was *PISSED* lol
Thats not taking into consideration things like fostering negative public perception by the customers and pissing off good employees while fostering a toxic work environment, etc all of which has a significant long term impact on their profits and the success of the company . The true path of making the most profit would have been putting the necessary amount of money and resources to make the game as good as it can be in the first place and releasing it, especially considering the lack of any other competitors in this niche market, they would have definitely made money. They were the first competitor to the sims to start development so if they had strategized properly in the beginning and given the development team the proper resources they could have been the first to release a game competing with the sims and cashed in on the maximum amount of profits from disgruntled sims fans while possibly taking the top spot as the best life sim game on the market which would then give them a name and a leg up they could have profited off in the future with additional games and content. Doing a good job consistently with every game they produce instead of trying to scheme how they can screw people over to make money and increase short term numbers the most is the most profitable path. I dont know why people take so much business advice from failing corporate entities instead of looking towards what causes success among small businesses that grow into flourishing businesses from scratch. Most of our current corporations only came into existence in the first place because they were at one point a small business that did things right and eventually grew big enough that they could do things completely wrong but the ceo doesn’t have to worry about losing money so they don’t care to truly fix it and they just instead barely stay afloat through scams and manipulating taxes.
This was very informative, thanks for taking the time to explain!
PLEASE GO INDIE AND MAKE THIS GAME HAPPEN!
I WILL WAIT FOR IT!!
They can do a whole Patreon and make that back. We want Life by You and it can happen. Screw the studios and go indie I say the same about music 🎼 artists. Don’t get a label let the label come to you. You don’t need them they need you
They would have to make something completely from scratch for legal reasons.
facts!!!!!!!
@@minimouette but all the assets are from the store 😂 /jk
Right! Kickstarter!
Tbqh at this point, it's f*ck paradox and f*ck EA. The way these corporations play with their employees and customers is disgusting and needs to stop. What a bummer this game was canceled after all that hard work. I had my reservations about the game but I was still excited about it and what it would do for the life sim genre.
We needed this game so badly. EA has a monopoly and has absolutely no loyalty to us lifelong players. I’ve been a supporter from day 1 and have put a lot of my hard earned money into these games (not Second-life, IMVU, no Avakin or even SimCity). It would be nice if EA acknowledged our loyalty and dedication.
At least we have Inzoi and paralife to look forward. But I agree that EA needs competition.
I don’t think this game was ever going to live up to the expectations, they honestly didn’t even have a shot with the way they were running things.
This happened for the better, so bigger better life sims can continue to evolve and rise to the top aka Paralives, Inzoi, Vivaland & some others.
@BeautyQueen2023X I have. But unfortunately there is now, no option. I was waiting for LBY to completely drop sims.
It's not that EA has a monopoly, it's just that other people can't make life sims that comes even close to The Sims (and I'm not even talking about Sims 4).
Same here I ALSO WANTED this game to come out and make it to early access. Its SAD it did NOT make it til then. I personally feel this game HAD some good potential too. Such a waiste. Very SAD. :( I also feel BAD for the team/devs who LOST thier jobs to this. :(
This made me so mad when I heard about it. I feel so pissed for all the poor devs who were doing so good and were great to interact with! I hope Willum makes his dreams come true. They all gained a lot of experience from this and will hopefully use their skills to make something even better on their own because a dumb MILLION DOLLAR company can’t see anything about what their audience wants
Not surprised. Look what happened after Palia launch... Singularity6 had 36 employees, some that worked on the game, LET GO. Fired. "Downsizing" and that's AFTER the launch of a successful game. These companies are ruthless.
Number 1 for me is inZoi. This is the game of my dreams.
And in 2nd place was Life By You. I was so interested in this project, especially because of Rod Humble. I feel so sad for him. He was so excited about this game.
And I feel sorry for all the people who worked on this game. This is so wrong and incredibly unfair 😞
Paralives isn't your cup of tea?
@otokouno I don’t like their art style. I love realism. Life by You wasn’t realistic, but I still had hopes that they would improve it.
