I feel sad for Harebrained Schemes

[Simicro]

I recenty bought their Shadowrun series and I'm currently playing Dragonfall and love it. So I feel sad for what happens to this new game. I also feel sad for the people of the studio who have been laid off by Paradox 3 months before the release if I understood correctly. I don't know how many people were laid off and their roles, but in 3 months maybe they could have been able to polish and iron-out the game? I'm also wondering how Paradox could know that the game would be a commercial failure three months before the release, especially that they contributed heavily to the failure by the crazy pricing and Day1 - DLC policy which diverted number of people from buying. For sure from now on I will not have a good image of Paradox as a publisher.

[LASci]

Really wished they would have done Battlefield 2. Despite being an "old" gamer and having seen it all, one thing I'll never understand is why we get a million versions of CoD or Madden, but when a small to mid sized developer finally hits pay dirt on something, they decide now is the opportunity to go out and stretch their creative legs. It ends up breaking the developer and you never get to see the IP that made them great again. Newer developers like this need to take a long hard look at companies like Bethesda. It took them over two decades before they're putting out some new IP. That doesn't mean I want to see creativity completely stifled, but they need to put their primary focus on things that make money, that players want to play and that have a built in fan base already. And then on the side they can do things like Lamplighters League. But make it a much smaller game at more like a 20 to 25 dollar price point and if it takes off then you've got a new IP you can flesh out into a sequel or with DLC.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

My understanding is that it is fairly common in the game industry for a game studio to size up (hire a lot of people) when they are in active development of a game and then size down (fire a lot of people) when active development starts to wind down. Larger studios that always have one or more games in active development are insulated from this somewhat, because they may shift people from one project to another rather than hiring and firing as many. Smaller studios, though, can swell and shrink substantially.

I have no inside insight into the inner workings of HBS or Paradox, but I suspect that this is the primary cause of the downsizing that occurred. I believe that there are some people who, for whatever reason, are eager to try to read more into the situation than is actually there. In their defense, with the game underperforming in sales as it is, it is very temping to draw a connection between the investment lost by the developer and the layoffs. However, as you noted, that connection would require Paradox to have been able to foresee the future, and I'm not convinced that they did... but who knows, perhaps HBS was asking for more time and money to iron out and polish up the game and Paradox forced them to push it out before it was ready. That's just heavy speculation though.

All I can say for certain is that I'm really enjoying the game. I get why some other people are not - no game is great for everyone, and the lost saves bug would ruin anyone's opinion of any game - but I'd hate for people who might enjoy it to miss out just because of a lot of negative hype that's floating around. For me, the game is worth full price, but I hope that those who are interested but wary will consider picking it up on sale when that eventually happens.

[Jarcaddy]

Originally posted by LASci:

Really wished they would have done Battlefield 2. Despite being an "old" gamer and having seen it all, one thing I'll never understand is why we get a million versions of CoD or Madden, but when a small to mid sized developer finally hits pay dirt on something, they decide now is the opportunity to go out and stretch their creative legs. It ends up breaking the developer and you never get to see the IP that made them great again. Newer developers like this need to take a long hard look at companies like Bethesda. It took them over two decades before they're putting out some new IP. That doesn't mean I want to see creativity completely stifled, but they need to put their primary focus on things that make money, that players want to play and that have a built in fan base already. And then on the side they can do things like Lamplighters League. But make it a much smaller game at more like a 20 to 25 dollar price point and if it takes off then you've got a new IP you can flesh out into a sequel or with DLC.

Paradox didn’t want Battletech 2, apparently it was pitched and they didn’t want to share profits with Microsoft.

I also feel really bad for HBS. I love the studios previous work, Battletech is one of my most played games on steam. To see them gutted by paradox and used as an excuse to write off 22 million dollars stinks

[LASci]

Originally posted by Jarcaddy:

Paradox didn’t want Battletech 2, apparently it was pitched and they didn’t want to share profits with Microsoft.

