LogInThe company confirms massive layoffs at Harebrained Schemes.
If you've played The Lamplighters League, you're one of the few people who have. Developed by Harebrained Schemes, the creators of Shadowrun Trilogy and BATTLETECH, and published by Paradox Interactive, the turn-based strategy RPG, sadly, couldn't capture players' attention.
In fact, the engagement in the game was so little that Paradox called its sales "a big disappointment."
"The Lamplighters League is a fun game with many strengths," Paradox CEO Fredrik Wester said. "Even though we see cautiously positive player numbers in subscription services, the commercial reception 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. It is painful but makes us more eager to roll up our sleeves and do better."
Image credit: Harebrained Schemes
This means the game's development costs will be recorded as expenses in the fourth quarter of 2023, amounting to 248 million Swedish kronor (about $22.8 million.)
The Lamplighters League numbers are not great, it's true. According to SteamDB, it peaked at 773 concurrent players on October 3, the day of its release. In the last 24 hours, only 361 people played the game at the same time.
Paradox hasn't given up on the game completely yet, its representative has told PC Gamer that the publisher is "still working on our post-launch support plan."
"The commercial performance of the game is at a level well outside of our expectations," they said. "As we have lowered our forecast for revenues, we are also obligated to write down the game’s book value to match the lower revenue expectations. This is unusual for us. As a publicly traded company, we are obligated to issue a press release regarding a write-down of this size."
Image credit: Harebrained Schemes
This situation has stirred some rumors about layoffs at Harebrained Schemes. One person, who claims to be a former employee, said 80% of the studio was let go in July. Paradox confirmed that its staff "was significantly reduced over the summer" but didn't mention any numbers.
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