"Don't bank on being the next viral hit": Manor Lords publisher urges other studios to "take care of all the devs" instead of hunting for their golden goose

Manor Lords publisher Hooded Horse has shared some advice for both developers and publishers navigating viral success, recommending an even-handed approach over a hasty search for hits.

One-person developer Slavic Magic achieved monumental success with its debut title Manor Lords no matter how you slice it, beating launch records that had long been held by titans of the genre like Cities: Skylines and Civilization 6. Even so, Hooded Horse struck a humble tone in a May interview with Game Developer, arguing that it's "a little unfair to judge us" on Manor Lords' success alone because "publishers shouldn't be judged by their biggest hit."

In an insightful interview with Rock Paper Shotgun, Hooded Horse CEO Tim Bender expanded on the holistic lens through which the publisher views its catalog of games. Spurning the perpetual chase for a golden goose that'll please investors, Bender seeks to maintain a business model that doesn't result in any financial pressure that might trickle down to the developer level.

"Sustainability is something we think about a lot," he said. "But usually we think about it in relation to developers. So we're in an interesting situation - we never took money from, like, venture capitalists, or private equity, or international conglomerates, or anything that would put pressure on us. In fact, we even wrote into our bylaws that we can prioritize other things over profits, like artistic integrity and fair treatment."

Without naming names, Bender railed against publishers that treat their business like a venture capitalist firm, investing in several projects at once knowing full-well the majority of them will flop but hoping for just one viral success to carry the whole thing. "It's just a horrible way to think about things, right? It's opportunistic and predatory," Bender said. "People are trusting you with their lives and dreams, they're trusting you with the future of their studio and their employees."

I don't have the time or the insight to explain the intricacies at the center of the layoff crisis battering the industry this year, but a common theme sure seems to be companies rejecting the long road in the interest of short-term profits that'll look good in quarterly financial reports. All too often that materializes in redundancies among teams whose projects didn't immediately meet or exceed sales expectations, even if the larger studio they're under has historically performed well.

Bender went as far as to urge players themselves to spend their money on games backed by publishers who "take care of all the devs, especially the ones that might be struggling." As for developers, he advised they take a close look at any publisher they're considering as a potential buyer and how they care for a stable of developers whose performance on the sales charts will invariably differ.

"What you do for the median game, and what you do for the game that struggled the most, and how you're trying to come back, how you continue to put your efforts into all your games fairly, and live up to the obligations of what you promised those developers, when they trusted their game to you - that means so much more, in terms of whether players should trust a publisher and say, 'oh, I'll try their next game'," Bender said. "That shouldn't be based on the viral hit. And whether a developer who's considering a publisher should trust that publisher, because don't bank on being the next viral hit."

We don't give business advice, but we do have some clutch Manor Lords tips any aspiring land baron should heed.