A REVOLUTIONARY FIX IN VIRTUAL METROPOLISES: THE END OF LANDLORDS IN 'CITIES: SKYLINES II'

But in the new video game Cities: Skylines II, desperate tenants have turned the long-running fight against astronomical rents into a new kind of revolution: abolishing landlords. Colossal Order, the company behind the city-building sim, has taken an unprecedented step into video-game history. How can this curious game’s novel approach to the housing crisis offer lessons to real-world policy makers?

THE DIGITAL RENT CRISIS: REFLECTING REAL-WORLD STRUGGLES

For months, players of the video game ‘Cities: Skylines II’ watched as rapidly rising housing costs strained their simulated towns and cities. Boards and forums vibrated with complaints. And then the realisation came: here was a game in which the most pressing concerns echo those of the developed world. The players were struggling with the real-world consequences of a fictional crisis. It wasn’t a game but a city where, if you’re a renter living in New York or Berlin – or pretty much any major US or European metropolis – the struggle to find affordable housing will be a daily part of your existence.

THE GENIUS MOVE: ERASING VIRTUAL LANDLORDS

The announcement of the huge update by Colossal Order – ditching landlords from ‘Cities: Skylines II’ – seems, however, to set a completely new benchmark in being politically woke in the construction tycoon genre. This change affects the calculation of rent, which is now assigned based on the income of the household that wants to stay in a particular property. The lack of funds won’t trigger complaints but enable prolonged residing Does this income-based rent calculation spell a fairer and much-needed softer touch to the virtual economic ecosystem? In short, it’s an attempt to address one of the flaws that even proponents of this genre usually complain about: soaring rents.

INCOME-BASED RENT: A NEW DAWN IN THE GAME

Changing the rent to a percentage of a player’s household income gives the gameplay a new layer of life. Players are no longer confronted with the capitalist rigours of our reality, a bleak landscape where housing is a problem and rents are impossible to pay, but with a roadmap for building a new society, one in which everyone contributes what they can and no one is locked out of a viable virtual community that could meet their needs.

THE MIRROR TO REALITY: WHAT WE CAN LEARN

‘Cities: Skylines II’ isn’t just entertainment; it’s a way of modelling society and its problems, and a testing ground for different solutions that might help people in the real world. The mere fact that landlords have been prevented by default shows that a world without them could make housing more affordable. With Cities: Skylines II, the players are performing an unintentional social experiment that could shed light on real-world policy changes.

PLAYER ADAPTATION: EMBRACING THE CHANGE

It’s a radical departure in game mechanics, but it will herald a period of adaptation, as players learn what has changed, and understand that, in their cities, there are going to be huge differences in the amount of money they earn, and that this will fundamentally change housing stability, among other things. It starts to draw attention to different economic models and social structures, in-game and out.

COMMUNITY RESPONSE: A MIXED BAG

Like all major changes, players reacted both approvingly and skeptically, some applauding the effort to shore up the rent-starved economy, and some worried about how the new roles for mods might alter the fabric of the game. But in keeping the community dialogue open, and growing, and dynamic, they’d inspired the kind of engagement and discourse that is key for growth in the virtual, as certainly as it is in the real world.

UNDERSTANDING THE MOVE

Fundamentally, Colossal Order’s decision to strip landlords from ‘Cities: Skylines II’ is recalibrating the digital rendering of housing affordability as radical praxis, shifting rent conditions according to household incomes. The simple act of recalibrating rent according to household incomes shifts gaming narratives and invites players to reimagine our own lived realities. It affirms an understanding of the affordances of the digital environment by exploring what goes unnoticed. In challenging the simulated reality of our lived realities, ‘Cities: Skylines II’ invites us to recognise the violences and dispossessions that sit at the conceptual core of SimCity’s world.