Colossal Order is a Finnish

video game developer A video game developer is 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 business with em ...

known for its

business simulation game Business simulation games, also known as tycoon games or economic simulation games,< ...

series ''

Cities in Motion ''Cities in Motion'' is a business simulation game developed by Colossal Order and published by Paradox Interactive. The goal of the game is to implement and improve the public transport system in various cities. This can be achieved by building ...

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

Tampere Tampere is a city in Finland and the regional capital of Pirkanmaa. It is located in the Finnish Lakeland. The population of Tampere is approximately , while the metropolitan area has a population of approximately . It is the most populous mu ...

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

in 2009. The developer is closely linked to Swedish publisher

Paradox Interactive Paradox Interactive AB is a video game publisher based in Stockholm, Sweden. The company started out as the video game division of Target Games and then Paradox Entertainment (now Cabinet Entertainment) before being spun out into an independ ...

, which tests, markets, sells, and distributes, the 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 Finland, 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 ...

. 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 tycoon games or economic simulation games,< ...

'', 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 The Centres for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment (ELY Centres, , ; , ) are local offices of the Finnish government placed in each of the regions of Finland. Finland has a total of 15 ELY Centres, which are tasked with promoting ...

, 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 Tampere University of Technology (TUT) () was Finland's second-largest university in engineering sciences. The university was located in Hervanta, a suburb of Tampere, Finland, Tampere. It was merged with the University of Tampere to create the ...

, but advice was sought directly from experienced Finnish game development companies as well, specifically

Remedy Entertainment Remedy Entertainment Oyj, trading internationally as Remedy Entertainment Plc, is a Finnish video game developer based in Espoo. Notable games the studio has developed include the first two entries in the ''Max Payne'' franchise, '' Alan Wake' ...

and

Frozenbyte Frozenbyte, Inc. (natively Frozenbyte ) is a Finnish video game developer founded in 2001 and based in Helsinki. , it had approximately 130 employees. Frozenbyte's first commercial game was ''Shadowgrounds'' for Microsoft Windows. Both ''Shadowg ...

. Upon being founded, Colossal Order compared dozens of publishers and ended up signing a publishing agreement with

after over a year's worth of negotiations. In October 2015, Colossal Order was awarded the Finnish Game Developer of the Year () 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, or abbreviated PC game, also known as a computer game, is a video game played on a personal computer (PC). The term ''PC game'' has been popularly used since the 1990s referring specifically to games on "Wintel" (Micr ...

s. Employees of the company have their own internal

wiki A wiki ( ) is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages that can either be edited by the public or l ...

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

modding Modding (from "modifying") is the act of modifying hardware, software, or anything else to perform a function not originally intended by the designer, or to achieve bespoke specification or appearance. The term is often used in reference to vid ...

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 Video game genres, 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 man ...

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

SimCity ''SimCity'' is an open-ended city-building video game franchise originally designed by Will Wright. The first game in the series, '' SimCity'', was published by Maxis in 1989 and was followed by several sequels and many other spin-off ''S ...

'' and '' Cities XL'' 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, collectible card game or miniature wargame. An expansion may introduce new rules or game mechanics th ...

, 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, before being further delayed indefinitely.

List of games

References

External links

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