Anyway, I am waiting for all these games: inZoi, Paralives, and Vivaland. And I pay for Paralives Patreon every month. 😅
I don't know why people like Inzoi, is it just for the uncanny valley graphics? You can't even build anything in Inzoi, just following your character all day and watch them cringe dancing and talking to npc? Seems like a game for Kpop fans only
@user-sd9sn7wf3o You can like whatever you want. I love InZoi because it's so realistic. Everything made in Korea and Japan is the best and perfect. They haven't even shown us all the game can do, so how can you judge it?
@vvniverse They clearly didn't watch the inzoi trailer because you very much can build & decorate houses. Even customize the hub world. 😅
Seeing the game footage again makes me sad all over again
Honestly i am really disappointed, i was looking forward to it.😢😢
I hope all the other upcoming games do betterr❤❤❤
Thank you for your updates Matt❤❤❤❤🎉🎉
Let's hope for the best for paralives❤
Movie studios can scrap finished movies and never release to write all expenses off as tax write offs. If they ever allow the film to see the light of day, they are subject to huge penalties. I imagine something like this is in play. All assets would need to be completely buried and if the team wanted to produce a game along those lines, they would have to start from scratch under a whole new IP name.
If you're talking about the Batgirl movie, that is not what happened. Warner Brothers cancelled the movie and, according to experts, saved about $15 to 20 million by writing it off. Which is a lot of money. However, the movie cost $90 million to make. Meaning that, while they got quite a bit in tax breaks, they still lost $70 to $75 million on the movie.
Companies aren't scrapping things just for tax write offs because, financially, it makes no sense. They lose way more than they get in return. But if they have decided they are going to cancel something anyway, they'll take the write off because why not?
If there's a case where a studio got back all of the money they spent on a movie by writing it off, I've never heard of it. But, if it's happened, I'd be fascinated. Stuff like this interests me.
I for one was really looking forward to this game. I paid twice and got a refund twice and I really was wanting to see cars and a free world to create my impression of a world. However I feel bad that the developers lost their jobs I pray for each and every one of them and I guess I will just move my focus on to enjoy and paralyzed hoping very much that those two games will give me what the Sims haven't. Even though I have spent way too much money on the Sims I have to say I have been enjoying it since it's the only life simulation game for me to enjoy
the way video game companies work nowadays is just so bad for the products, the devs the fans and everyone. And it's ridiculous cause if you make a genuinely good product and give the devs time to show love and effort in their projects then fans will love the game more and definitely be more inclined to buy it, and it probably takes a lot longer for it to pay off so thats why they don't do that, it's all about quantity and and rushing things over quality and long term pay off for everyone. I don't know much about companies or how this works but this is my outside perspective on what is probably happening nowadays to so many games. I just wish games could be developed properly. It also makes me fear for paralives, inzoi and other projects to come that EA will always have monopoly on this genre. When they first announced it was cancelled I was certain EA may have bought them out or something. It just doesn't make sense to me after all the work they did that they thought it more viable to cancel than to continue development until the game was more polished (yes it had issues but with time and development could improve) or maybe the game was in a state where too many things needed improving and it would need to be started over to fix them and they had run out of money for the project... who knows
It sucks that the Developers found out they were fired via a public post on the game cancellation. But not the first time for a AA/AAA game.
Paradox is mostly a publisher not a developer, there really was nowhere to transfer the development team of LBY. Like Colossal Order (who produces City Skylines) is there own studio partnered with Paradox for publishing, not a sub-company of Paradox Interactive. Paradox Techtonic was only created and existed to produce Life By You so when the game was cancelled due to falling out of favor in sales figures, dissolving it as a tax write off probably IS more profitable for them.
I honestly think they (Paradox Interactive) couldn't afford to be "a" Sims alternative, they needed to be THE (main) Sims alternative and while they had a loyal following, it was clearly not going to be a Sims killer so much as an alternate Sims game. And all that while City Skylines 2 was drowning and Prison Architect 2 is in a development spiral. Paradox couldn't afford the risk.
