Delterius
Arcane
I believe you. Which makes this yet another charisma boon for Paradox. People like to support the small guy.It's actually very true. Before HoI3 and CK2, their games weren't selling enough to justify the long turnaround and unimpressive cash flow. Heck, they had to fire few staff members before HoI3 came out and Swedish law forces them to fire the latest hire to the company, so they lost a very talented programmer (King) among other people. While those really tough times are apparently now far past them, I don't doubt that no more than two-three Magna Mundi scale disasters in a fiscal year could ruin them.Paradox has a monopoly over their niche, which is why some people view them in an overtly optimistic manner. They released lots of mediocre to decent and two good grand strategy games (Hearts of Iron 2 and Vicky 2), but the ridiculous DLC milking chalks off them from being on a list of best companies.
Though I suppose people are more likely to accept the DLC AVALANCHE from a dev like Paradox - independent, very niche, mid-to-small and, as far as I can see, with good PR. Some may even think its a necessary thing to keep them afloat amongst the big guys, though I wouldn't know about that.
Though since they have since expanded their publishing role, no idea if that brings in more money for them or whether it's peanuts.
Another thing that occurred to me is that, maybe, Paradox's niche is ideal for small/medium DLCs. Arguably, even relatively small additions like Republic DLC for CK II change a lot about the game.