Cities Cities: Skylines 2 has a rent problem. As a quick search in the game's subreddit shows, players have run into the same systemic nightmare over and over again: rent is too high. [The rents are too high. Take, for example, the real-world United Kingdom. The UK is in the midst of a rent crisis, with the Office for National Statistics reporting that rents have risen 9% in 12 months, the largest increase since it began tracking increases in 2015. The U.S. is not much better.

Depending on whom you ask, the reasons vary: supply simply isn't keeping up with demand, poor landlords are facing all kinds of cost increases, or, as Ben Toomey of Generation Rent noted in The Independent, "landlords are raising rents by raising them because tenants have no choice but to pay these prices." Either way, the housing industry is failing.

Interestingly, much of the advice offered by other Cities: Skylines 2 players is consistent with real-life problems. There are no starter homes left in and around the big cities," one player wrote in the game's subreddit.

Another player added in another thread: "If the economy is healthy and tax rates are set appropriately, most cims (as civilians are called in Cities: Skylines 2) will have no problem navigating the low-rent signs. A healthy economy. Proper taxes. Sounds good. After all, "citizens need to earn an income, and taxes need to be low enough to allow them to stay in their buildings. This is a systemic problem in low-density neighborhoods, and it matches real life. Some people buy houses they can't afford to live in."

The icons that abound in players' cities have, in fact, forced the developer of City: Skylines 2, the Colossal Order, to take two ludicrous and contradictory measures that would hopefully solve the rent problem. Unfortunately, the Colossal Order does not seem to have the kind of influence that would solve things in the real world.

"First of all, we got rid of virtual landlords," he states in his blog post. This whole mechanism appears to be news to almost everyone. You had a landlord? The renters weren't paying equally. One puzzled player responded the same way I did when I first moved into my apartment. It's a harsh and cruel world.

But don't get too excited, because the second solution is just as harsh for the tenant, and one that prevents the tenant from complaining by force of code: "[The tenant] doesn't complain that they don't currently have enough money to pay the rent, but instead spend it on resource consumption. They will spend less money."

Ha ha. Haha. Yeah, that's right. I am laughing bitterly and a little delirious from all the salt in these cheap ramen noodles.

Developer Colossal Order is about to offer a massive patch later this year after removing the presence of digital landlords. In other words, no more hidden digital landlords that no one knows about. The team is also working on free buildings, perhaps as penance for the DLC debacle earlier this year, as PC Gamer writer Andy Chalk notes.