Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory - Whatever happened to it? @ PC Gamer

PC Gamer asks "What happenend to Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory"?

Whatever happened to Paranoia?

In December of 2019, Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory, a sci-fi RPG set in an isolated dystopian city called Alpha Complex, came out on the Epic Games Store. Within two months it had been delisted, removed from sale with no explanation from the developer or publisher, and calls for comment received no reply. A Steam page remained up, promising that it would arrive there after its year of Epic exclusivity. It did not. Over a year later, there's still no explanation.

You're forgiven for not knowing any of this. Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory, did not exactly set the world on fire. It was a very old-fashioned isometric CRPG, which is another way of saying "an RPG where the combat kind of sucks." So yes, its realtime-with-pause shootouts were messy, but that's no more of a surprise to anyone familiar with this kind of game than it would be if I told you the hacking minigame was fiddly and annoying. By the way, the hacking minigame was fiddly and annoying.

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Thanks Zloth!

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I'm a Paranoia (the Pen&Paper rpg) fan, but I didn't touch that one after reading the first reviews, so I didn't even realize that it was gone from the stores (or I did realize and forgot it), which is kind of sad.

"a very old-fashioned isometric CRPG, which is another way of saying "an RPG where the combat kind of sucks." So yes, its realtime-with-pause shootouts were messy"

Typical nonsense from a worthless review source.

You have, perhaps, forgotten the joys of trying to keep your party from attacking the next mob in Infinity and Aurora based engines, @Telstar?

Ha..Ha..Ha can't stop laughing as the game was a complete flop. It's not even available for purchase on Steam anymore either. Guess it got pulled off the store front.

Yes it has a page still but you can't buy it anymore.

Edit: It was an epic exclusive and it was pulled off Epic as well.

Just overall a bad game. Had nothing to do with isometric.

If you read to the end, you'll see this was another game published by Big Ben, which published the Sinking City, which was yanked because of a dispute between that publisher and the developer. Since the published and developer refuse to discuss why Paranoia was removed, I'd assume its a legal matter. The author doesn't think the game was so bad as to diserve being pulled because of its quality.

Originally Posted by forgottenlor
If you read to the end, you'll see this was another game published by Big Ben, which published the Sinking City, which was yanked because of a dispute between that publisher and the developer. Since the published and developer refuse to discuss why Paranoia was removed, I'd assume its a legal matter. The author doesn't think the game was so bad as to diserve being pulled because of its quality.

I wonder if someone should tell both publishers and developers that nobody in the history of ever has ever re-released a game after a dispute to any success.

Not to mention that the majority of cases that these disputes that end up in pulling games from storefronts end up with 2 parties squabbling over pennies. The games usually arent' successful in their own right.

The whole situation, whatever it was, bummed me out a bit. I didn't have high hopes, but I was very interested as I love the Paranoia setting.

I've heard of the game but had no idea it was based on a PnP setting.

Googled it and came across the Metacritic page. Ouch…was it really that bad? Maybe they'll patch it up and rerelease it.

There's no lack of irony in the reviewer being given the bureaucratic run-around.

As someone that played the pen and paper version back in the day, the culmination of this entire story just has me in stitches. It could be one of the best marketing stunts I've ever heard of, were it a stunt! =p

I think it's somehow fitting that a "Paranoia" game was pulled without explanation from the market. (And I liked the old tabletop game, way back in the 90's.)

Then again, it's quite possible the game is still available for download… if you have the security clearance for it.

Originally Posted by Zloth
You have, perhaps, forgotten the joys of trying to keep your party from attacking the next mob in Infinity and Aurora based engines, @Telstar?

Never had problems with that, and I have played them all.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Edit: It was an epic exclusive and it was pulled off Epic as well.

So there is a very likely chance that will be there as a freebie.

Free until the corporation shows up to wrest it from your greedy hands…..eeeep, here they come now!