Paradox on Disappointing Results of New Tactical RPG From Shadowrun and BattleTech Devs [Update: Sad News]
Paradox has admitted that Harebrained Schemes' RPG The Lamplighters League has sold below expectations.
Update
There are some sad new reports about Harebrained Schemes. One of the studio's employees, introducing himself as AngryMobofSteve, shared a news in the ResetEra forums, according to which:
"About 80% of the studio's staff was laid off already in July (I was one of the affected people!). It is likely that there will eventually be some kind of press release on the subject, so far nothing has been announced. Nevertheless, one can reach out to several former HBS employees who have been looking for jobs on LinkedIn in recent months."
Paradox was already said to confirm (per PC Gamer) that the layoffs had indeed occurred, although it did not address their scale.
Interestingly, according to the same developer, for a while there was a chance to create a new installment of BattleTech, but the idea fell through due to the fact that the license for the brand is still managed by Microsoft, and Paradox "wanted an IP that would be in their hands." According to the interested party himself, the brands Shadowrun and BattleTech were never owned by Harebrained Schemes - "both were licensed under an agreement with Microsoft."
Original news:
The Lamplighters League, the tactical RPG by the Harebrained Schemes studio, has failed in terms of commercial success.
- Paradox, the game's publisher and owner of Harebrained Schemes, announced that The Lamplighters League has not achieved the expected success and is projected to make a loss.
- The publisher is obviously disappointed by this state of affairs, as it is a good game, but it simply did not find a sufficient audience. The title is doing better in Game Pass, but this won't save its financial performance.
- On Steam, the game's reception is quite warm - 73% of user reviews praise The Lamplighters League, which is categorized as a "mostly positive" reception. The problem is that there are a mere 134 of these reviews, which shows how little popularity the title enjoys.
- The data on activity on Steam is also very poor. The record, set on the day of release, is a mere 773 concurrent users. This is by far the worst result in the output of Harebrained Schemes - even Necropolis, considered a flop, boasts a record of 5,000 simultaneous users.
- Of course, it should be added that the results of The Lamplighters League from Steam do not fully reflect the popularity of the game, as it is also available on Epic Games Store and on Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S consoles, but overall there is no denying that the project has failed.
The Lamplighters League - reasons for failure
The question arises as to what is the reason for the poor sales. The Lamplighters League as a new brand probably had more trouble breaking through than the studio's earlier works, set in the well-known and well-liked Battletech and Shadowrun universes. Some players also complained about the high price ($49.99). On top of that, it's hard not to get the impression that Paradox made a mistake by releasing the title in a period so heavily filled with high-budget launches.
