Greenlit Steam game Towns halts development
Development of the in-progress city management game Towns has halted and will not resume due to declining sales, developer Florian Frankenberger revealed this week.
Towns was among the first games to hit Steam as part of Valve's community-driven Greenlight program. The game launched in November of 2012 for Windows, Mac, and Linux, and players who paid $14.99 for an early version were promised frequent updates as Towns expanded to fill its intended scope.
"After getting used to the source code and publishing the first new version of the game, we talked about the agreed payment and it turns out that the [sales] are getting down rapidly," Frankenberger explained. "So we are now selling less than a third of the [expected] copies a month, [losing] about 33% of [sales] per month. To be completely honest, I can't work for that little amount. I have to pay for the rent and food and this doesn't really suffice for any of it."
Frankenberger continued: "I'm sorry that we had to pull the plug right here, but I sincerely hope you can understand why we had to make that decision right now."
Frankenberger discussed the possibility of continuing development in a sequel game, and notes that players who paid for the original Towns will be compensated in some way upon the sequel's launch.
[Image: SMP]
