Steam Greenlight game Towns abandoned as funds dry up - statement

Steam Greenlight RPG city-builder project Towns has been cancelled following poorer than expected sales and a lack of funds. Developer Florian Frankenberger has explained his stance in a new statement, and has proposed a rough plan for a potential sequel.

Frankenberger's statement was posted on the Towns website, and explained that the game is selling a third of what he and co-developer Xavi Canal needed to keep the project afloat.

"When I signed up for working on Towns I was told that we sell a minimum of about x copies/month of the game," Frankenberger wrote. "I agreed to work on Towns for 15% of what would remain after removing all the taxes and the Steam fee. Xavi and I agreed that this would be a fair amount, and I still think it is.

"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. So we are now selling less than a third of the x 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. I also settled for the 15% of the minimum of x copies which is already well below my normal salary."

One proposed solution would be to make Towns fully open source, but Frankenberger admitted that he had little to say about that route just now.

He closed by saying that he believes in the Towns format and would like to see a sequel made one day that expands on his original ideas. It's just at the idea stage right now, but he said he would post an update if it gets any further than that.

We'll have more if it does.

Via Eurogamer.