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Paradox is the best company ever :love:

vonAchdorf

Arcane
Joined
Sep 20, 2014
Messages
13,465
Paradox turns this up a notch: they sell a package of 4 new features for 20 bucks, new music for 5 bucks, new portraits for 5 bucks, new unit models for 5 bucks (and who even cares about unit models in a Paradox game lol, by all means those should be part of the 20 bucks DLC).

That's just fucking ridiculous. DLC is good when it brings new content, yes. Supporting a game 5 years after release is good, yes.
Selling 4 new features for almost the price of a full new game, and splitting off all the flavor stuff that should by all rights be part of that DLC into separate 5 dollar DLCs, is not.

They reversed this a couple of DLC ago - they don't split their DLC anymore and all the flavor stuff is part of the DLC package.
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,083
Location
Bulgaria
Hahahahaha their next DLC was pushed back for 2020 even if it is almost done. It seems all that people are put on Imperator's miscarriage.
 

Space Satan

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
May 13, 2013
Messages
6,216
Location
Space Hell
Der Ewgige Swede gets fatter
Interim Report January – June 2019
Second quarter 2019
  • Revenues amounted to SEK 387.2 (298.8) million, an increase by 30 % compared to the same period last year.
  • Operating profit amounted to SEK 154.2 (99.4) million, an increase by 55 %.
  • Profit before tax amounted to SEK 154.0 (99.5) million, and profit after tax amounted to SEK 120.3 (77.9) million.
  • Cash flow from operating activities amounted to SEK 232.7 (182.3) million, and cash flow from investing activities amounted to SEK -104.9 (-121.2) million.
  • By the end of the period cash amounted to SEK 396.4 (329.3) million.
  • Earnings per share amounted to SEK 1.14 (0.74) per share.
  • Revenues in the quarter are mainly attributable to Cities: Skylines, Hearts of Iron IV, Imperator: Rome, Stellaris and Surviving Mars.
Half year 2019
  • Revenues for the period amounted to SEK 625.4 (565.8) million, an increase by 11 % compared to the same period last year.
  • Operating profit amounted to SEK 217.0 (239.9) million, a decrease by 10 %.
  • Profit before tax amounted to SEK 217.2 (240.1) million, and profit after tax amounted to SEK 169.6 (186.7) million.
  • Earnings per share amounted to SEK 1.61 (1.77).
Important events in the second quarter 2019
  • One new game was released during the period, Imperator: Rome, developed by Paradox Development Studio.
  • Six new expansions were released during the period; Urban Warfare for BATTLETECH, Campus for Cities: Skylines, Green Planet for Surviving Mars, Ancient Relics Story Pack for Stellaris, Industries for Cities: Skylines Console, and Leviathans Story Pack for Stellaris: Console Edition.
  • In June, the new game Empire of Sin was announced, developed by Romero Games. The game is planned for release in spring 2020.
  • A collaboration has been initiated with publisher and developer Double Eleven for continued development of the game Prison Architect on PC and console.
  • Steam Summer Sale took place June 25 to July 9.
  • At the Annual General Meeting on May 17, Mathias Hermansson was elected as a new board member. Cecilia Beck-Friis declined re-election.
Comments from CEO
Strong cash flow that lays the foundation for our continued growth
We finance our entire growth with the cash flow from our current operations. High profitability is the basis for strong cash flow and thus an important prerequisite for us to be able to invest in the future. Both the development and marketing of our games start long before the games are released, and substantial parts of these costs are recognized immediately. This means that we have costs for our games long before they start to generate revenue, which has also been the case during the second quarter of the year with, for example, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2, Age of Wonders: Planetfall and Empire of Sin. The profitability of the period is thus held back the more we invest in future games, and this trend will continue so long as we continue to increase our investments.

When we develop and plan our business, it is crucial for us to maintain a good balance between generating high profitability in the period and at the same time building for the future. We think we succeed well in achieving this balance. During the second quarter of the year we set a new revenue record. Revenues amounted to SEK 387.2 million, compared with SEK 298.8 million in the second quarter of 2018. This resulted in an increase of 30 % compared to last year’s second quarter, and an increase of 15 % compared to the previous revenue record from the fourth quarter of 2018. The quarter’s profit before tax amounted to SEK 154.0 million, compared with SEK 99.5 million in the second quarter of 2018. At the same time, we continued to increase our investments for the future; during the quarter we spent more on game development and marketing of games than we have in any previous quarter.

