https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/paradox-think-theres-no-point-competing-with-xcom-after-their-lamplighters-flop-its-winner-takes-all-in-the-tactical-gaming-space

Or maybe, just maybe...Lamplighters just wasn't ready for prime time, CEO brainrot can't realize that more than one in a genre can exist.
Not to mention, it's been 8 years since the last Xcom game, feels like there was plenty of space to land, chief.
It isn't like Paradox has access to a very deep well of properties they could have licensed into this title or anything.

Lamplighter's League had plenty of issues but being in the same genre as XCOM wasn't really a major one. Going for a cartoon art style for 1930's pulp adventure wasn't really doing them any favors - the entire pulp theme itself doesn't seem very popular nowadays. The entire melding of real-time stealth and turn-based combat isn't a draw at all - people usually lean in one direction or the other.

Programming was lazy too - the monstrous enemies in the game used the standard grunt voices (the zombies will scream "Help! We're under attack!" instead of the expected gutteral groan). You have a little waif of a girl who is a bruiser that tackles up to three enemies twice as large as her to kill them - everyone else who can do that is large and muscular. Could've had an animation where she snaps their necks with kicks like her Onslaught ability but nope!

The Alexandrite. Non-gendered, which is fine since pulp *occ-ultists are eccentric. However, the use of pronouns in that way was definitely not a thing in the 1930s. It's rather jarring immersion-wise.

For the record I enjoy the game. The mashups are something I find fun but it's really niche. There was never going to be a big audience for this game even if was released in a perfect state. If you don't enjoy all of the presented themes then the entire game falls apart.

*occ-ultists spelled correctly is a banned word ::sigh::

"There can be only one!" is a strange conclusion to draw, especially about a single player game. I really can't think of a single example of a genre where only a single game thrives and all others failed. This is true, even though it pains me to admit, since I love that stuff, whether it's Indiana Jones, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow of Tales of the Gold Monkey. But things are as they are. And again, correct. On the one hand they picked a pretty niche setting, on the other they altered it for "modern audience", and ended up with something without great appeal for either the mass market, or even that niche fanbase. And it's a pretty expensive game too. Even at -50% it's more expensive than many other games on my wishlsit at full price. So while I'm still glad it's here and intend to pick it up eventually, I'm quite at ease waiting for an even larger discount.

I don't think that's really a problem. Silent Storm did it well enough, but then many popular RPGs also switch to turn based mode during combat, which can be avoided if you manage to stay stealthy. Baldur's Gate? I think the "new" Shadow Run games have similar mechanics, although I really can't remember if there's much stealth as such.

If anything, I think realtime stealth and turn-based combat is a fine combination.

I kind of like Paradox, but they are clearly the ones who dropped the ball here.

I love all the games from Harebrained Schemes that I played, and was excited about The Lamplighters League… But I totally missed its release because they (Paradox) did not advertise it at all! They went for some kind of stealthy release, did not talk about it, but expected potential buyers to magically learn about it?

Of course they did get some backlash because they were not pandering to the conservative/reactionary crowd enough, but I doubt this had any measurable impact. By the way, just for the edifications of the anti-pronouns bigots, "they" as a non-gendered pronoun was already used in 1611 (and probably as far back as the 1300s)… in The Holy Bible:

Revelation 2:9 and 3:9 are biblical too.

Not looking too far, I'd say that most of the Paradox's flagship series (EU, HoI, CK), with the exception of Stellaris, meet the criteria. Though you could argue that it's rather the case of lack of real competition. While there are other "grand strategies" on the market, they're usually much more focused and smaller in scale or leaning towards Civilization-style gameplay. But it's all niche stuff anyway, when it comes to commercial success, nothing gets close to PDX.

It's Paradox. Outside of their particular social media communities (forums, discord etc) they don't seem to have any marketing. Even the vaunted Stellaris wasn't advertised and Paradox relied on word of mouth and good reviews. That definitely didn't help Lamplighter's League. It also didn't help that Paradox gutted HBS right around release and people knew they were getting a product with no support. That's still using it as a plural because both male and female are being described. Using it as a singular for non-binary didn't become common until closer to the turn of this millennium. Identifying as anything other than male/female publicly just wasn't done in the 1930s and makes any works based in the time period seem unauthentic. The Alexandrite gets a free pass because they're an occ-ultist but most people from that time period would have used 'it' to describe them. Of course that wouldn't fly over well for a modern game.

Exactly. Unless there are examples of good games that would fall into the same category and failed for no other easily indetified reason, I wouldn't really say this counts.

And anyway, there have been other X-Com-ish games before this. Xenonauts apparently did well enough to get a sequel. Hard West did well enough for a major DLC with a new campaign. Wasteland 2 is of course a full on RPG, but that's on top of a very X-Com like tactical team based combat, and that did well. There was also Mutant Year Zero and Fort Triumph, though to be fair I don't know how well they did. And that's just off the top of my head. X-Com is the "big name" but it's clearly not a genre abandoned to that one series.

XCOM®: Chimera Squad

release year: 2020

I'd blame it more on... Paradox.

I admit I don't follow gaming sites and such but I have a *general* idea of releases and games that interest me...

... and I had NO CLUE this game even existed until I saw the front page announcement here a few days ago! And this type of game / genre is EXACTLY in my wheelhouse of games I love.

In fact Harebrained Schemes is EXACTLY the type of company I love - Shadowrun is one of the games that got me to sign up for GoG all those years ago in the first place (Banner Saga was the one that actually got me, but Shadowrun was like one of my first five purchases). So the fact that I had no clue this game existed is *probably* something Paradox might want to look into "what went wrong" when it comes to marketing PR and such.

Oh and HBS - MAKE ANOTHER MECHWARRIOR!!! Holy crap did I love that game. Seriously, even if it's just a reskin of the first game with a new campaign I'd be so in! Everything about it was bliss for me, from upgrading pilots to finding scraps of my next mech on the field and jumping around the galaxy while tricking out my dropship. More of the same is a win here! ;)

Not only did Paradox not have any faith in HareBrainedSchemes game, as evidenced by the lack of marketing, they screwed them over doubly so by taking their IPs, I believe. HBS is working on a new IP apparently though that looks good, moving away from turn-based to realtime.

As for Paradox's reasoning - I read the article and it sounds fairly reasonable actually - if you ignore what happened of course. The marketplace is not saturated for a *good* XCOM-like/turn-based tactics game, just maybe for mediocre ones. Actually scrap that - it's not that saturated, period.

Personally, I barely heard about the game and actually the biggest exposure to it came a year later on the GOG forum's. That's failed marketing, as I am the target demographic and eager fanbase.

Saying that, I feel like the price is a bit steep for a game a year later, that is more indie and will never be able to compete with Firaxis XCOMs (which set the bar too high, granted). Even with the discount. I will most likely pick it up at some point though.

Never heard of the game until release on GOG. Good thing I bought the game.

The price tag combined with the lack of a native Linux build (I never pay more than 10€ for a game only supported on Windows) is the only reason I am not playing The Lamplighters League game right now.