Paradox writes down entire cost of The Lamplighters League (320m SEK) citing weak commercial success, “cautiously positive” subscription players
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I will buy and play it when I have time. Game releases need to chill though. So many games and I only have so much time with family, full time job etc.
I used to just buy what I wanted, even if I would take months to get around to playing a game. But I've slowly been smarting up and I've started to buy games only when there's a very good chance of me playing within launch week. Games go on sale before I get around to them sometimes...
I think you guys are thinking too hard about why it failed. Games nowadays live a lot out of critical mass and streamers.
The game reviews got a way worse score because of game crashes/freezes, most reviews like the mechanics in general.
Once reviews are lower, not as many people (and streamers) want to try it, and the game quickly goes into oblivion. Having Lirik play it for one day is not enough to counter-act the natural flow of things.
Anecdotally, I know of no one who even tried the game. Everyone I know that would be interested (me included) is just waiting for patches to fix the game and then try it on Gamepass.
I would say if the game got 2-3 more months to tackle stability issues the story would be totally different. Higher review scores, no "negative" press, snowballs to acceptable success instead of bomb.
The game reviews got a way worse score because of game crashes/freezes, most reviews like the mechanics in general.
Once reviews are lower, not as many people (and streamers) want to try it, and the game quickly goes into oblivion. Having Lirik play it for one day is not enough to counter-act the natural flow of things.
Anecdotally, I know of no one who even tried the game. Everyone I know that would be interested (me included) is just waiting for patches to fix the game and then try it on Gamepass.
I would say if the game got 2-3 more months to tackle stability issues the story would be totally different. Higher review scores, no "negative" press, snowballs to acceptable success instead of bomb.
That's what we were trying to do with LL, only focusing more on characters, not disposable units. There's some really cool stuff in there with characters building relationships between each other based on your actions.
Where was the marketing?
There's no way a person like me who loved Shadowrun, and has 100s of hours in BattleTech, should have been able to have never heard of this until literal days before release.
There's no way a person like me who loved Shadowrun, and has 100s of hours in BattleTech, should have been able to have never heard of this until literal days before release.
Paradox's marketing of the game felt like it was stuck in the PC marketing of the late 1990s + some YouTube strategy game channels.
I'm going to come clean with a real bias-having hero characters is a big turn-off for me. It implies that they can't die horribly to bad RNG, which implies that missions are lower risk and less likely to just total your campaign in a single blow, and if I can't fail horribly then why even bother trying to succeed?
Meanwhile in XCOM an experienced troop can just get its cover blown and killed in a single enemy turn in a bad stroke of events, and in BattleTech you can just have your best 35t mech early game cored instantly by a lucky AC/20 shot from a barely mobile traschcan.
Seems like MS should reassemble HBS and let them make more. Also easier since they are in the same area.
So, the timeline is HBS makes 4 good to excellent games in the span of 5 years, then get's acquired by Paradox and just more or less dies 5 years shortly before the release of their only Paradox published game?
OP
OP
Paradox published Battletech as well and acquired them right after it launched.
You're also forgetting their other original IP, Necropolis, which met roughly the same fate as LL.
The unfortunate secret truth is that Paradox is a shit publisher who vastly over-relies on its Grand Strategy cash cow to paper over its poorer-performing titles, instead of genuinely putting in effort to support the devteams. They are also addicted to DLCs, which means devs are contractually obligated to have a pipeline in place for them, regardless of whether or not this affects their game's general coherence.
Paradox has had some immense missteps but this is ridiculous. Like, Lamplighter's League has zero (announced) post-release DLC plans, unless I really missed something.
Gonna be frank here, Era's not the place for discussion of strategy games. Unless it's a total breakout game you're lucky if the OT breaks two pages, if it has one at all. And general discourse around strategy games is fractured across a plethora of community OTs. There's just too little interest to generate any sustained discussion.
Like, longest thread on Lamplighter's League? It's this thread right here.
Game literally collapsed one week after general release, they never had enough time to announce any roadmap. And there was a launch DLC for a new character, which is 100% on-brand for Paradox.
The PC strategy games also tend to be very replayable because of the things you mentioned, which means that games that feel like feature downgrades can have a hard time fighting for gamer's time with years old titles.
XCOM2 still has peak daily player count on Steam in several thousands despite being a 7 years old game with single player campaign focus.
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The only reason I even learned this existed was seeing it listed as "New to Game Pass"
Post-release support (like patches) may yet be announced, sure, but paid DLC/season pass sort of thing is something developers outline ahead of launch so that they can pivot to it once the game is out. If the latter is not announced already, I wouldn't expect an announcement in the future.
The character DLC is a fair point but I was trying to distinguish between pre-release and post-release DLC, since the latter suggests some kind of future for the project; the "pipeline", if you will.
One of my favorite games so far this year! The one bad thing I can say about it is that it crashes a lot, more than any game that I've ever played starting at launch. Sucks to know this is the last will see of the lamplighters league but I'm glad it was made.
Pipelines may be in place, but public announcements hinge on game sales performance, and that can only be gauged after a given period of time. Announcing DLC plans too early can lead to issues if the game doesn't get off the ground quickly enough. F'rex, Empire of Sin was supposed to receive a second DLC, but it got quietly axed after the game underperformed. Which means the people who bought the season pass got ripped off.
