This interview with Basil Weber from Urban Games is part of an interview series carried out by the Swiss Game Developers Association (SGDA). It was conducted by Philomena Schwab (Board member of SGDA).

On 11 December Urban Games released their third game «Transport Fever 2» on Steam. The game is a sequel to «Transport Fever» which was released back in 2016. In the game, players build up their own transport empire by navigating transport through land, water and air. The game is published by Good Shepherd Entertainment.

P.Schwab: Your game was released on Steam one week ago (the interview was conducted on 18 December – Ed.) and is selling amazingly well! Can you tell us how many copies you sold already? And in which countries the game sells best?
Basil: We have sold 150’000 copies so far. More than 50’000 during launch week and almost 100’000 during the three-week preorder period before the launch. Over 30% of our sales come from Germany, 11% from the USA and 7% from China.

P.Schwab: You worked with a publisher (Good Shepherd Entertainment). What did the collaboration look like?
Basil: We have a very long relationship with them. Good Shepherd helped us with crowd-investment for our first game («Train Fever») back in the day. We have been working with them ever since. They are great people and we really enjoy the collaboration. Amongst other things they take care of our PR through collaboration with various PR companies. They also covered a small part of the development cost.

P.Schwab: Why did you decide to make a sequel?
Basil: Mostly because we received so many feature requests, ideas and feedback from players. We knew that many of them couldn’t be fulfilled within the existing game, so we decided to make a new one and take into account as many suggestions as possible. At the same time we thought that this decision would be good for the further success and growth of the studio, which has fortunately proven to be true.

P.Schwab: You made your own game engine. Are you happy with the decision and would you recommend the same to others?
Basil: We started to work on our first game back in 2006. Back then engines like Unity and Unreal where not as developed as today. It was definitely the right decision for us back then. If we would start out as a new studio today, I’d probably go with an already existing engine.