MC:

[Skimbo 304]

www.gamekult.com/articles/A0000083707/

I've found this article via cxs.... Bt it's in french so yu wll need to use a translator

[jim 546 43]

Here's the direct translation (note I haven't edited this).

While we celebrate today the first half of Cities XL, released in France October 8, 2009, the developer Monte Cristo Paris would undoubtedly have preferred a more relaxed celebration. The studio, founded in 1995, is indeed facing serious financial difficulties and looking for a buyer under the protection of the Commercial Court of Paris, as we learned this afternoon. 

 

Based in Paris, his headquarters, but also in Kiev (Ukraine) since 2005, Monte Cristo banked big on the launch of Cities XL, a city management game available on PC. Begun in 2007, the yard looked like being one of the most ambitious in France, "a cumulative investment of nine million euros", explained to us in October, the studio's CEO Jerome Gastaldi. The depreciation of the title was then based on a hybrid economy, with a side a game sold in box, and the other an optional subscription, called "Planet", with options online novel. 

 

But just months after the release of the title, the picture is disappointing: despite a satisfactory renewal rates, the abandonment of the Planet is offering announced January 27, 2010 for lack of members. And if Cities XL is well in the charts, its international success is relative: in all, only 100,000 copies will be sold in different territories, according to the developer. A disappointing score held internally, where you point the health of the PC game market, which would have weakened the financial health of the company. 

 

While rumors floated in recent weeks about the situation of Monte Cristo's CEO Jerome Gastaldi, therefore, recognizes the investment situation in the studio assignment, but denied having carried out redundancies among the staff in Paris. Only part of the staff chart, based in Kiev, was thanked, but "the 49 employees of Paris are still in the premises, we are assured the side of the studio. 

 

 

Gastaldi hopes to find a buyer for the survival of Cities XL, a development platform promised to many updates. Last October, already, the CEO admitted that the future of society is linked to that of his city-builder. "We have a roadmap to 2 years", explained Gastaldi. "Since the beginning, the first stage of the rocket. Our future is really to ensure that Cities XL is installed as and when time and in stages, and on more PCs as possible." 

 

Until a decision is taken, the direction of Monte Cristo not disclose its future, and refuses to dispel the most pessimistic assumptions. "There are people who are interested in the company" admits only one side of the developer. "We hope to find a buyer for the studio, and that lots of people will be preserved", Gastaldi comment this afternoon.quote>

[Roger51 381]

hmm....something we all suspected, so CXL2011 will be a long way away it seems.

[Skimbo 304]

thx for posting the translation here, jim^^

[mr-tom 2]

[Herdervriend 46]

I think it is there own fault. The 6 rules of good marketing they didn't follow and they weren't listening to us at all. Now I hope the game will still come, or at least they will release a patch with a gigantic good update giving us the opportunity to develop it ourselves. Else, it will just be a massive shame.

[JinRenegade 0]

What has happened to video games these days? Back in the 1990s and the early 2000s, video games had some great gameplay, good graphics and a large choice of genres. Now the video gaming genre is just dumbing down gameplay, upping the graphics (slowly...) and focusing on FPS, adventure or some other type of game which doesn't need you to think.

I bet this game, Cities XL, is going to be used as an example in the future that other video game genres, like city building games, are not worth making because they don't bring as much money when compared to the ones which casual gamers play all the time.

Hopefully this will change in the future, but I'm not seeing any hints of this.

EDIT:

About Monte Cristo going bankrupt - Their own fault, they could have avoided this. We gave them loads of ideas and suggestions but they didn't make use of them much, only on small details like how big the pavement should be, nothing like gameplay. They could have kept it SimCity styled (which was what everybody was hoping for in the first place), but they made it like a sort of City Life 2 (which was an awful game tbh, made by the same people aswell!).

[IntoxiNation 0]

Originally posted by: JinRenegade

What has happened to video games these days? Back in the 1990s and the early 2000s, video games had some great gameplay, good graphics and a large choice of genres. Now the video gaming genre is just dumbing down gameplay, upping the graphics (slowly...) and focusing on FPS, adventure or some other type of game which doesn't need you to think.

quote>

Well as CXL shows, because that's where the money is at (lack of money when it comes to CXL). Also games have turned into productions the size of action movies. You got actual actors, wire work and motion capture all in play now. It adds a ton to the cost of development, so they got to try and sell a butt load of units to recoup their production costs.

