Colossal Order is a Finnish

video game developer A video game developer is a broad term for a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large ...

known for its

business simulation game Business simulation games, also known as economic simulation games

series '' Cities in Motion'' and for its city-builder series '' Cities: Skylines''. The company was founded in

Tampere Tampere ( , , ; sv, Tammerfors, ) is a city in the Pirkanmaa region, located in the western part of Finland. Tampere is the most populous inland city in the Nordic countries. It has a population of 244,029; the urban area has a population o ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

in 2009. The developer is closely linked to Swedish publisher Paradox Interactive, which tests, markets, sells, distributes, and owns the intellectual property of all games by Colossal Order. The CEO of Colossal Order is Mariina Hallikainen.

History

Colossal Order was founded in the summer of 2009 by a group of game developers of the mobile game company

Universomo Universomo Ltd. was a Finnish video game developer based in Tampere, Finland, founded in 2002, and acquired by THQ on May 9, 2007. Universomo also had offices in Helsinki, Finland and San Diego, United States. The studio focused on games for mobile ...

. Mariina Hallikainen was hired from outside of Universomo as the CEO of the new company. At first, Colossal Order had difficulties obtaining funding for its first game, the

business simulation game Business simulation games, also known as economic simulation games

'' Cities in Motion'', that was already in development when the company was founded. Investors thought that ''Cities in Motion'' would not attract a large enough clientele. Instead of big investors, the first steps of the company were funded by Finnish public instruments – Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment, Tekes, and DigiDemo finance of the Promotion Centre for Audiovisual Culture – as well as small private investors. In its early phase, the company was coached by the Yritystalli program of the Tampere University of Technology, but advice was sought directly from experienced Finnish game development companies as well, specifically Remedy Entertainment and Frozenbyte. Upon being founded, Colossal Order compared dozens of publishers and ended up signing a publishing agreement with Paradox Interactive after over a year's worth of negotiations. In October 2015, Colossal Order was awarded the Finnish Game Developer of the Year ( fi, Vuoden suomalainen pelinkehittäjä) award at the convention. The judges thanked Colossal Order for focusing: "from its inception ... on – in addition to developing games – also developing its business model".

Games

The relationship between Colossal Order and its publisher Paradox Interactive has been characterized as constructive. Colossal Order has the freedom to create games without limitations set by the publisher, bar those on schedules. Unlike the game developers that founded it, Colossal Order does not develop mobile games. Instead, the company focuses on

PC game A personal computer game, also known as a PC game or computer game, is a type of video game played on a personal computer (PC) rather than a video game console or arcade machine. Its defining characteristics include: more diverse and user-deter ...

s. Employees of the company have their own internal

wiki A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pu ...

platform for developing games. Games by Colossal Order are known for their active

modding ''Modding'' is a slang expression derived from the English verb " to modify". The term refers to modification of hardware, software, or anything else, to perform a function not originally intended by the designer, or to achieve bespoke specific ...

communities. One of the programmers at the company works full-time on modding tools. The best-known game of the company is the

city-building game A city-building game, or town-building game, is a genre of simulation video game where players act as the overall planner and leader of a city or town, looking down on it from above, and being responsible for its growth and management strategy. ...

'' Cities: Skylines'' published on March 10, 2015. It competes with games of the '' SimCity'' and ''

Cities XL ''Cities XL'' (originally ''Cities Unlimited'') is a city-building video game developed by Monte Cristo as a sequel to their earlier title '' City Life''. It was originally scheduled for release in the first quarter of 2009, but was eventually r ...

'' series. A total of 14

expansion packs An expansion pack, expansion set, supplement, or simply expansion is an addition to an existing role-playing game, tabletop game, video game or collectible card game. These add-ons usually add new game areas, weapons, objects, characters, or an ...

, 22 content packs and 23 music packs were released for the game. '' Cities: Skylines II'' was announced on March 6, 2023 and released on October 24, 2023 for Windows. Console versions of the game were delayed until Q2 2024.

List of games

References

External links

* {{Colossal Order Video game companies established in 2009 Video game companies of Finland Video game development companies Companies based in Tampere Finnish companies established in 2009