I also feel really bad for HBS. I love the studios previous work, Battletech is one of my most played games on steam. To see them gutted by paradox and used as an excuse to write off 22 million dollars stinks

Yeah I've heard some of this too. But apparently they didn't have a problem bringing it to Game Pass. More likely the issue had something to do with Paradox making a calculation on which game they'd be more likely able to hang $250 worth of DLC on. Battletech was too mod friendly for them.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Originally posted by LASci:

Yeah I've heard some of this too. But apparently they didn't have a problem bringing it to Game Pass. More likely the issue had something to do with Paradox making a calculation on which game they'd be more likely able to hang $250 worth of DLC on. Battletech was too mod friendly for them.

Paradox has never had any trouble hanging a ton of DLCs on their moddable games.

[LVRS95]

Hi, I like this game by H.S. studio too. I have all their games. I like their last game there. They are very good on RPG games and 3D isometric.

After about PARADOX (that I like for all the strategy games since 2000s) is like UBISOFT or INFOGRAMES (R.I.P.) on the 1990s and 2000s (the child want grown). I think Paradox want increase its position in the games universe as UBISOFT and INFOGRAMES by the past.

[TripSin]

I enjoyed the Shadowrun games a lot. But I don't think HBS is actually that good a dev.

Many of the design choices in this game are nonsensical and/or straight up awful. And when I think back to the Shadowrun games, they did leave a lot to want for and I can't say they were that strong foundationally - I feel like they were mostly carried by the dark cyberpunk setting.

[GHKtruc]

How big is the company ? How does it ends up costing 22.8 million ?
Is it 20 million for Paradox, and 2.8 mil dev budget ?
Also, 49.99 is maybe a bit expensive in the hyperinflationary environment we are in ? Especially for a new franchise, with very little marketing !
Just my two cents from an outsider.

[king_of_jamaica]

Skipping PS5 and Switch was a massive ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mistake.

[TheOrangeBox]

Paradox just dropped completely the ball, this game was literally made and forget from the the Paradox marketing department - no coverage anywhere.

Surviving Mars is another game that Paradox drove to the ground after abandoning the original developer and releasing DLCs that completely broke the game.

Paradox should stop messing around with developers and take up selling hotdogs instead of games.

[JimmysTheBestCop]

Originally posted by GHKtruc:

How big is the company ? How does it ends up costing 22.8 million ?
Is it 20 million for Paradox, and 2.8 mil dev budget ?
Also, 49.99 is maybe a bit expensive in the hyperinflationary environment we are in ? Especially for a new franchise, with very little marketing !
Just my two cents from an outsider.

Yeah I can't believe it. Wasn't Owlcats kick starter for WotR like 3 million Max and that is minimum 150-250 hour campaign.

A ton of more work and they have 100 employees.

I think the 23 million is what paradox thought it would make it sales. No Indy game takes that much money.

Bg3 was 100 million with 400 employees.

Paradox didn't do any ads or hyoe for the game. No way hbs has enough employees for 23 million.

Their numbers seem insane. This is a niche market and brand new IP no way it even makes 23 million ever in total sales let alone profit.

They expected to sell 500k copies???? No way.

[Caligo Clarus]

Originally posted by LVRS95:

After about PARADOX (that I like for all the strategy games since 2000s) is like UBISOFT or INFOGRAMES (R.I.P.)

Infogrames isn't "RIP", they changed their name to "Atari".

[TheOrangeBox]

I hope HBS retain their kickstarter's titles. It would be unpleasant to give paradox more money.

[nyr27]

Originally posted by TheOrangeBox:

Paradox should stop messing around with developers and take up selling hotdogs instead of games.

Ketchup and mustard dlc incoming...

[JimmysTheBestCop]

Originally posted by nyr27:

Originally posted by TheOrangeBox:

Paradox should stop messing around with developers and take up selling hotdogs instead of games.

Ketchup and mustard dlc incoming...

Followed by paper napkin dlc