As for me - I still prefer the classics like Adventure and Pitfall on the Atari 2600. Gameplay means a lot more to me than graphics. Even the classic text games like Zork were more fun than a lot of what comes out today.

[pete1061 0]

Originally posted by: JinRenegade

What has happened to video games these days? Back in the 1990s and the early 2000s, video games had some great gameplay, good graphics and a large choice of genres. Now the video gaming genre is just dumbing down gameplay, upping the graphics (slowly...) and focusing on FPS, adventure or some other type of game which doesn't need you to think. quote>

Large corporations like EA & Microsoft happened to video games these days. Big corporations don't like to take risks, they go with basic formulas for content (FPS, MMO) and simplified gameplay for the lowest common denominator (release Spore vs. Prototype Spore).

The shift to game consoles also has hurt the PC gaming market. Developers would rather go for the big bucks and make a game for XBox, PS3, or Wii.

MCs biggest mistake was taking the corporate approach and trying to jump on the MMO bandwagon. They would have been much better off listening to the mountians advice of the city building community gave them at their request, and released a completed single player offline game.

[DazzaDazza 29]

i would have to agree with JinRenegade there seems to be less verity every year, that is for PC anyway, I don't own a PS or any thing like that, the only games I can find is fantasy and 1st person shooter games, although i live in Australia so some game may not come out hear, but that's just a guess, when i was looking for Anno I had to ask the person at the shop to order it in from anther store, there weren't exactly allot of copy of CXL at the stores ether, matter of fact I thing bort the only copy they had

[Asgardi 0]

The investment was 9M

[Winter Dragon 0]

If MC is still serious about its comment on supporting the community through modding, it needs to act now before a new company buys them.

[LivingInThePast 364]

Yes, but player modding makes no real money toward MC. That's kind of why MC was reluctant to modding in the first place.

[Aspire 3]

So..

I guess this will probably be the end of MC and any hopes of cxl2011. basically, this will probably feel like the end of the city-building genre.

Im dissapointed specifically at MC for not taking steps to make sure that this will not happen, plus, not enabling the players to mod or customize the game for a better experience.

I thought that MC would be different; Instead of being just like other companies that keep the players in the dark they would actually listen to the players (all of them) and actually ask the players to help in building the game up (they help with mods and stuff that would make the game great because they can actually stop and listen to the players because they are the players.

[pete1061 0]

Alas, this is the sad truth about the game industry. Only a handful of developers survive. Most release 1 or 2 titles and go broke.

[Ocram's Razr 963]

What is more likely, "MySims Cities XL" OR "SimCity XL"?

[jeremy12 0]

like what Backpacker said Its what happens now a days unless your part of a big company like Activision, THQ, or EA, very few companys can pull off making and publishing (Blizzard)

[Aspire 3]

I really dont want EA to buy the game and change it to "Cities XL Societies"

[joshphillips999 0]

What I'm worried about is whether those who actually have the game will still be able to use it, even if the game is a lost cause; nobody works on it, nobody's selling it, MC go bankrupt etc. Because think about it; we have to sign in to play that game. If they shut down that server, then we can't access the game.

If the worst does happen, I hope they at least allow those who bought the game to be able to play it! I will still easily be satisfied with this game for years if it had no more updates, personally. Even though it is unfinished, and there is so much more to add:

- Trains

- Weather (though this seems particularly far away, if we were ever going to get it. This would be a huge plus though)

- Bug fixes such as the highway bridge bug and incompatibility with many of the newest graphics cards, ripping textures etc.

- More buildings (especially for high density, the same really tall high density executive building keeps popping up, it looks nice, but theres way too many).

And a lot more. But at least, unlike a lot of other people, I'm actually satisfied to an extent by the game already. Any of the things above or other improvements is just a plus. Unfortunately Cities XL 2011 seems really far away, if it ever happens. And then, whoever takes it over is likely to ruin the game and turn it into something like Sim city societies. Unless we still have the original MC team working, with just a lot more people from elsewhere. Problem is, they are probably going to be like EA, and go all for the money, and forget about the customer. I know a lot of people say MC didn't care about us, they did, they just weren't financially stable enough to fulfill a lot of the outrageous requests that some of us made. We don't really know what it's like to be in their shoes. Although I can imagine they probably could have done better, it wasn't a total disaster on their part, in my opinion. But anyone who takes them over may not listen to us at all, and make some huge update where our game just falls to pieces, and we can't even get back to one we may have liked more.