This is the only game I wanted to happen out of the life sim games announced:(
Not me. Seem too fancy with no soul
@@MsEliteForever the more realistic looking the better
@@xxaleksi No,just showy
@@xxaleksi Then you should be following inzoi.
Looked like bad TSR cc…
I am a huge Paradox fan, but when was the last time any of their games did well? Skylines, Lamplighters League, the Star Trek game where all dead on arrival and all of them happened in the last couple of months. Even Victoria 3 or CK3 had rocky launches and lets not even get into the mess that is Vampire Bloodlines 2. Paradox doesn't know how to publish games that they haven't developed themselves and quite frankly, even their own creations are suffering from early releases and EA-like DLC policies. LbY is just another game in a long line of failed attempts and at this rate, I am not blaming the devs.
The number of views a video gets means nothing, we all know that.
Corporations like these don't see their subsidiaries as human which is why they don't bother with personal layoffs. To them, all these hardworking talented people are either assets or liabilities. I hope whoever was affected by this doesn't give up doing what they love. Even though LBY is scrapped, I hope they can use everything they learned and make something even better.
It's horrible that they won't give the team the chance to at least lunch it Indie or w a buyer. Because honestly wtf. It gives the company a little money back, what is there issue. What's the reason to treat ppl who pured there heart and soul into it just expince that?????
I believe they cancel it’s to get a Tax cut, this happens in the movie industry all the time and I will not be surprised if the gaming industry start doing it now to
Start? They've been doing it.
Clearly they set the standards for the metrics low because there is just no way. What I don’t think the developers understand is the condition of the game would’ve been fine for an indie not for a established publishers game with investors I think that’s the part they’re missing, but I do understand if they were being told that they were over performing that they would feel like what they were producing was okay. I think what happened was paradox saw the feedback they were getting in the comments when they were doing the demos and decided to cut their losses at the last minute which is not fair on the team but I can understand it from a business point of view. To be honest, paradox should’ve told them from the beginning that what they were offering with the looks of the characters needed to have changed drastically and quickly
Rod Humble needs to do a kickstarter
Great reminder of why supporting indie devs is so important. I was considering caving & buying something from the EA summer sale; after watching this I closed the app. I'd much rather give my money to a smaller studio that cares about the product they put out.
Things like this should be illegal! Its completely unethical for employers to be able to rug pull their employees like this! Aside from the fact that the devs lost their livelihoods without any warning, From what I understand, this is also years worth of work that they can't even put on a resume! All the assets that were made -- the developers may not have access to them now that the project is cancelled. The production company is a complete disgrace.
Not surprised at all. Game publishers have been doing this for decades.
EA being the champion of destroying games, game-developers, gaming companies and dreams, only for the money grab not only with the Sims franchise. A policy that sadly has worked for them for more then 20 years which other Game publishers have adopted ever since.
Also there could have been more solutions possible, for example Paradox and the team would have make a deal where a % of the profit goes to the game publisher, while also going indie. Now they invested and lost every dollar they invested into the game. I am not good with finances or contracts, or any corporate concepts. However I do think they did not think every possible solution through.
If I was part of the laid off 'Life By you' team? I would join the Sims-Guru and the Maxis/Sims veterans at Midsummer, as a big F** to both EA and Paradox. 😇
If they went indie maybe they’d get lucky like unknown worlds did when UA-camrs picked up subnautica before it died
3:50 - As a developer, I think this "metric" they're talking about might not be external interest but rather internal performance metrics. At my workplace we work in three week "sprints", each sprint is planned beforehand, with a certain goal and a certain amount of tasks to focus on. Each developer gets assigned various tasks, and the goal is essentially to have all of these tasks finished before the time is up. Sometimes, tasks take longer than estimated, sometimes they're done much faster. Each sprint has something called a "burndown" trend which shows how well the team is performing based on the amount of tasks completed vs. the amount of tasks remaining.
