Manor Lords publisher argues “not every game” needs to be a live-service, and developers should never be “forced to run until their mental or physical health breaks down”

Hooded Horse’s CEO Tim Bender, who runs publishing duties on several strategy-focused games including Manor Lords, has come out against the idea that every game needs to keep players perpetually hooked with post-launch plans à la a live-service.

In response to a LinkedIn post that claims “Manor Lords is a pretty interesting case-study in the pitfalls of Early Access development when a game with a small team (and heavily marketed as such) hits the reality of a hungry audience” – pointing to the game’s falling concurrent player numbers – Tim Bender argues that “this is exactly the kind of distorted endless growth/burden of expectations/line must go up perspective that causes so much trouble in the games industry.”