Meh, I'm only speculating. Hopefully that wouldn't happen. I don't really know a lot about this business to be honest.

[dedgren 830]

they just weren't financially stable enough to fulfill a lot of the outrageous requests that some of us made.quote>

Well, there's a novel take. This whole situation was our fault. Yep, must be so.

Our fault for:

1) Expecting a game that purported to allow the player to sim RL cities to have a bunch of really outrageous stuff... like, you know, trains. That sort of thing.

2) Expecting the game to actually work once installed, as opposed to setting up like concrete over the course of a half hour or so.

3) Expecting the game to be ours once we'd purchased it... the list goes on.

Crazy dreamers, we were, eh?

...that may be the single most ridiculous thing I've ever read in a post on this website...

David

[USA_Pride 49]

Originally posted by: LivingInThePast

Yes, but player modding makes no real money toward MC. That's kind of why MC was reluctant to modding in the first place.quote>

Yes, but modding improves the game... for free...  So why fight the modders?  EA took the right approach and embraced modders and custom content and work WITH the community, not against it.

Building and igniting a user\fan base only helps your profitability.  If EA\Maxis didn't work with modders and custom content makers SC4 would have died years ago, but here we are, 7 years later, still playing as more mods and custom content pour in, drooling over the prospect of them releasing SC5.

[Ocram's Razr 963]

SimCity 5? I want SimCity 3000 3D!

The 5th SimCity PC game was SimCity Societies. All of its internal files called it SC5.

[ifurkend 0]

If MC survive this, I really hope that no more MMO SIM hybrid as already proved to be commercially unsuccessful. But MC didn't learn from their mistakes, never.

[joshphillips999 0]

Originally posted by: dedgren

they just weren't financially stable enough to fulfill a lot of the outrageous requests that some of us made.quote>

Well, there's a novel take. This whole situation was our fault. Yep, must be so.

Our fault for:

1) Expecting a game that purported to allow the player to sim RL cities to have a bunch of really outrageous stuff... like, you know, trains. That sort of thing.

2) Expecting the game to actually work once installed, as opposed to setting up like concrete over the course of a half hour or so.

3) Expecting the game to be ours once we'd purchased it... the list goes on.

Crazy dreamers, we were, eh?

...that may be the single most ridiculous thing I've ever read in a post on this website...

Davidquote>

Don't patronize me! That last bit wasn't the slightest bit hypocritical, was it now? Because you say I'm ridiculous whilst ignoring the rest of my post.

If you spent any time on the original Cities XL forum, you would know that everyday there was a thread asking for something new to be implemented in the game, and a hate group to back it up if it wasn't implemented.

And besides, if you actually took the time to read the rest of my post, you would see obviously it is MC's fault to a good extent, but people expected too much.

Yes it was supposed to work, and they did spend too much time on things that weren't important to a lot of people (Planet offer etc.). I admit they released the game too early and couldn't promise everything. If you noticed, they never actually promised people trains before release. They also said anyway for things like trains that we would get them eventually.

I never had any problem with installation and haven't really noticed many people saying the game doesn't work after. Installation was 5 minutes for me. And thats on a mid-range PC. 

And the last point doesn't make a whole lot of sense when you put it into perspective.

You've also misunderstood my post. I meant that for things other than bugs, which is mostly what you listed. Most people are upset about the lack of gameplay, how its the same thing all the time and it gets boring. Not many types of building, GEMs, map editors, regions (this is one of the "outrageous" things I was talking about that, according to your post, you seem to find reasonable, it is also one that MANY people got VERY angry about on the original cities XL forum site, it would change people's decision to buy the game), and that it simply wasn't developed enough, is why people are dissapointed. I only came into contact with a few bugs, and from what I've seen the only real big problems which cannot be fixed are the ones when you have an incompatible graphics card, as well as a couple others. But bear in mind these are ones made AFTER the release, and that happens with a lot of well developed games too.

