Paradox still want to make a Sims competitor after Life By You, but "we need to start smaller"

rockpapershotgun.com:

Paradox Interactive have not had a rosy couple of years. While the company's core business in grand strategy remains prosperous, their approach to games outside this niche has been mired by delays, cancelations, closures and layoffs. Let's run through the big setbacks: The Lamplighters League, which we overall liked, was a $22 million financial flop - Paradox have now parted ways with creators Harebrained Studios. Cities Skylines 2 should have been a victory lap, after the success of the first game, but it launched with severe bugs and performance issues. Prison Architect 2, another follow-up to a hit game, has been delayed indefinitely, and Paradox have split from developers Double Eleven. Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 is borderline vapourware: originally announced in 2019 with Hardsuit Labs at the helm, it's currently in the hands of The Chinese Room, and was recently delayed for the umpteenth time into 2025.

And then there's the abrupt cancellation of Life By You, a life management sim designed to compete directly with The Sims 4, and the closure of its creators Paradox Tectonic. Writing-down the development of Life By You cost Paradox around 208 million krona, or $19.2 million. It was the primary contributor to a 90% decrease in the company's operating profit for the second quarter of 2024, versus the same quarter in 2023.

Paradox recently invited journalists to a Media Day in London, seeking to reset perceptions and explore what they've learned from this run of disasters. I have a few stories from that event, which we'll run over the next week or two, but above all, I wanted to ask about Life By You. Announced barely a year before cancellation in March 2023 with a former EA boss at the helm, it was an undisguised attempt to usurp The Sims, with a host of ambitious elements such as context-sensitive generated dialogue. I thought it made a lot of sense for Paradox to try its hand at a life sim - a genre that can be as system-led as grand strategy, but