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Paradox is the best company ever :love:

Zed Duke of Banville

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Chief Commercial Officer of some online gambling company (and a member of the Board of Paradox Interactive) will be Paradox's new CEO:
:lol::D:lol::D:lol: Paradox the publisher has become everything that was hated by Paradox the developer. :lol::D:lol::D:lol:
 

Deathsquid

Learned
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In before loot crates.

My liege, you have a new sealed majestic Godbox! Shall we open it?
> Open
[Male - Bald - 3 unlocked] [Female - Ballroom Dress 5 unlocked] [Pick a Free Perk x1 unlocked] [Form Kingdom Permit x1]
 

fantadomat

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It could be for better and it could be for worst. Most likely a Tencent lackey.
What's Tencent's stance on diversity? I doubt the Swedish approach and the Chinese approach will gel well.
They are stand is very simple. "We own you,we don't care about niggers,we want diversity of microtransactions and more mobile games! " They care only about white people because they have the money to throw at stupid shit,communist liberal shits don't have enough money for sprays let alone for expensive games.
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/artic...es-in-the-past-i-dont-want-to-do-that-anymore

Paradox: "We've released crappy games in the past... I don't want to do that anymore"
Fredrik Wester on the Paradox version of GaaS, why Crusader Kings 3 is probably inevitable, and what's happening with White Wolf RPGs

Next week, Paradox Interactive will get a new CEO for the first time in almost a decade. But to say that the person replacing Fredrik Wester is "new" to Paradox would be very far from the truth.

Although Ebba Ljungerud will be unfamiliar to the Swedish publisher's growing legion of fans, she has been a member of its board for the last four years. She is, in fact, intimately familiar with Paradox, with where it wants to go, and with how far it has come.

When we met Ljungerud at PDXCon earlier this year, we asked her about the changes she has seen in that time, the areas in which Paradox was falling short, and that it has since addressed.

"Actually, quite a lot of things," she said. "One of the key ways it has got better is to say no earlier; having those clear checkpoints. There was a game called Runemaster, and we cancelled it too late - way too late - and going through that process, the whole team learned that it's better for everyone to cancel these things early.

"On the one hand we have customers who demand a lot. On the other hand they're willing to pay if it's good. It's a nice balance"

"We have to accept that, if we start ten projects, four are probably going to fail. I don't know the exact numbers, of course, but that's not a failure as a company, and it's not a failure for the people working on it; it's a part of our process now."

That discipline was evident in the products Paradox showed to the press at PDXCon: two entirely new games, but four expansion packs for existing titles, one of which launched more than half a decade ago. It was also evident in its Q1 financial results, where profits almost tripled over the previous year despite only a single new game release. Fewer games doesn't mean less money when it means making smarter bets.

"We know we have a certain amount of revenue from what we already do and the people that follow us," Fred Wester admitted when we talked to him later that same day. "But it also puts pressure on the teams to deliver high quality content, because if we don't then people aren't buying. We have smart customers, and they know what they're getting for their money.

"On the one hand we have customers who demand a lot. On the other hand, they're willing to pay if it's good. It's a nice balance; we just need to be on the right side of it."


Crusader Kings 2 remains popular even six years after launch, but is it time for a refresh?

As Wester prepares to transition into a new role - the particulars of which will be explored in an article next week - it's fair to say that Paradox has never been in ruder health. It releases fewer, better games, with the kind of long-tail appeal that most publishers would kill for. In an era defined by games-as-a-service, Paradox has managed to create a very similar structure, but for premium games and paid expansions.

"It's our equivalent of games-as-a-service, but it's more optional," Wester said. "We don't turn the game off if you're not playing it. You can still access everything no matter what, and we supply a lot of free updates alongside the paid updates as well.

"If you paid $40 for Crusader Kings 2 on February 14, 2012, when the game was first released, you will still have three-times or five-times the game that you paid for six years ago... I think most people are happy with that, but you'll always get people complaining."

This model is very much what the future of Paradox will look like even after Wester is no longer CEO, for "most of our core products." There will always be a team that continues to work on each games after launch to ensure that, "within a certain time frame you have a certain number of releases." Where Paradox will seek to improve in its future games is working within even more narrow periods of time.

"If you paid $40 for Crusader Kings 2 when it was first released you will have three or five times the game that you paid for six years ago"

"We need to be even better about working on a weekly basis - like, what's happening this week?" Wester said. "Not necessarily something people pay for, but events within the week and things that have just happened in the game."