Our cash flow continues to be strong. Despite the fact that we spent more than ever during the quarter on both game development and marketing and distributed SEK 105.6 million to our shareholders as dividend, the total cash flow was positive and we closed the quarter with a record-high cash position. Our positive cash flow comes entirely from current operations and has been extra strong this quarter thanks to an advance payment for our collaboration with Xbox Game Pass. The second quarter of the year has thus continued on the same growth path that Paradox has followed for several years, with a well-balanced, continuous increase of both cash flows from operating activities and investments for the future.

As always, our quarterly financial outcome depends on the new games and expansions we release during the quarter. During the second quarter we released an entirely new game, Imperator: Rome. Imperator: Rome is the latest addition to our portfolio of grand strategy games and is developed by our Stockholm-based Paradox Development Studio. The game was well received by industry media, but the reception from our players has not been as positive as we had hoped for. We are grateful for our active player community and take all feedback from our players very seriously. Positive as well as negative opinions have, after thorough analysis, helped shape the three free updates we have delivered so far to Imperator: Rome and will continue to do so going forward. Both the released and the upcoming updates that are currently being tested by our players have improved the game’s experience and have been met with a positive response. We have also published our development plan for the game for the coming year.

During the quarter, we also released six expansions to existing games. Last year’s new games BATTLETECH and Surviving Mars received new expansions through Urban Warfare and Green Planet, respectively. We released the Campus expansion to our top seller Cities: Skylines while the popular expansion Industries made its way to Cities: Skylines – Console Edition. Stellaris celebrated a three-year anniversary during the quarter and received two new Story Packs; Ancient Relics for PC players and Leviathans for console players.

During the quarter, we deepened our collaboration with Microsoft through the new Xbox Game Pass for PC subscription service. We have previously participated in Xbox Game Pass for console and when Microsoft released the service for PC earlier in June this year, we were part of the launch with Imperator: Rome, Surviving Mars and Tyranny. It is important for us to continuously test new ways to offer our games to the market and the Xbox Game Pass is an interesting one. Our main distribution platform continues to be Steam, with another successful Summer Sale capping off the quarter.

In June, we participated in the E3 video game trade show in Los Angeles, where we presented several of our upcoming games. It was there that we had the pleasure to announce our upcoming game Empire of Sin, a strategy game set in the 1920s in Chicago’s criminal underworld. The game is developed by Romero Games and has a planned release in spring 2020 on PC as well as PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch. Through Empire of Sin we continue to expand within one of our most successful gaming genres, strategy games. While our most successful strategy games to date have been real-time grand strategy games, Empire of Sin is a turn-based strategy game with tactical features.

On August 6, we released our new game Age of Wonders: Planetfall. The game has been very well received by both players and industry media and we look forward to continuing to develop the game for a long time ahead. Age of Wonders: Planetfall is a turn-based strategy game in a science fiction environment that complements and expands our existing portfolio of strategy games in a good way. The game is developed by our Dutch studio Triumph Studios and is the first Triumph-developed game released since we acquired the studio in 2017.

We enthusiastically look forward to an eventful second half of 2019. For us at Paradox, this year’s highlight will be October 18th to 20th, when PDXCON 2019 takes place in Berlin. We feel extremely privileged to once again meet so many Paradox fans eye to eye.

Ebba Ljungerud, CEO
 

Rahdulan

Omnibus
Patron
Joined
Oct 26, 2012
Messages
5,104
It will never stop being amusing how once rogue Paradox Interactive is mirroring Paradox Entertainment from which they fled to actually focus working on games as all three power house franchises began when they were just a video game division of theirs. Major difference is public has now accepted DLC as commonplace practice and they have large enough fanbase to peddle it to, I guess. You don't have six internal studios without doing something.
 

Old One

Arcane
Joined
Jul 13, 2015
Messages
3,679
Location
The Great Underground Empire
Is there a final, complete version of Victoria 2 yet? I've been waiting for that one for a long, long time now. I've given up on CK2 ever being completed.

Beyond those two titles I wash my hands of these filthy Swedes.
 

Anthedon

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jan 1, 2015
Messages
4,496
Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Is there a final, complete version of Victoria 2 yet? I've been waiting for that one for a long, long time now. I've given up on CK2 ever being completed.

Beyond those two titles I wash my hands of these filthy Swedes.

VickyII only has two DLCs that add anything to the game, thankfully. Those are on sale somewhere pretty much all year round.
 

Beastro

Arcane
Joined
May 11, 2015
Messages
7,938
VickyII only has two DLCs Expansions that add anything to the game, thankfully. Those are on sale somewhere pretty much all year round.

It was made before the awful transition that killed expacks for the most part. :(
 

Wyatt_Derp

Arcane
Joined
May 19, 2019
Messages
3,062
Location
Okie Land
Is Slitherine better than Paradox?

Paradox has Stellaris. Slitherine/Matrix has Distant Worlds.

