The Lamplighters League - Commercial Failure

[HiddenX]

Game Developer reports that The Lamplighters League is being considered as a commercial failure:

Paradox writes off The Lamplighters League as a commercial failure

A week after coming out, Harebrained Schemes' newest strategy title The Lamplighters League is being considered a "big disappointment" in terms of its commercial performance.

The Lamplighters League has only been out for over a week, and Paradox Interactive already considers it a financial loss. On the company's website, the publisher said it would

In a statement, Paradox CEO Fredrik Wester noted sales for the new title from Harebrained Schemes "has been too weak, which is frankly a big disappointment. Game projects are by their nature always risky, but at the end of the day we haven't performed at the level we should."

Wester noted that Lamplighters was a "fun game with many strengths," and that it was doing "positively player numbers" thanks to launching on Xbox Game Pass. The strategy game is currently available for Xbox Series X|S and PC.

"It is painful," concluded Wester, "but makes us more eager to roll up our sleeves and do better."

[...]

Thanks Couchpotato!

More information.

 

[Couchpotato]

80% of HBS was fired or as they say laid off as well. Doesn't look or sound good at all.

 

[Pladio]

The hope is they can create their studio back up and make BattleTech 2 or Shadowrun 4 a reality

 

[JDR13]

Wasn't it just released 10 days ago?

 

[Vaelith]

I'm honestly surprised that this game is a flop. It's like a better version of Mutant Year Zero sprinkled with a X-Com 2: War of the Chosen touch, a varied cast of characters and a solid combat system that feels satisfying. I suppose being bought by Microsoft fires all the anti-corp alarms and people are more ready to write it off as a failure than if it was an independent studio. It's also true that Shadowrun games were better than Lamplighter's League, but this game is good on its own, pointless wishful comparisons aside.

Regardless, I got very good 40 hours of fun out of it, and I'd buy any future games they make that play similarly.

 

[Couchpotato]

See the problem is as a buyer and player we might think it's a good game but pre-orders, and first week sales are what matters most to any publisher in the Industry.

Especially Paradox which has had a few bad years with failed games. Now as said if HBS was still independent and not owned, then yes the narrative would be different.

 

[Carnifex]

I'd say it's way too early to say that this product has completely flopped.

 

[Couchpotato]

Not if the game as they state was a $22 million dollar waste of resources. Face the facts HBS is a shell if what it was Pre-Paradox. Also Paradox is a terrible publisher.

Just ask Obsidian with what happened during Tyranny's development. Also which is very obvious it released at a very crowded time as if Paradox wanted it to fail.

One more observation is releasing on GamePass means lower game sales.

Edit: once again let me say I hate using a tablet to write replies. To many errors.

 

[Telstar]

I checked it on game pass. Couldn't finish the second tutorial mission. Way too much stealth crap.

 

[Stingray]

Wow, some people were insanely delusional if they ever thought a game like this would be profitable against a $22.8M dev budget. After the Steam Tax, they would have needed to sell at least 700K copies or so.

 

[purpleblob]

Wow it was released barely like 2 weeks and Paradox already called it financial failure? Sad news for HBS

Have to admit tho, I'm not intrigued enough to purchase a copy of this game. For one, character models really put me off. I also don't enjog stealthy gameplay (is it a required component or can you just brute force missions?)

 

[BlackVoid]

They knew it is going to fail. Layoffs were in July. Rumor has it about 80%. Not sure how it translates into absolute numbers.

What really is sad is that HBS was a good studio, they could've worked on more ShadowRun games, or did a BT2 with clan invasions and took some ideas from Roguetech or BTA mods.

Instead Paradox decided to ask them to create a new IP and then did not promote it. And then decided to charge AAA price for a niche game. Like srlsly?

 

[Stingray]

Instead Paradox decided to ask them to create a new IP and then did not promote it. And then decided to charge AAA price for a niche game. Like srlsly?

Plus slap weird cartoon graphics on top of all that, and give the game a completely bizarre name. Some people over there must have been seriously fucked in the head to greenlight this for >$20M.

Probably even more fucked in the head than whoever greenlit Mythforce over at Beamdog. Which, btw, is a multiplayer-focused game that has 8 people playing it right now on Steam, 1 month after release.

Not sure what's up with that trend of throwing out your core competencies and making weird cartoon games instead.

 

[SSIGuy]

I quite like the game, but it was priced too high for starters. And yeah, only 165 reviews on Steam and a couple hundred or so people playing. That's pretty bad.

 

[Kordanor]

While I like the game, it definitely has some severe shortcomings. It feels quite unpolished. Not that there are tons of bugs, but the interface is bad in terms of what info you get and not well though through, and also glitchy in terms of controls.

It's a bit like JA3 had at release whith the bad combat openers from realtime.
JA3 was patched since then and this was corrected.
In Lamplighters it's different, but feels as glitchy and frustrating. I would guess that on a failure there is like a 50% chance you can attribute it to a bad opener, and the controls really dont make it easy. You basically need to learn to work around it.

Guess with that situation we also can't expect much of patches.

 

[Pappy]

I fired it up on Game Pass and did not have enough fun with it. I liked the original premise but it's not very well executed.

 

[savaze]

It was set up to fail, there was almost no marketing for this new IP... and it was priced too high. This seems like an internal play to justify clearing out preexisting management or dissolving HBS and moving its assets elsewhere.

 

[Drithius]

While I like the game, it definitely has some severe shortcomings. It feels quite unpolished. Not that there are tons of bugs, but the interface is bad in terms of what info you get and not well though through, and also glitchy in terms of controls.
[...]
Guess with that situation we also can't expect much of patches.

Yep, a shame really. The gameplay trailer doesn't look all *that* bad, but if Paradox is publicly writing it off already, I would be surprised to get any patches.

The odds were always against this title from the start. An original IP w/squad tactics releasing after JA3 and BG3? Six months earlier (or later) and they might have stood a chance.

 

[Redglyph]

While I like the game, it definitely has some severe shortcomings. It feels quite unpolished. Not that there are tons of bugs, but the interface is bad in terms of what info you get and not well though through, and also glitchy in terms of controls.

It's a bit like JA3 had at release whith the bad combat openers from realtime.
JA3 was patched since then and this was corrected.
In Lamplighters it's different, but feels as glitchy and frustrating. I would guess that on a failure there is like a 50% chance you can attribute it to a bad opener, and the controls really dont make it easy. You basically need to learn to work around it.

Guess with that situation we also can't expect much of patches.

I don't know if that was a significant factor, but it's the demo that convinced me not to buy it. It may not be representative of all the game offers, but it felt unpolished and showed a clunky interface. The world was quite bare and blocky, too, though that may be specific to the area chosen for the demo.

By comparison, my initial impression of JA3 was much more positive.

 

[Telstar]

I also don't enjog stealthy gameplay (is it a required component or can you just brute force missions?)

without a godmode mod, no, it's required.