All of which suggests a step even further towards a service-based structure for Paradox games in the future. Indeed, according to Wester, that process began as far back as the release of Crusader Kings 2, the trajectory of which illustrated the need to look beyond a game's launch to assess a product's value.

"The launch tells you parts of the secret of how successful the game will be," Wester said. "If you take Crusader Kings 2...the initial launch was not that impressive. Then we released [the expansion pack] Sword of Islam, and then another expansion, and then we released Old Gods... All of sudden it just took off, and a lot of people started playing it. It became a cult hit. It got a cult status that very few games do, because of the stories you can tell with it.

"But we were in agreement - me and Henrik [Fåhraeus, game director] and Johan Andersson [creative director] - that the commercial upside was probably pretty high if done right. Henrik usually described it as a mix of The Sims and Game of Thrones; the worst mix ever, but that explains what the game is about."

Whether a combination of The Sims and Game of Thrones can be called "the worst mix ever" is highly debatable. Indeed, given the huge number of people that adore each of those cultural behemoths it could be argued that Crusader Kings 2 could have a much larger audience were the game itself more approachable. Like CCP's EVE Online, it is the kind of game that people love to write and read about, but actually playing it is another matter altogether.


Stellaris offers a glimpse of how Paradox might make complex games more accessible

"The stories themselves, when people read about Crusader Kings, they think, 'I need to play this game.' That's the first thing [they think]," Wester said. "And you can see that, since 2012, we've taken steps towards making our games, not less complex, but less complicated. Stellaris is a big step in the right direction; it has a lot of complexity under the hood, but your start is with one planet and one spaceship and one thing to care about. Then you get more and more to do in the game."

This rather begs the question of how Crusader Kings 2 - an expansion for which was a key driver of those impressive Q1 results - can emulate a more accessible game like Stellaris, and collect some of the money that may have been left on the table. The short answer: it probably can't. But that's one of the reasons that a full sequel is highly likely at some point in the future.

"We can't add much more to Crusader Kings 2 as it is now... We might need to take the etch-a-sketch, shake it a little bit, and start over"

"We will probably do it at some point, and the reason for that is the technical depth that we have in Crusader Kings 2," Wester said. "We can't add much more to the game as it is now. It's crowded. The map is really big, there's so much content in there. It wasn't really built for all of the expansions we made. It's getting heavy. We might need to take the etch-a-sketch, shake it a little bit, and start over."

This illustrates the other side of the more studied approach that Ebba Ljungerud summarised as a willingness to say no earlier in the development process. Not every publisher would have let six years pass before making another full Crusader Kings game, out of fear that an opportunity could be missed. Instead, Paradox showed patience, and the brand has gone from strength to strength.

The same is true with the White Wolf properties Paradox acquired in October 2015, a collection that includes World of Darkness, Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse. In a separate conversation with the press at PDXCon, Paradox's VP of business development Shams Jorjani said that "we're making RPGs," before adding, "we bought White Wolf because we believed it had a great set of IPs that could be used for a multitude of different kinds of RPGs."

Wester confirmed as much to us, pointing to Paradox taking "a bigger stab at RPGs" as one of the growth areas for Paradox over the next few years. Whether we learn more this year or next has not been decided, he said, because the way Paradox now works means, "anything can be shutdown before it reaches alpha if it doesn't match the quality level."

"We have the White Wolf catalogue of games," he said. "There are a couple of projects that are at more than an experimental level right now. People ask us why it's taking such a long time to do anything with the White Wolf stuff. And, well, we want to do things the proper way this time.

"We've released crappy games in the past, many years ago. I know how it is to release buggy, unfinished games. I don't want to do that anymore."
 

Rahdulan

Omnibus
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Messages
5,105
That's admirable sentiment, but you could easily make a point that Paradox already became what they supposedly regret and can't stand doing. It just went from "we're being pressured by publisher to release unfinished games" to "we're the publisher and we can purposefully release unfinished games so we can have DLC later down the road, at first adding missing features and later just bloating the game". Difference is content delivery speed has never been faster so you can get away with shit like that with the correct point.

I'm fairly sure major stumbling block for Paradox in terms of WoD properties is the fact they have no idea how to create anything that's not a grand strategy and pitches they received from other studios weren't good enough to warrant proper funding. Aside from Werewolf, I guess.
 

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
Eh, eu4 and ck2 were fun, playable, solid at release and worth buying. They also haf some very impressive dlcs that improved the base game in ways we wish would happen with most other games out there (as well as disappointing dlcs, and the broader issue of bloat).

