Dear Retailers #17: A Winter Sneak peek and Player Design Contest!

Dear Retailers,

We’re closing out the year with a series of updates, and I wanted to leave 2025 with something for everyone: newcoming players and veterans of Retail alike. As part of the upcoming Steam Winter Sale, we’ll be tackling a number of items, namely improvements to the game’s tutorialization, some additional sales behavior, and product updates.

Let’s get started with an early look!

Community Event: Winter Retail Challenge

To celebrate the holidays. we’re kicking off the Winter Retail Challenge, a store-design contest!

Using assets from any source you to create your own winter-themed retail masterpiece. Supermarkets, boutiques, tech stores, malls—anything goes, as long as it embraces the season.

Players can submit a screenshot or short video of their store. Also write a quick note about your concept and what inspired it.

Entries will be judged on creativity, theme execution, store layout and flow, use of seasonal decorations, and overall festive charm. We’ll choose the Top 3 creations, and we’ll be providing a Steam Gift Card for the top ideas.

The contest will run until January 5, and will take place primarily on our Community Discord, meaning submissions and announcements will be happening HERE, The time frame is to give participants plenty of time to build, decorate, and share. So show us what you can do, and help fill the community with holiday cheer!

Learn 2 Retail Better - Tutorialization Improvements

The world of Retail is overwhelming. In the real world, most businesses don’t turn a profit for years, and are always at risk of financial hardship and struggle. Running a retail business is hard work. The critical decisions that owners have to make, even on a day-to-day basis, can make or break the business.

We wanted to reflect that level of complexity on all levels of the game, from physical arrangements of stores all the way up to a sort of retail “grand strategy”. From employee behaviors to shopper preferences: the goal is to model the retail experience in the most compelling way possible.

But we’ve heard a lot of feedback from both long-term players and newcomers, and we understand that knowing how to play King of Retail 2 is just as important.

We’ll be completely revamping the Tutorial experience within the game. Originally, we wanted to teach players the basics of setting up their store, designing it, ordering products, so we can get people into the gameplay as quickly as possible. While we are covering the essentials, it’s not getting players comfortable with the interface, the controls, and ebb and flow of gameplay.

Scenario-Based Learning!

So we’ve gone back to basics on a number of areas, introducing new Tutorial Scenarios that place you in pre-built stores and scenarios. The intent here is to get you acclimated, know how to find information, and get you doing something closer to what an employee would do on their first day.

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We’ll be following a logical step-by-step in totally optional experience that will cover each set of mechanics in a series that goes:

1. CosmeticCity and Property Development/More or less where we originally began: picking your location, building a store, and kicking off the business.
2. CosmeticSetting up a Store/stocking, ordering, and shelving items.
3. CosmeticA business day/handling cash registers, managing sales, opening, and closing the store.
4. CosmeticH Q and employee management/A rundown of HQ setup and navigation, and employee hiring and scheduling.

There are many, many different methodologies for what makes a good learning experience, and