So to me, it sounds like the developer is saying that they were performing better than planned in that regard; they had planned for development to take longer and be more expensive than it turned out to be.
im most looking forward to paralives, life by you wasnt really personally on my radar, but this paradox business is awful, finding out their jobs were terminated publicly FIRST?? thats as bad as EA honestly
Reminder that big companies like EA and Paradox don’t give a fuck about people, only how their bottom line is affected by the people
That frame rate is bonkers 💀
Agreed wholeheartedly😅
I think LBY had a lot of traction in the beginning and Paradox was all in on it until other competition like Paralives and InZoi came out of the woodworks and they saw how far ahead those games were and the graphics and got scared. I think LBY did themselves a disservice with documenting the development process so early on. People became less interested in it after seeing issues with the graphics and animations and some of the competitors started to have more promise. I think that killed them in the end.
Finally someone with sense in the comment section 😆This is exactly what I have been saying. All you had to do was take one look at LBY and no it was way behind. LBY killed themselves. Just ridiculous
I do hope the devs find a way to launch the game, get paid and paradox allow Life By You to have the sunshine it deserves.
I was losing confidence in LBY near the end, but I did not expect them to cancel the game. That's really sad
On top of that we are losing another competitor for Life Sim Genre. ON the bright side, Jake Solomon and Grant Rodiek are in the early stages of their own Life Sim game.
I saw a video interview featuring Jake Solomon and I like what he was saying. I hope they deliver something good. When one door closes, another one opens.
I don't know if Paradox thought it wouldn't be the success potential future IP they could make lots of money of then decided to pull the plug when it looked like it had to bake a good while longer for public reception to be positive or something.
This is just so sad, hopefully Rod Humble can do something, we will all support him.
I personally was really looking forward to playing this game. The game play had me the most intrigued.
They probably saw people say the game doesn’t look finished and cut their losses since they were already 5/6 years into development and had two release delays, it sucks for the developers but whatever metric they met that over exceeded and got approval, must not have been that much, especially for an already established studio
i was actually excited for the game. i didn’t think the graphics were bad at all. like i genuinely had no issue and didn’t see what everybody else was seeing. like if it was cartoony, people would hate, if it was too realistic, people will hate. it’s a game focused on gameplay, not aesthetics
Someone reported the investors of LBY have a even bigger stake in INZOI. So that could be a factor.
Everyone is basically, "its not a surprise. Nothing we can do about it."
And this guy is trying to start a revolution.
To me this whole situation seems like their main competition EA had something to do with it. This game probably would have cost EA everything if this game turned out to be better.
I was looking forward to this game. The fact that is was presented as the most 'modable' game with customisations of really anything made it very promising. It's sad to see it cancelled. I feel sorry for all the people who have been working on this for years to see everything cancelled right at the end. It doesn't feel fair. They way they were informed about loosing their job is a disgrace.
NDAs in such companies usually state you can't say anything after you leave for 10 years or even more, otherwise, there are severe financial consequences. This whole situation is so weird, the game had some rough edges but to scrap it completely at this stage is unreasonable. Too bad they didn't work out a memorable visual design before announcing, that could've given them some more traction.
I have a gut feeling that Paralives would only be the Life Simulation game that may succeed to compete Sims…Inzoi is too heavy for it to be accesible to the majority
Heavy? Genuinely curious bc I like inzoi and agree with paralives been a good competitor
Truthfully, I would’ve played this. Maybe not so often but I still could see myself having this game in my rotation.
What surprises me is that Paradox is a Swedish company. Of course, companies all around the world want to make profits. However, the work culture in Sweden is more worker-friendly. I’d think they’d be more considerate than in the USA. It’s a bit disappointed that no matter where, workers will be sacrificed
I feel awful that this happened to the devs, but one simple fact is that the game was ugly. Sorry to be harsh, but it really was. Every photo of the characters that I saw, they either looked like they were undead or were disproportionate; even compared to others in the game. If the devs were refusing to change that, I could easily see why all the time and money in the world would keep Paradox from wanting to have their name attached. Obviously I don't KNOW that this is what happened; but this could've also applied to any number of aspects, such as accrual gameplay. Any part of that game could've just been so bad that while devs were pushing to keep it, the company wanted nothing to do with it. At the end of the day, you can only do so much to polish a turd before you give up.
