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https://www.pcgamesn.com/stellaris/paradox-consoles
https://www.pcgamesn.com/crusader-kings-3/paradox-business-model
https://www.pcgamesn.com/surviving-the-aftermath/valve-epic
https://www.pcgamesn.com/cities-skylines/china
https://www.pcgamesn.com/stellaris/cross-play
https://www.pcgamesn.com/stellaris/mobile
Paradox is evolving away from being a strictly PC gaming brand
Paradox Interactive established itself on the strength of its grand strategy games. The Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis, Victoria, and Hearts of Iron series are complex historical simulations that were designed to live on PCs. But as consoles become more powerful, Paradox says it’s reevaluating its status as a primarily PC-based brand.
“I think that’s evolving,” CEO Ebba Ljungerud told us at PDXCon this year. “In the long run, I think [our games are] for the niche player, and if you as a niche player want to play on console, that’s fine for us.”
Ljungerud said the hardware geography of the games industry is changing, and now it makes more sense for Paradox to consider consoles as viable platforms for their particular style of game design.
“Things evolve, things change over time,” she said. “If we had had this conversation a couple of years ago, we probably would have said yes, absolutely, console is dying. But it isn’t dying.”
“I think it matters more that we make deep, complex, and endless games, regardless,” added Shams Jorjani, Paradox’s chief business development officer. “If you play it on your microwave, that’s fine. If that’s the best way to get a grand strategy experience, we’re pragmatic about it.”
As of now, the vast majority of Paradox’s in-house games are still only available for PC and Linux, but there have been occasional forays into other platforms. Stellaris, for example, is now available for Xbox One and PlayStation 4, and it made the leap from PC without sacrificing any of Paradox’s trademark complexity. Unfortunately, Stellaris Galaxy Command, a mobile spin-off of Stellaris, wound up getting pulled from mobile markets less than 24 hours after its beta launch, and the company leadership acknowledged it was “fucked up.”
“I don’t think that we’re going to be the gaming company, or the games, for everyone,” Ljungerud said. But for the people who do enjoy Paradox games, those games may be available in more places in the near future.
https://www.pcgamesn.com/crusader-kings-3/paradox-business-model
Paradox’s business model “objectively” provides the best value for its players
The received wisdom about Paradox’s grand strategy games is that on launch, they act as hooks to get players teed up for a lengthy string of DLC. As news of the announcement of Crusader Kings III hit social media, long-time fans joked about getting ready to “nuke their bank balances” or set their wallets on fire. But Paradox’s head of business development says the company now is offering players the best value for money in town.
“I think that we have, objectively, the business model that gives our fans the most value,” Shams Jorjani told us at PDXCon. “There’s no other business model that allows us to give away this much shit for free.”
Jorjani was emphatic, as he has been in the past – Paradox games do have a tonne of post-launch DLC, and for the past couple years he’s been saying that the problem has been in the way Paradox presents this new content to players. Players have been conditioned to believe that their game is incomplete or even broken without a complete set of DLC, but both Jorjani and Paradox CEO Ebba Ljungerud have been emphasizing the message that this isn’t the case with their games.
“We can go toe to toe with anyone who’s released any game and supported it with the level of support we’ve given,” he said. “We do a poor job of explaining this to customers, because they’re conditioned by how every other game works.”
With other games, Jorjani says, players often look at the list of available DLC and work out what they need for a ‘good game experience,’ but for Paradox’s titles, like Crusader Kings II and Europa Universalis IV, the DLC functions as optional add-ons, things that might appeal to certain players but aren’t at all crucial parts of the experience.
“You don’t need leather seats in a car; the car comes with seats,” he said. “Leather seats are extra. You still get a pretty cool car.”
https://www.pcgamesn.com/surviving-the-aftermath/valve-epic
Paradox won’t pick sides between Valve and Epic, and considers both to be great partners
Paradox Interactive’s grand strategy games have been mainstays on Valve’s Steam storefront for many years. But the company has formed a partnership with the new kid on the block, the Epic Games store, offering Surviving the Aftermath‘s early access version exclusively through Epic’s storefront. From Paradox’s perspective, it’s a matter of the more, the merrier.
Speaking to us at PDXCon, Paradox CEO Ebba Ljungerud said Epic has been great to work with.
“[Epic is] really good to work with,” she said. “They’re very open and attentive. They’re a partner – as is Steam. So it’s been great so far working with them.”
Both Ljungerud and Paradox chief business development officers Shams Jorjani agreed that having more options in the gaming space means better options for both players and developers.
“Probably the best thing to happen to PC gaming in the past 15 years is Valve, hands down,” Jorjani said. “They’re our most important partner and we have a great working relationship with them, but that doesn’t change the fact that, the more things that happen in the industry, the better.”
“Having an ecosystem that is alive and well and moving about is great for everyone,” Jorjani continued. “There’s more technology and engines and platforms to build stuff on and get it out, but that equally makes it incredibly hard to succeed. And if you have only one storefront on one platform, that makes it really hard for a bunch of developers.”
As Jorjani sees it, massive hits like PUBG, Fortnite, and Pokemon Go are all great news, even for a company whose specialty has been relatively niche historical strategy games.
“More people in this space is a force of good,” he said. “It just brings in a ton of more people into gaming, and that’s good for everyone.”
