Paradox says The Lamplighters League sales were 'a big disappointment,' confirms recent layoffs at developer Harebrained Schemes
Paradox says The Lamplighters League sales were 'a big disappointment,' confirms recent layoffs at developer Harebrained Schemes
The layoffs at Harebrained Schemes actually occurred a few months before The Lamplighters League was released.
I saw no advertising, videos, or content related to the game on any website I use. No wonder it flopped.
This is also the first I've heard of it Paradox needs to up their game and actually publicize if they want to be a publisher.
Wtf is this game? I'm one of the people who actually likes paradox and never heard of it.
Yea I just no clue this even existed.
Isn't harebrained the guys who made the shadowrun games?Yes, they also made the most recent Battletech game.
- Puts game on Game Pass
- complains sales are low
To be fair it also rated rather poorly, which is unfortunate since battletech was pretty damn good.
I haven’t looked into it but steam reviews are mostly positive.
Battletech is awesome and I loved MechWarrior as a child. It seems this IP was just an unfortunate gamble on garnering new players. I do think they should have waited for Game Pass if at all possible. That is definitely taking some of the initial sales.
Haven’t played yet but when you put a game on streaming on day one you can’t expect to get crazy sales.
Literally never heard of it. Also, yeah, when I see Paradox I can only think of their terrible DLC practices, which turn me away from most of their games.... except the ones made by Harebrained Schemes, Battletech was great. Guess there won't be a sequel.
terrible DLC practices
I partially disagree here.
Yes, their first party strategy games have a ton of DLC (EU4, CK2, etc), and I actually think that's a good thing. Instead of re-releasing the game every couple years for $40-60 or whatever, they release a DLC every six months to a year with new features for $10-15 (and frequent sales for 50% off). The way I look at it, I essentially get a "new" game every couple years for $10-20 instead of $40-60 or whatever they'd charge for a new release. You can also try the DLC for free if you play MP with someone who has the DLC.
This works best if you buy in early, but they do have a monthly subscription you can buy instead to get all DLC for $5/month or something, which is a great deal (compared to buying all the DLC) imo if you play a game late in the cycle.
I have bought almost every major DLC for EU4 to this point and have hundreds of hours in the game, so my average cost per hour is similar or better compared to other games (something like 5-10 hours per dollar spent). Maybe I'm unique here, but it's exactly the game I want, and having it continually freshened up with DLC year over year is better than a new release ever 2-4 years (new releases often drop functionality, which I don't want).
My main complaints/suggestions are:
- getting into a game late sucks, so there should be a better alternative to the monthly subscription - I think all DLC older than 2 years should either be free or bundled into a "catch-up" bundle priced at $20 or so (they kind of did this with the starter pack)
- new games and DLC are often very buggy at launch, and often in very obvious ways - they really need to improve their QA process
But in general, for the types of games Paradox makes, I really like long release cycles with lots of DLC. The opposite is true for games I'll likely play once (e.g. RPGs, action games, etc).
Releasing a niche new IP from a well-regarded but lesser-known developer with little to no marketing in the extremely busy autumn and expecting success is... a bit weird. You gotta wonder what they were thinking.
Haven’t had a chance to play it yet, but besides the performance issues at launch this looked like a really enjoyable game. Maybe the main issue is that the genre is relatively niche? That coupled with the recent big releases
Yeah. It came out right in the middle of multiple massive games. It also has no quicksave/quickload system which for this kind of game is almost a must. Folks can ignore a system for the challenge, but without it there entirely it puts me off playing. Call it save scummy playing, but it's how the genre has always worked.
Look at Battletech. It's an established IP, sure, but very niche compared to Warhammer, and those sales estimates were blown out of the water. I think it's more to do with the fact that this game is so much more different in genre and tone than other HBS titles like BT and Shadowrun. They had few of their core fans who were looking for a game like Lamplighters and therefore were basically relying on new fans.
We got new information today, looks like Battletech 2 was p pitched to Paradox but they declined because they didn't want to pay for the license, so it's all Paradox's fault.
I've played a lot of their previous games and I didn't even know this game existed before now and I browse gaming related stuff pretty regularly.
I'm more of a patient game these days though because most game release in a state of hot garbage before eventually getting fixed.
I think that the steep price doesn't help. 50 euros for a turn-based strategy game when a lot of older, better known games are available is hard to justify. Steep competition from cheaper indy titles like Xenonauts 2 is not helping them either.
If I get the game it will be when it has a large discount.