I'm not surprised by this cancellation. CO had recently some failed money draining projects. These where already mentioned to the stockholders. The profits they where expecting was not going to happen. Life by you was presented in a time when there was a huge space for a real Sims competitor. But when the early access came closer also the other 'new' sim games where starting to show what they were thinking of. And to be fair the other games looked better. CO also noticed that the Internet was looking more to these other games and not to life by you. The delay also made the chance for a successful game less because the moment they need to compete at the same time with the others, people probably spend more time on the other games. At the same time the release of cities skyline also was not what they hoped for. But in the end I think CO decided that they had better hoped if they would focus on the city builder genre, because that's where they almost have no competition in atm, and would drop the simulation dream they had.
I wonder if this is a similar situation to movie studios not releasing completed movies/series to get a tax write off for failed projects?
Since launch, everything has been strange about LbY: they showed the game too early and too often. It seems that they knew it would be canceled and went public to force popular appeal to continue...
Given that I'd never heard of Life by You until the the announcement that it was canceled, I'm not surprised that Paradox pulled the plug on it. But regardless of that, if this is how the staff were treated, that's despicable. I hope they all find homes at other studios real quick.
I hope they can get a new studio or get a kickstarter or Patreon. They can still do it since Paradox fucked them over . Alex built his game from the mud these guys can do it too.
That's fucked up. Even though this one was less popular than Paralives, it was gonna come out first. It would have sold. I was gonna buy it. It looks like it could be fun. Like if the Sims was more like Rimworld. I love them both, and I wish one had features of the other. There was so fuckery going on there. I don't think it had shit to do with the progress of the game.
I was really looking forward to LBY & I feel horrible for the devs, they invested so much time and money only to lose their jobs. This is heartbreaking, I hope there is some way we can still buy this game and support these devs.
It’s such a shame that passionate game developers can’t just make the games they want to make anymore without corporate higher ups nuking them out of existence without any reward of payoff in the end.
The fact that they can just destroy someone’s game because the feel it’s taking to long to develop or not the type of content they wanted or is costing too much is disgraceful and disgusting
can you link the linkedin post this is so long
Even *if* something makes money, it can be cancelled at any moment, because some of the money isn't **all of the money**, which is the only result most large companies are interested in. It's sad, because it means they become the graveyard of some really interesting ideas.
#indierevolution ✊🏽 As a creator he must be furious and heartbroken. I’m sure Paradox said “if we can profit off this nobody can!” I’m also think they probably had all devs sign an agreement saying that all the work they do is owned by the corporation. The devs would have to start over again with a product that is different enough that it doesn’t leave the door open for lawsuit. But I’m gonna follow the hashtag to see what happens in the future, in that space.
This is giving me Defy Media and their treatmemt of Smosh
They don't tell the workers about the non-release early because they don't want anyone stealing assets, office equipment, etc. And, depending on labor laws where they were, they may have had to hold onto people in order for their final paychecks to fall within the legal timeframe. And they may have waited until after some kind of quarterly report or something went out because a failure would hurt their numbers. Corporations suck.
They don't but they could have had a meeting with them the day the public found out but before the actual announcement.
I loved the game and this is so sad and many companies treat employees like this now days
As an older adult player of The Sims, I was really looking forward to Life By You. It and Inzoi were the only life-sim games that were being marketed to a more mature audience. Even though the game was ugly, I was hoping with all the feedback they would've massively improved the graphics and overall look before the final launch. As I suspect The Sims 5 will continue to be as cartoony and childlike as TS4. I can only hope that Someday we will get a life-sim game for adults with a bit of edge to it. Fingers Crossed!