Id happily buy a ck3 or eu5, then cherrypick some key dlcs, and ignore the rest. But if their new flagships end up looking like stellaris, they just become a creative assembly - a bad recycling bin.
 
Self-Ejected

unfairlight

Self-Ejected
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PARADOX ARE THE BEST GAEMS EVER
ptnlum.png
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
Another two projects cancelled silently: https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/en/interim-report-january-june-2018/

Thanks to these releases, we are posting our highest-ever revenue numbers this quarter. At the same time, margins are lower than at the same time last year. There are a number of primary reasons for this: Increased royalty payments (as third-party titles accounted for a comparatively large percentage of total sales in the quarter), and one-time write-offs of two unannounced projects that have now been cancelled. This is nothing out of the ordinary. We always have many concurrent projects in early development, with regular evaluation points, and we prefer early cancellations for those projects that we do not feel are likely to meet our high-quality standards. Cash flow from operating activities during the quarter was our strongest so far.

We also saw increased investments in development, publishing and marketing during the quarter. As we mentioned in our Q4 2017 report, this means lower margins in the short term but builds the company for healthy, long-term growth through larger and more frequent releases of both first- and third-party games.
 

LESS T_T

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Codex 2014
PDXCON is coming to Berlin next year: https://www.paradoxplaza.com/news?aid=PDXCON-2019-Coming-Soon



Paradox Interactive to Bring PDXCON to Berlin in 2019

STOCKHOLM - Nov. 30, 2018 - Paradox Interactive, a publisher and developer of games that take place all over the world, today announced the date and location for PDXCON 2019, the annual celebration of Paradox’s global community of fans and players. PDXCON 2019 will occur in Berlin, Germany, taking place on October 19-20, 2019, with debut announcements, appearances, and presentations featured for all attendees. Tickets for PDXCON 2019 will be available for sale early next year, with multiple admission tiers offering a variety of exclusive perks to attendees.

See the Paradox Team coming to grips with this process in a new trailer here: https://youtu.be/FtMTzw-52p4

Sign up for PDXCON updates and be first in line for Early Bird Tickets here: https://pdxcon.paradoxplaza.com/

PDXCON 2019 will be the third annual public convention for all things Paradox, where fans will have the chance to meet the creators of their favorite games, connect with fellow players and top creators within the Paradox community, and find out what’s in store for future titles. 2019 will mark the first year that the fan convention is held outside of Paradox’s hometown of Stockholm, offering greater opportunity for fans to attend from a wider variety of locations. Details on event hotels and accommodation will be shared early next year.

“PDXCON has come to mean a lot to our fans, and to all of us inside Paradox as well,” said Ebba Ljungerud, CEO of Paradox Interactive. “It’s not just a milestone for us as a company, it’s a personal highlight. As our first public PDXCON to take place outside of the comfort of our ‘home field,’ we intend to make this year’s show worthy of the global stage -- bigger and bolder than ever before. I’ll see you all there!”

For more details on PDXCON 2019, visit: https://pdxcon.paradoxplaza.com/
 

Space Nugget

Guest
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/artic...-strong-2018-with-best-quarter-in-its-history

Paradox Interactive capped strong 2018 with best quarter in its history
Expansion-driven strategy paid off as Q4 revenue surged 50% despite no new games

Paradox Interactive earned more revenue in Q4 2018 than any quarter in its history -- a fitting end to an impressive 2018 for the Swedish publisher.

In Q4 2018, Paradox earned SEK 336.9 million ($35.9m), up 51% over the same quarter in 2017. Operating profit for the period was SEK 146.8 million ($15.7m), an increase of 69% year-on-year.

The company reached record highs despite not releasing a single new game in the quarter. However, as we discovered at PDXCon last year, Paradox' business is less and less reliant on new games to produce returns.

Paradox launched six expansions for its existing games in Q4, including new content for Cities: Skylines, Stellaris, Europa Universalis and Crusader Kings II. The last of those, Crusader Kings II, was first released in 2012, and yet its most recent expansion, Holy Fury, sold more units in its first month than any before it.

"We do this without having released any new games during the quarter, which again demonstrates the strength of our core strategy to develop and support games and brands in the long term," said Ebba Ljungerud, who took over as CEO of Paradox last year.

"Continuous updates and expansions give our games a long life, both in terms of number of players and recurring revenue."