Paradox has Imperator. Slitherine/Matrix has Field of Glory - Empires.

Paradox has Hearts of Iron. Slitherine/Matrix has Decisive Campaigns, Gary Grigsby and Operational Art of War series.

Paradox has the Europa Universalis series. Slitherine/Matrix has the entire Ageod studio catalog.

I think we have a winner.
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,083
Location
Bulgaria
Is Slitherine better than Paradox?

Paradox has Stellaris. Slitherine/Matrix has Distant Worlds.

Paradox has Imperator. Slitherine/Matrix has Field of Glory - Empires.

Paradox has Hearts of Iron. Slitherine/Matrix has Decisive Campaigns, Gary Grigsby and Operational Art of War series.

Paradox has the Europa Universalis series. Slitherine/Matrix has the entire Ageod studio catalog.

I think we have a winner.
Yeah,clearly RTwP sells better than TB!
 

PrettyDeadman

Guest
Is Slitherine better than Paradox?

Paradox has Stellaris. Slitherine/Matrix has Distant Worlds.

Paradox has Imperator. Slitherine/Matrix has Field of Glory - Empires.

Paradox has Hearts of Iron. Slitherine/Matrix has Decisive Campaigns, Gary Grigsby and Operational Art of War series.

Paradox has the Europa Universalis series. Slitherine/Matrix has the entire Ageod studio catalog.

I think we have a winner.
Didn't realize Slitherine inclinemogged Paradox SO hard.
 

thesecret1

Arcane
Joined
Jun 30, 2019
Messages
5,675
Paradox games aren't RTwP. They are turn based, only the turns are very very quick
Starcraft is TB as well, only the turns are very very quick.
I'm not being ironic, the implementation of Paradox games literally is turn based. Every day equals one turn; all of game logic works with this. There is no real time implementation anywhere in the game, it's all turns, just ones that are very short and quick to pass.
 
Joined
Dec 24, 2018
Messages
1,783
I'm not being ironic, the implementation of Paradox games literally is turn based. Every day equals one turn; all of game logic works with this. There is no real time implementation anywhere in the game, it's all turns, just ones that are very short and quick to pass.

Just about any video game is implemented on a turn-based basis when you get right down to it; a real-time video game can still be divided into ticks. Where do you draw the line that it goes from real-time to turn-based?

To me, a game is turn-based if the player spends most of their time with the game in a "paused" state while they perform actions, then press a button to end a turn, the turn updates while they do not interact, and then the game goes back to "paused". So a turn-based game is played while paused. A real-time game is the opposite. You generally don't play while paused, you play while the game is in progress.

Now you can pause a Paradox game and issue orders, but you generally play with the game not paused. So I consider it not turn-based.
 

KazikluBey

Cipher
Patron
Joined
Feb 10, 2007
Messages
784
PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015
I'm not being ironic, the implementation of Paradox games literally is turn based. Every day equals one turn; all of game logic works with this. There is no real time implementation anywhere in the game, it's all turns, just ones that are very short and quick to pass.
I'm not being ironic, the implementation of Starcraft games is literally turn based. Every game tick equals one turn; all of game logic works with this. There's no real time implementation anywhere in the game, it's all turns, just ones that are very short and quick to pass.
 

thesecret1

Arcane
Joined
Jun 30, 2019
Messages
5,675
I'm not being ironic, the implementation of Paradox games literally is turn based. Every day equals one turn; all of game logic works with this. There is no real time implementation anywhere in the game, it's all turns, just ones that are very short and quick to pass.

Just about any video game is implemented on a turn-based basis when you get right down to it; a real-time video game can still be divided into ticks. Where do you draw the line that it goes from real-time to turn-based?

To me, a game is turn-based if the player spends most of their time with the game in a "paused" state while they perform actions, then press a button to end a turn, the turn updates while they do not interact, and then the game goes back to "paused". So a turn-based game is played while paused. A real-time game is the opposite. You generally don't play while paused, you play while the game is in progress.

Now you can pause a Paradox game and issue orders, but you generally play with the game not paused. So I consider it not turn-based.
In most real time games, you cannot give instructions in a paused state (if there is any) and unless you tied the game logic to framerate (something that is generally considered to be poor form for many reasons), it is not based just on ticks, but also system clock, meaning it is tied to actual real time. It is also quite intellectually dishonest to compare Paradox's implementation with processor ticks, as Paradox games make heavy use of their turn-based nature in their design. When you issue an army move, you get clear information on which day it will arrive (how many turns it will take for the move to be finished), since the distance between the provices is hardcoded in and taken into account. This is not real time design, where the amount of time wouldn't be given any such attention ("your character will take 6000 frames to get where you clicked") and where the precise distance between two points wouldn't be given too much thought (would be determined from a given model and character speed). Another example can be the MTTH system that's used for the majority of the game's events, and which also utilizes turns. On the technical side, paradox games are very clearly engineered as turn based in order to discretize and simplify virtually all of the game's mechanics. The only difference between it and other turn based games is that pressing end of turn is automatized for you (the frequency determined by the speed settings) and by the game being tailored for very fast simultaneous turn processing.
 