Ok i had to delete my comment cause the more i kept thinking the more it was bugging me out. I dont believe the employee when he said "it was going extremely well" i been watching the upcoming stuff before the cancelation and the animations, the people still look stiffed and bad. I do somewhat believe that all of them was just fired when they announced it but the true reason is just completely different then let on. This game been delayed 3 times and the more time it took, the more money the publisher was losing also by the fact that people already paid to play for the early access was just adding to the heat. Im upset everyone lost their jobs and on a project for 4-5 years but i definitely wished they showed the game while it was developing in early stages cause that probably why it was delayed so much from people requesting for fixes and everything.
This clears up a lot about the little issues that Paradox has had with their other games. They launch really great city builders and simulations but they always launch with bugs and the dlc is trash. Sounds like higher ups are letting unfinished content launch and there's no solid communication between teams. They must have stopped this game knowing how life sim fans would react if they got the same treatment as their other players.
I wish it had been released. I was looking forward to this game.
Sheesh, hearing all this is just so sad, I feel bad for the devs who lost their jobs from this
I hope someday I can play this game somehow. It's sad.
They should've used Unreal Engine from the get-go. I can understand City Skylines using Unity but not Life By You.
The last triple A sims clone we have is inzoi and I hope they don’t let us down 😭😭😭
This is all the more reason to go support Paralives, we NEED more people taking risks in this already monopolized genre of games, we NEED good and honest and passionate teams unlike EA.
I am honestly so sick of ceos doing this, istg. First it was overwatch 2 with the campaign mode, they nearly finished it and were going to release it completely but then they stopped it. It was almost finished and about to release then they stopped and cancelled it. Now it's Life By You, now they completely laid off the entire team! After city skylines 2 flopped, they NEEDED this game. I feel so bad for the team, I think this is good not just for Life By You but other devs that got screwed over by double and triple a companies.
This NEEDS to stop, its already a harsh market out there, we can't let it get worse bc this is going to repeat itself again and again in multiple companies if we let it keep going.
What they needed actually was to get back there bleeding player base in Cities 2 more than LBY and probably also games we don't even know about that also caught the ax so that they could focus on their existing projects.
it's not "devs" doing this !
The devs are the ones being laid off though
Um.. Devs? Did you not watch the video or..
@@dibel3669 No i clearly didnt watch it. I would totally comment on something without watching the video first.
My full time job is at IT industry (i'm a software engineer) and I have a startup game dev company to do projects with friends. But i'll tell you, the company I work for, have fired my co-worker in like 10mins they came to workplace (even when their contract should have lasted for the month) and another co-worker was fired for no reason and they were critical resource for the project. Idk how these companies do crap like this. Trust me, its everywhere.
I think EA may have put the final nail in the coffin to this game. I mean if you notice, EA is copying off of Paralives with certain things for The Sims.
I have noticed this pattern that every time Paralives shares anything, The Sims team share something right after to deflect focus from them. Its just weird ya know?
it was also a little weird how right after Paralives showed off curved walls in their build mode what did EA do? curved walls!
I mean, what do you expect
That’s just business side of things
When you get a healthy competition, you see what they do and put in stuff they have to hold off your core audience, that’s not surprising
#FuckCorporateGreed lol. This is crazy, disgusting and wild. I hope EVERY. SINGLE. PERSON. that ever decided with these kind of decisions, wether at EA, Blizzard, Paradox, ... they can for all I care become homeless, but they do NOT deserve their positions. At all. Makes me so so pissed.
Like others have said, it isn't surprising that the developers lost their jobs in the way they did, but it is sad on the developer's end and disgusting on Paradox's part. I can't believe Paradox would dump months to over a year's worth of funds into this game and then just throw it away right before launch.
Something I think a lot of people and game companies funding these new sim games forget, these are the first Life Simulation games that really go against and are a similar style to The Sims. Sure, it has been years since Sims 1 was released, but that also means the Sims Team and EA has had literal decades to build up funds and the animation quality and style we are expecting of Life by You, Paralives, and Inzoi. Some game companies can't afford the funding as it is because they are smaller in order to meet the quality of animation and looks Sims 4 has. EA is a massive gaming company and The Sims games have had decades of revenue and a titanic hold over the simulation industry. Of course they are going to have all the money to make the better looks and animation and styles (despite the fact they aren't putting that money into making a functional game and DLCs but that's besides the point).
