Life By You's developers were informed of studio closure via its public announcement, former designer claims

by Danny Craig  · 
Life By You's developers were informed of studio closure via its public announcement, former designer claims
Paradox Interactive

A former game designer at Paradox Tectonic, the recently closed studio that was working on the now-canceled Sims rival Life By You, claims that the developer spent "a month in purgatory" and that its employees were informed of the closure at the same time as the general public.

The details:

  • Earlier this week, Paradox Interactive announced that Life By You had been canceled after an indefinite delay earlier this year after it failed to meet internal expectations. Only hours after the cancellation, the publisher confirmed that the studio would be closing entirely, as Life By You was its sole project, and that its workforce would be laid off.

  • In a recent LinkedIn post, game designer Willem Delventhal shared how he had been affected by Tectonic's closure, stating that the team was "devastated" by the game's cancellation and that the situation had been a "real shit show." Delventhal claims that the studio received approval for the game's early access launch a few weeks before it exceeded its internal metrics by "a significant portion," only to be informed shortly after that Life By You would not launch for an undisclosed reason.

  • The team allegedly spent "a month in purgatory" attempting to persuade higher-ups to allow the title to enter early access, even going so far as to consider finding buyers or breaking off from Paradox to become an indie studio. Despite this, employees were informed of the layoffs via a public statement from Paradox CEO Fredrik Wester.

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