Releasing the game in the most busy Q3 in years and then releasing it broken and unfinished. What the hell was Paradox thinking?
I tried it on gamepass and actually liked it but stopped playing because it was kind of janky. Like I'd have to constantly restart the game because it would freeze up
That is terrible. HBS did some fantastic work with Shadowrun and battletech. Pity they couldn't remain independent.
Damn I totally forgot about the Empire of Sin stuff--I only learned about that recently too. Was really shocked by it.
Y'know what, I concede to your point. Paradox has deffo been hedging their bets for a while now so I don't know why I doubt that they'd continue doing so.
Man, I'm just bummed for HBS.
Yup, the Shadowrun series and Battletech are solid titles. Terrible situation.
I wondered why the game was released half broken but most of the studio being laid off months before release certainly explains it
RIP HBS you were a good one
RIP HBS you were a good one
Which is basically the reason why it bombed.
The game is full of bugs (it even freezes often) and reviews are quite bad.
I mean, do we need more reasons why a game would not sell well?
Regardless of a common reasoning that I've often seen here on Era, lots of people still looks at reviews before buying a game.
Not one of these franchises even managed an 80. Most couldn't even break 75.
Lamplighter's League - 74 OC/75 MC
Immortals of Aveum - 72 OC/69 MC
Atlas Fallen - 68 OC/64 MC
Forspoken - 67 OC/64 MC
Mimimi Games cited exhaustion, not poor sales, as the reason for them shutting down.
Wild Hearts is the only one even close to a good rating.
Starfield?
Also, half of the first page in best games of 2022 were new IPs.
Best Video Games of 2022
Browse the top rated games of 2022. The top critics in gaming. All in one place.
opencritic.com
2023 is also similar and you can see more new IPs through the 2nd page.
Best Video Games of 2023
Browse the top rated games of 2023. The top critics in gaming. All in one place.
opencritic.com
Well that part I'm okay with! I pretty much just agreed with your comment. HBS was an amazing place to work at because of the people. Good to see you!
If that is all you're going to respond with, you might as well not reply.
Don't worry about what I do. I gave you the response it deserved. This place is full of "ACTUALLY…" guys always wanted to fight with things that are self-evident.
I think Midnight Suns issue was having such a large budget for its genre.
Though it sounds like this game had the same problem.
Midnight Suns also likely suffered from trying to appeal to pretty mutually exclusive audiences. Superheroes and in-game social stuff with them put off people generally into tactics/card mechanics and the tactics/card mechanics put off mainstream superhero fans. There isn't a huge market for people who are into both.
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I don't get the thought process. Buy a studio that's been successful adapting FASA stuff, and pretty much only in adapting FASA stuff, immediately put it to make new IP because FASA stuff is not controlled by PDX.
Ahh okay. Just was confused by there being no context at all, and I'm not quite sure who you are 😅 PM if you wanna though.
Sorry for the thread bump but, looks like Paradox is finally making a statement regarding the future of the studio:
www.paradoxinteractive.com
Harebrained Schemes and Paradox Interactive to part ways as the Seattle-based developer seeks new opportunities - Paradox Interactive
Paradox Interactive is a world leading PC games publisher known for games such as Cities: Skylines, Europa Universalis and Crusader Kings.
www.paradoxinteractive.com
Every mission I've played has a 'all heroes must survive' requirement so it's not like having custom characters would have mattered anyway - but I'd STILL love the game a lot more if it had them. I don't care about these characters, let me make my own.
I think the long, tangled saga of FASA means that they were licensing from Microsoft (AFAIK, while tabletop/book rights are in other hands, MS outight owns the rights to Battletech and Shadowrun in the videogame space). I'd think leveraging making Gamepass stuff (because I think the HBS stuff is already on Gamepass) would be a great bargaining chip.
Especially since this ended up on Gamepass anyways.
But I dunno. A lot of companies fled from doing licensed stuff. If you're confident in your studio, cutting out the middleman for your own IP might sound like a plan. Definitely wasn't a home run here, though.
Sorry for the thread bump but, looks like Paradox is finally making a statement regarding the future of the studio:
Harebrained Schemes and Paradox Interactive to part ways as the Seattle-based developer seeks new opportunities - Paradox Interactive
Paradox Interactive is a world leading PC games publisher known for games such as Cities: Skylines, Europa Universalis and Crusader Kings.
Good luck to them. I'd guess most publisher dont wanna touch that studio with a 10 ft pole right now.
Unfortunate that it came to this, but Paradox didn't seem to handle the studio right. Perhaps Microsoft could acquire them, hire back some of the staff, and get them to continue their amazing work on Shadowrun and Battletech, this time without paying burdensome licensing fees?Sorry for the thread bump but, looks like Paradox is finally making a statement regarding the future of the studio:
Harebrained Schemes and Paradox Interactive to part ways as the Seattle-based developer seeks new opportunities - Paradox Interactive
Paradox Interactive is a world leading PC games publisher known for games such as Cities: Skylines, Europa Universalis and Crusader Kings.