That two new games that Paradox launched in 2018 were Surviving Mars and BattleTech -- the latter a turn-based strategy title from Harebrained Schemes, the US studio that Paradox acquired in June. In addition, it released 16 expansion packs for its portfolio of games.

Across the entire calendar year. Paradox earned SEK 1.3 billion ($137m), up 39% over the prior year. Operating profit increased 34% year-on-year, from SEK 339.8 million to SEK 455.1 million ($48.2m).

"During 2018, we also grew through a number of acquisitions," said Ljungerud. "We acquired the studio Harebrained Schemes LLC, creators of Battletech, as well as a minority stake in Hardsuit Labs Inc, who are working on an as-yet undisclosed game on our behalf."

Ljungerudadded: "We have also expanded our existing organization considerably -- during the fourth quarter we passed 400 employees in the Group."

Overall, Paradox invested SEK 304 million ($32.4m) in game development and SEK 155 million ($16.5m) on acquisitions of studios and brands in 2018. Ljungerud pledged to invest "more than ever" in the coming year, which started with the acquisition of the Prison Architect IP from Introversion Software.

"Through the acquisition of Prison Architect, we are laying an important building block for future growth within the management genre, where Cities: Skylines and Surviving Mars are currently our most successful games," Ljungerud said.

"Constantly adding new games and brands to our portfolio remains a core part of our strategy. It helps ensure longevity and lessens our dependency on all releases being hugely successful from day one."
 

RRRrrr

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
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Messages
2,303
I fucking hate Paradox's DLCs and expansions. It is ridiculous. While I liked CK2/Victoria 2, I can't stand Paradox as a developer. Also, Victoria 2 was ridiculously broken.
 

AwesomeButton

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BlackAdderBG

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Codex 2013 Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex USB, 2014 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/artic...-strong-2018-with-best-quarter-in-its-history

Paradox Interactive capped strong 2018 with best quarter in its history
Expansion-driven strategy paid off as Q4 revenue surged 50% despite no new games

Paradox Interactive earned more revenue in Q4 2018 than any quarter in its history -- a fitting end to an impressive 2018 for the Swedish publisher.

In Q4 2018, Paradox earned SEK 336.9 million ($35.9m), up 51% over the same quarter in 2017. Operating profit for the period was SEK 146.8 million ($15.7m), an increase of 69% year-on-year.

The company reached record highs despite not releasing a single new game in the quarter. However, as we discovered at PDXCon last year, Paradox' business is less and less reliant on new games to produce returns.

Paradox launched six expansions for its existing games in Q4, including new content for Cities: Skylines, Stellaris, Europa Universalis and Crusader Kings II. The last of those, Crusader Kings II, was first released in 2012, and yet its most recent expansion, Holy Fury, sold more units in its first month than any before it.

"We do this without having released any new games during the quarter, which again demonstrates the strength of our core strategy to develop and support games and brands in the long term," said Ebba Ljungerud, who took over as CEO of Paradox last year.

"Continuous updates and expansions give our games a long life, both in terms of number of players and recurring revenue."

That two new games that Paradox launched in 2018 were Surviving Mars and BattleTech -- the latter a turn-based strategy title from Harebrained Schemes, the US studio that Paradox acquired in June. In addition, it released 16 expansion packs for its portfolio of games.

Across the entire calendar year. Paradox earned SEK 1.3 billion ($137m), up 39% over the prior year. Operating profit increased 34% year-on-year, from SEK 339.8 million to SEK 455.1 million ($48.2m).

"During 2018, we also grew through a number of acquisitions," said Ljungerud. "We acquired the studio Harebrained Schemes LLC, creators of Battletech, as well as a minority stake in Hardsuit Labs Inc, who are working on an as-yet undisclosed game on our behalf."

Ljungerudadded: "We have also expanded our existing organization considerably -- during the fourth quarter we passed 400 employees in the Group."

Overall, Paradox invested SEK 304 million ($32.4m) in game development and SEK 155 million ($16.5m) on acquisitions of studios and brands in 2018. Ljungerud pledged to invest "more than ever" in the coming year, which started with the acquisition of the Prison Architect IP from Introversion Software.

"Through the acquisition of Prison Architect, we are laying an important building block for future growth within the management genre, where Cities: Skylines and Surviving Mars are currently our most successful games," Ljungerud said.

"Constantly adding new games and brands to our portfolio remains a core part of our strategy. It helps ensure longevity and lessens our dependency on all releases being hugely successful from day one."

Their revenue is just $130m? Wow didn't realize they are that small fish.
 

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