I'm not being MC's pet here or anything, its clear they made some wrong decisions and could've done without the PO, but you seem to be attacking me for simply stating my opinion, without even fully understanding my point. They were financially stable enough to get these bugs out of the way, I never denied that. I was talking about gameplay. People don't generally talk about bugs online unless they're having trouble with them.

Your right about what you said, okay? No need to be so harsh about it. I was talking about something else.

[Ocram's Razr 963]

So they lost 6 million euros? Now that the planet offer is gone (and all the important content was transferred to solo mode), maybe people will finally start buying the game.

[Asgardi 0]

"Yes, but modding improves the game... for free...  So why fight the modders?  EA took the right approach and embraced modders and custom content and work WITH the community, not against it."

The major business idea was to sell content in small packages. Why anyone would by some house models and textures if people could create an endless amount of those for free? It was smart move to block modding BUT of course now the situation is quite different. Modding would actually help the game selling when they are not able to do anything themselves. Oh, the irony

[Mayor49 0]

Originally posted by: Asgardi

"Yes, but modding improves the game... for free...  So why fight the modders?  EA took the right approach and embraced modders and custom content and work WITH the community, not against it."

The major business idea was to sell content in small packages. Why anyone would by some house models and textures if people could create an endless amount of those for free? It was smart move to block modding BUT of course now the situation is quite different. Modding would actually help the game selling when they are not able to do anything themselves. Oh, the irony quote>

I 100% Agree with you.

[soltangris 42]

......And here we go again with the 'MC is the devil' refrain. "they've made all the wrong decisions and that's why the game floundered'.

Has any of you considered what would have happened if MC hadn't released PO in the first place? Yep, they might have sold 40 - 50 000 more copies, to those die-hard single player city builders. Some would still have refrained to buy it, because 'it is unfinished, it doesn't have Bullet-trains', it doesn't have the Latest hyper-interesting buildings in Tokyo'... and so on. Or simply because it wasn't as they expected it to be.

Also, MC would have lost a portion of teh fanbase that bought the game SOLELY for its multiplayer  aspect -  the PO. As weird as it sounds to the die-hards, there is such a fan-base.

What would have happened if MC have delayed the game longer to release more features? - > Outdated graphics. Fans  and investors outraged with the delay.

If they have opened it up to modders right away? - >Zero (or close to) interest for the official expansions. Zero additional income for MC to continue developing.

If they had listened to fan suggestions? Which one exactly of the thousands that were coming each month? I was also into the first forums during development and I also can testify that there were tons of ideas in direct conflict with each other, other ideas that were completely irreal, and so on.

The simple fact is that the studio didn't have the financial resources and manpower to pull off this project. First they were hard-pressed to release it, then they were even harder pressed to maintain functionality, while at the same time add new features.
They didn't have EA's arsenal of commercial money-making monsters to support some gaming experiments. They didn't have Blizzard's focused behavior, and their hyper- specialisation into a couple of genres.
All they had was a hardcore city-builder fanbase that was used to get new features for free. And, as the subsequent development had proven, this is not enough.

Understand this: I'm not saying it's the fan's fault. We have the right to expect of the gaming companies to build new and better games.
What I'm saying is that current reality in the gaming market excludes experimentation. As in all other facets of life, our capitalist system supports only endless copies of old and proven recipees, somewhat refined, somewhat better than the older versions. And unless we, the public, start to change that, we could  sure as hell kiss goodbye any significant innovation in the future.

[Garek Maxwell 1]

I don't know, I think a lot of people would have been happy with a 3D Sim City 4. Nothing new, nothing special, just 3D graphics and the same kinds of modding tools that EA released.

I know I would have been happy with it, and no company would have to work very hard to produce it...

(This is ignoring all the copyright claims that would follow such an endeavor of course.)

[LivingInThePast 364]

You're not supposed to open it up to modders from the get-go anyway.

1) Build anticipation for the game. Make sure it at least it works and satisfies basic standards set by SimCity 4.

2) Have minor free downloads (like the Landmarks for SimCity 4)

3) Have a little tool that lets you customize things beyond normal (like the Lot Editor)

4) Release an expansion pack that adds genuinely new features (like Rush Hour)

5) Release a tool that makes it easier to import buildings (like BAT)

6) Work with the community and start opening up more and more things

7) More minor downloads and patches