Joined
Dec 24, 2018
Messages
1,783
In most real time games, you cannot give instructions in a paused state (if there is any) and unless you tied the game logic to framerate (something that is generally considered to be poor form for many reasons), it is not based just on ticks, but also system clock, meaning it is tied to actual real time. It is also quite intellectually dishonest to compare Paradox's implementation with processor ticks, as Paradox games make heavy use of their turn-based nature in their design. When you issue an army move, you get clear information on which day it will arrive (how many turns it will take for the move to be finished), since the distance between the provices is hardcoded in and taken into account. This is not real time design, where the amount of time wouldn't be given any such attention ("your character will take 6000 frames to get where you clicked") and where the precise distance between two points wouldn't be given too much thought (would be determined from a given model and character speed). Another example can be the MTTH system that's used for the majority of the game's events, and which also utilizes turns. On the technical side, paradox games are very clearly engineered as turn based in order to discretize and simplify virtually all of the game's mechanics. The only difference between it and other turn based games is that pressing end of turn is automatized for you (the frequency determined by the speed settings) and by the game being tailored for very fast simultaneous turn processing.

That's a whole lot of dancing around to avoid addressing the fact that you play a Paradox game while the clock is ticking, and not in a paused state the way you play a turn-based game.
 

thesecret1

Arcane
Joined
Jun 30, 2019
Messages
5,675
That's a whole lot of dancing around to avoid addressing the fact that you play a Paradox game while the clock is ticking, and not in a paused state the way you play a turn-based game.
I don't consider the amount of time spent before pressing end turn to be a determining metric for whether a game is or isn't turn-based. If I skip my every turn in a turn based game such as HoMM3 or Civ4, and just stare at what the AI does, then by your definition I would be playing a real-time game, as I would be spending less time in a paused state than "when the clock is ticking". If the way you play a game can alter its genre, then you simply defined the genre wrong.
 

Spectacle

Arcane
Patron
Joined
May 25, 2006
Messages
8,363
I'm not being ironic, the implementation of Paradox games literally is turn based. Every day equals one turn; all of game logic works with this. There is no real time implementation anywhere in the game, it's all turns, just ones that are very short and quick to pass.

Just about any video game is implemented on a turn-based basis when you get right down to it; a real-time video game can still be divided into ticks. Where do you draw the line that it goes from real-time to turn-based?

To me, a game is turn-based if the player spends most of their time with the game in a "paused" state while they perform actions, then press a button to end a turn, the turn updates while they do not interact, and then the game goes back to "paused". So a turn-based game is played while paused. A real-time game is the opposite. You generally don't play while paused, you play while the game is in progress.

Now you can pause a Paradox game and issue orders, but you generally play with the game not paused. So I consider it not turn-based.
In most real time games, you cannot give instructions in a paused state (if there is any) and unless you tied the game logic to framerate (something that is generally considered to be poor form for many reasons), it is not based just on ticks, but also system clock, meaning it is tied to actual real time. It is also quite intellectually dishonest to compare Paradox's implementation with processor ticks, as Paradox games make heavy use of their turn-based nature in their design. When you issue an army move, you get clear information on which day it will arrive (how many turns it will take for the move to be finished), since the distance between the provices is hardcoded in and taken into account. This is not real time design, where the amount of time wouldn't be given any such attention ("your character will take 6000 frames to get where you clicked") and where the precise distance between two points wouldn't be given too much thought (would be determined from a given model and character speed). Another example can be the MTTH system that's used for the majority of the game's events, and which also utilizes turns. On the technical side, paradox games are very clearly engineered as turn based in order to discretize and simplify virtually all of the game's mechanics. The only difference between it and other turn based games is that pressing end of turn is automatized for you (the frequency determined by the speed settings) and by the game being tailored for very fast simultaneous turn processing.
Even if one were to take your ignorant ramblings seriously, Paradox games would be phase-based not turn-based by those standards.
 

thesecret1

Arcane
Joined
Jun 30, 2019
Messages
5,675
Even if one were to take your ignorant ramblings seriously, Paradox games would be phase-based not turn-based by those standards.
Phase-based is just turn-based with simultaneous turn resolution. It's a subgenre of turn-based. Also, if my "ramblings" are so ignorant, feel free to actually prove them wrong.
 

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