A beta tester who was invited to participate in Cities XL's late-2000s beta testing has decided to share some information on the game's pre-release monetization systems, and why it couldn't retain players after Cities: Skylines came out a few years later. Initially planned as an MMO city-building game, XL went through a number of changes and revisions ahead of its 2009 release, the most notable of which was the removal of almost all MMO elements.
While Cities: Skylines may now dominate the city-building genre, this wasn't the case initially when several disparate franchises were competing in the same niche. Development studio Monte Cristo was, at the time, attempting to come up with a new kind of city-building game with various social elements featured from the very start. This project, initially known as Cities Unlimited, was supposed to be a cooperative MMO with hundreds of players working together to drive its virtual economy forward, but by the time it launched as Cities XL, it was a far more standard example of the genre.
According to Reddit user COMPUTER1313, the story of Monte Cristo's failure to produce a Sim City competitor with MMO elements is one of excessive monetization. Namely, COMPUTER1313 was one of the early beta testers working on the game, and he claims that the developer intended for Cities Unlimited / Cities XL to be a live-service title of sorts, where a year's worth of gameplay would cost roughly $160. Monte Cristo's monetization model would take key features away from players without an active subscription. A far cry from Cities: Skylines' expansion and DLC model.
A story about Cities XL's pre-launch drama, and how it missed its opportunity to overtake the SimCity franchise from Games
COMPUTER1313 makes particular note of the fact that Monte Cristo was getting ready to launch its Cities MMO during a massive economic recession, which made the idea of such an expensive game downright unpalatable to most players, including himself. Furthermore, though SimCity does need a good comeback in 2022, the franchise was still massively successful in the late aughts, and Monte Cristo's comparatively expensive game simply couldn't compete, which in turn led to the developer's bankruptcy.
Focus Home Interactive later picked up Monte Cristo's work and maintained Cities XL as a regular city-building game with the MMO server taken permanently offline. The game is now regarded as one of the best alternatives to Cities: Skylines, but that's likely at least partially due to there being a severe lack of such games on the market in the first place.
COMPUTER1313's summary of Monte Cristo's failure at producing a genre-defining city-building MMO title offers curious insight as to what exactly happened with the game behind the scenes, even if only in broad strokes. In 2022, fans of the genre are in dire need of a new city-building game, and it's not impossible that some development studio might tackle the subject with a city-building MMO all of its own.
Cities XL is available now on PC.