What went wrong with Cities: Skylines II, according to players: How players understand game development in the context of a poor digital game launch

When things go wrong, the opacity of the games industry means that developers must manage the frustrations of a playerbase whose understanding of game development is largely ignorant and misguided. A poor game launch is a time when such frustrations are heightened as players clamour to assign blame and point the way forward, and developers risk reputational or financial damage. Despite this, little research explores poor game launches. This article uses the example of Cities: Skylines II , analysing 4578 comments from the game’s subreddit, to outline how players understand game development, who they blame for the poor launch, and how they understand their own role. The two key findings are that players understand themselves as consumers of a product and wield power accordingly, and perceive two classes of digital game workers opposed to one another: ‘suits’ and ‘devs’.