Expecting these new simulator games like Life by You or Paralives to be Sims 4 quality is definitely ideal but not realistic. So while I have always leaned more towards Paralives or Inzoi, I refused to knock Life by You the way others I've seen have, which is by how the animation quality and style was reminiscent of Sims 2 or 3 or similar of those generation of simulator games.
So I really do feel bad for these developers. Given more time and chances, I do feel that Life by You could've grown into something truly decent and maybe, in future generations, could've gotten to Sims 4 quality. It is not easy to make any game, let alone life simulation games where there is a ton that goes into gameplay alone. The fact Paradox didn't even give them notice of them being laid off until the public announcement is also outright rude and disrespectful to the Life by You devs and team.
Sorry for the long message, just wanted to get this out there
I wonder if they were being threatened by some kind of lawsuit….
It all souds hard to belive and against all logic but I know from experience how absurd things can be with big institutions like those. Canceling the game is one thing, threating your devs in sutch rude and unproffesional way is another. 😡
lay offs should always be in person
I was very upset about Paradox canceling the game. I wrote them a letter backing Rod and his team. To bring the game back.
it's publishers.. not the studios
I am not surprised it’s sad they lost their jobs people support indie games they are the best
i dunno what happen in paradox,after the big mistake the made wit cities skylines 2
they brought it to early ,with lots of bugs .lots of people left the game. something is very wrong in th company ,and cancel ' life by you' is big mistake, i hope another compant take over the game ,can continiue the game .
If this is a common practice among game companies, I couldn't see how many people would want to go into this field except to show what they can create and seeing the excitement in players wanting to play their games. How can people live this way even trying to raise families with this kind of job uncertainty.
Was Electronic Arts threatening Paradox with a large lawsuit? That seems to be the only thing that makes sense to me. EA is a huge cash cow, they can afford the best lawyers, even if it is likely that EA would lose easily. I am sure that attorneys could make a case due to the fact that Humble was hired after his long association with EA. It looks like a legal issue to me, either that or the top brass at Paradox are suffering from a bad psychosis. It could be forecasted profit margins, or lack there of.
It kind of sounds like a tax write off the same way netflix and other streaming services are canceling shows even before they are realesed. (speculation from somone who don't know alot about the gamedev industry).
If, as you say, people didn't seem that excited by the game the studio probably just shrugged their sholders (but give the thumbs up to the devs!?). The overhead studios only care about money, never giving the game/show a chance to find its legs or audience to finding them.
If this was such a passion project for Rod, which he claimed it was, then he should've done the right thing and taken the project indie. As stated, less revenue is better than zero..
lol the bed pillows are shaped like couch pillows
Larian is the only studio with any moral backbone
The game could have definitely improved and gotten more fans in the future if they released it. The “sims” game market literally only has a few competitors right now. I can count them all on my hand.
I wouldn't be surprised if some of the features devs put on LBY is shown on another game by Paradox later on, tbh.
7:13 “we didn’t do anything wrong but if you tell anyone what we did we’ll destroy you.” Ah, the classic abuse tactic favored by families and corporations alike of silencing those they exploit and mistreat by threatening worse abuse if they speak up.
We need a union for video games workers
At least we still have iNzoi they will also allow mods
I'm only at the beginning of the video- EA did something, gave someone some money to shut it down. Why would they waste all this time, get so far into it and cancel it. Fuck EA, they have a monopoly and they know it. I can't wait for a different life sim that's comparable and enjoyable because I feel like EA is just a terrible company. Im not mad at the money they charge I'm happy to pay them I love sims. I'm mad at their lack of transparency, honesty, and integrity.
In my opinion, the game is too ambitious… if they did not feed us a lot of expectations and surprise us later on how extensive it is instead..they might not be so pressured😢
seems like it could be salvaged or maybe early released.