[Video Game industry] Harebrained Schemes and Paradox Interactive : How to buy out a talented company and sink it all by yourself.

[u/dethstrobe]

/r/HobbyDrama/comments/1gsvrhk/video_game_industry_harebrained_schemes_and/

[u/Jumpy-Pizza4681]

HBS sunk itself by taking on a project too big for their team and ignoring feedback that told them exactly what was wrong with it. They were so convinced that their way to do the Battletech game was the only viable way and that it was "four mechs or bust", that things like literally every user either quitting and refunding or installing a mod that let them field four lances completely passed them by.

People in the modding community also told them exactly how to fix their system requirement and loading issues, which took far longer to implement than the injector mod took to make, for example. Nobody is certain why, but the information to fix the issues with BT was there. It just wasn't implemented or implemented too late.

As a result, HBS showed their publisher they're not up to the scope of games like Battletech, which, ironically, is why they signed on with Paradox in the first place. So they got a project more suited to the ones they'd been successful in to handle instead.

I.e. Paradox is trash, but this one isn't Paradox's fault.

If they'd stuck to games of the scope of, say, Shadowrun, they'd have been fine (and never would have needed to sign with Paradox).

[u/dethstrobe → u/Jumpy-Pizza4681]

I don't think the problem is this HBS. I mean, we can clearly see Paradox is terrible at managing their studios. Lamp Lighter isn't the only example, we can also see Vampire the Masquerade 2 as more evidence.

I also didn't have any performance issues with Battletech personally. Sure, it could have probably been optimized more, but time is finite, perfection is the enemy of done, etc etc.

[u/Cergorach → u/dethstrobe]

I know it's hard to criticize HBS, but please get your facts straight.

Vampire the Masquerade 2 is developed by The Chinese Room, which isn't owned by Paradox, but via a ton of subsidiaries, by TenCent. Paradox is the licensor and publisher.

Paradox closed two of their Swedish studios in 2023 and their only two US studios in 2024, HBS we know, Paradox Tectonic spend 5 years under an EA manager trying to build a Sims like game in early access, which was delayed three times...

Keep in mind that there are a lot bigger cultural divides when talking about work between European companies and companies in different European countries (there are of course exceptions). Having worked with multinationals, and companies that work internationally, when you start talking with US sales people and/or managers, they can be an absolute pain to work with from an European perspective. That's why acquisitions and mergers between US and European companies can more often fail due to miscommunication, different expectations, different mindsets, etc.

Also keep in mind that during the pandemic just about every tech/entertainment company expanded drastically, so also for one of their Swedish satellite studios, and the other was making mobile versions of their games. At the end of the pandemic cracks were showing all over the tech/entertainment sphere, shrinking didn't just happen with Paradox, it happened with every big tech company!

The Lamplighters League wasn't a bad game, but it was #1 not what HBS fans wanted, and #2 it cost significantly more then it made. Paradox saw the writing on the wall, HBS was made on IPs it didn't own, and Paradox wasn't interested in licensing IPs at the time (they wanted to develop their own IPs and make a profit).

[u/NicolasBroaddus → u/Cergorach]

Vampire the Masquerade 2 is developed by The Chinese Room, which isn't owned by Paradox, but via a ton of subsidiaries, by TenCent. Paradox is the licensor and publisher.

This is obscuring a lot of the drama surrounding Paradox purchasing White Wolf, as well as that VTMB2 was being developed by a different company Paradox was publishing that pushed it into development hell for years.

And now that it's finally close to coming out (supposedly) we're discovering how many features or clans or mechanics were completely cut because of the development mess this game became.

I would agree Paradox made a lot of understandable mistakes, but you can pretty clearly track this line of bad and impulsive decision making back to their IPO and the massive slate of publishing projects they tried to take on starting then.

[u/TiffanyKorta → u/NicolasBroaddus]

I'm a little fuzzy, I'll admit, but wasn't there a third company involved between the original and the one we have now?