Surviving the Aftermath will be available in early access later today on the Epic Games store.
https://www.pcgamesn.com/cities-skylines/china
Paradox is considering making a game for the Chinese market
China is a massive, complicated market for game developers. There’s a substantial potential player-base, but the government’s tough internet regulations make it hard to adequately market anything in the region. As such, the only game Paradox has released there is Cities: Skylines. Aware of the gigantic player population the country holds, Paradox is looking into ways of appealing to them more.
Asked about Paradox’s plans for China at PDXCON, Ebba Ljungerud, CEO of Paradox, said that the studio’s happy with the current situation with its fanbase. “What we do is, we communicate with the Chinese audience, the ones who seek out to communicate with us,” she explained. “We don’t, necessarily, try to push games within the firewalls, but we’re happy with the way it’s working now.”
She says a project specifically for Chinese players, akin to Sega’s Three Kingdoms, is an appealing way to further Paradox’s presence. “I could see, that we in the future, would make a game for China, like Three Kingdoms, that would be more relevant for the Chinese history nerd,” she said. “But that’s not there right now, and that would be something that would be interesting outside of China as well.”
Shams Jorjani, Paradox Chief Business Development Officer, said that Paradox’s games are banned for a reason, and the company remains unwilling to compromise for Chinese censorship laws. He believes they can grow without changing what they’re doing: “We think there’s potential for us to reach even more, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to stop doing the things we’re doing now to reach them. Rather, maybe there are other things we can do that will also cater to them.”
Many of these players have set up forums that stretch beyond Paradox’s official message boards. “There are Paradox forums in China that are bigger than our forums,” Jorjani said. “We don’t directly work with them, but on Steam and other platforms there are tons and tons of Chinese players.”
At least some of those players are coming from piracy, too. “Someone told us that there’s a forum for Europa Universalis with four of five hundred thousand members,” Ljungerud says. “We were like ‘oh, we haven’t sold that many games’ and they were like ‘oh, we’re also very good at piracy in China'”
For more from PDXCON, you can read about what Paradox thinks of cross-play, the announcement of Crusader Kings 3, the new expansions for Battletech, Age of Wonders: Planetfall, and Prison Architect, or you can give Crusader Kings 2 a go for completely free.
https://www.pcgamesn.com/stellaris/cross-play
Paradox says cross-play is “the way to go”, but technical limitations are a struggle
Aside from being strong single-player experiences, Paradox games often include a compelling multiplayer element as well. Playing along-side friends is one of the greatest assets for longevity in the genre. Now Paradox has started overseeing console versions, there’s the option of cross-play. The developers are keen, but there’s some hurdles to overcome first.
At PDXCON, Paradox was asked if cross-play was a possibility. Shams Jorjani, Paradox Chief Business Development Officer, answered that right now the multiplayer side of the audience isn’t huge. But as that contingent grows, it becomes something of greater interest. “Generally, most of the grand strategy games have multiplayer, and we see between around eight and 20% of our players that play multiplayer,” He said. “So as that becomes a bigger thing it might become more relevant.”
Bridging the gap between platforms is something that falls within Paradox’s wider philosophies, too, Jorjani explained. “We generally tend to favour openness and connectivity,” He said. “Who’s against cross-platform play?”
Building cross-platform multiplayer is easier said than done, however. There’s a wide array of technical differences in PC and console, and bringing those communities together seamlessly presents many hurdles.
“Personally, in theory, I think cross-play is the way to go,” Ebba Ljungerud, CEO of Paradox, said. “But then you have lots of technical limitations, or various weaknesses.” Jorjani adding: “It’s not graphical, it’s processing power to run the simulations.” The example given is Nintendo Switch, where there’s a smaller screen and much less buttons for input commands among other issues, but the logic can be applied in to PS4, Xbox One and mobile, who each present distinct challenges.
While waiting for the chance to play with your console buddies, you can check out Crusader Kings 2 for free in lieu of Crusader Kings 3 being revealed, and have a look at the newly announced expansions for Stellaris, Prison Architect, and Hearts of Iron IV.
https://www.pcgamesn.com/stellaris/mobile
Paradox “f***ed up” with Stellaris: Galaxy Command, but still wants to do something on mobile
Earlier this week, Stellaris: Galaxy Command, a mobile spin-off of the sci-fi grand strategy game, was launched in beta. Less than 24 hours later, it was pulled, when it was found to contain assets that were just altered images from the Halo series. Paradox spoke about the incident at PDXCON, discussing that while this situation is unpleasant, the company still wants to be working in mobile.
Speaking during a press junket at PDXCON 2019, Ebba Ljungerud, CEO of Paradox, took a question on Galaxy Command, responding that Paradox’s interest in the area hasn’t waned any. “We fucked up, clearly, let’s just be honest about that,” she said. “We think Gamebear, the studio, built a really good game. We want to try mobile. We’ve been saying for years that there has to be something we can do with our games in mobile.”
“[Gamebear] are incredibly passionate about Stellaris,” she continued. “There is a good fit in there, but then in the execution, clearly, there’s more work to be done, which is why the game was pulled.”
Shams Jorjani, Paradox Chief Business Development Officer, added that out-sourcing mobile development remains the smarter option considering Paradox’s specific expertise. “It is insanity to have a team world class at PC games go and make a mobile game,” He said. “It makes no sense.”
Ljungerud pointed out that the Stellaris’ console ports are also made by a third party studio, Tantalus Media, and that was also a very clear step for Paradox when moving to console. “[Stellaris] is working really well on console, but we didn’t know that when we took it out,” she said.
Stellaris’ new DLC, Federations, was announced at PDXCON.