I think any Paradox game will be complex and daunting to play at first. It depends what your aptitude is. If you understand economics, the Vic 2 is best game. If you want more of a military emphasis, then HOI3 or 4 will do. If you like interpersonal relationships, then CK 1 or 2. EU is a little bit of everything.
PDX | |
Public | |
Traded as | First North: PDX |
---|---|
Industry | Video games |
Genre | Grand strategy games, 4X |
Founded | 1999; 20 years ago |
Headquarters | , |
| |
Products | Video games |
Revenue | 1,127.8 million kr[1] (2018) |
455.2 million kr[1] (2018) | |
353.9 million kr[1] (2018) | |
Owner | Tencent (5%) |
Number of employees | 423 (March 2019)[1] |
Subsidiaries | |
Website | www.paradoxplaza.com |
Paradox Interactive AB (frequently abbreviated PDX) is a Swedish video game publisher based in Stockholm. The company is best known for releasing historicalstrategy video games. Paradox Interactive publishes its own games, both developed by their division, Paradox Development Studio, and those of other developers.
- 1History
- 2Game characteristics
- 2.3Post-content model
- 3Acquisitions
- 5Other activities
History[edit]
Separation from Paradox Entertainment (1999-2004)[edit]
Paradox Interactive's origins started with Target Games, a Sweden-based board game company. Target had been produced board and tabletop role-playing games in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as ventured into video games. By the late 1990s, were struggling financially, and Target ultimately folded into bankruptcy by 1999. The video game division was spun off into a separate entity, Paradox Entertainment, which published video game adaptions of Target's games.[2] Between 2000 and 2003, Paradox Entertainment released the first titles of several grand strategy games, including Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron, Victoria: An Empire Under the Sun and Crusader Kings. The company also had several mediocre releases, including Gettysburg: Armored Warfare, an attempt by the studio to make a massively multiplayer online game on a triple-A scale, but which was released with numerous problems and was critically panned, costing several jobs by the developer.[3]
By around 2003, Paradox Entertainment also began buying the intellectual property rights to various franchises like Conan the Barbarian from Robert E. Howard and Solomon Kane. Fredrik Wester, former CEO of Paradox Interactive, stated that around 2003, he had been brought aboard Paradox Entertainment to help write their business plan, which included the drive to transform their video game division into a triple-A studio. Wester cautioned them about this, pointing back to the failure of Gettysburg. The Paradox Entertainment executives did not take this advice well, and decided it would be better to shutter the video games division and focus exclusively on licensing their acquired brands.[3] Instead, Wester, along with the Paradox Entertainment CEO Theodore Bergquist, bought out the video games division retaining the Sweden Paradox Development Studio and all seven of its developers including Johan Andersson, and gained all intellectual property rights to its past games, forming Paradox Interactive in 2004.[3][2]
Growth as a publisher (2005-2015)[edit]
One of the first titles that was planned by Paradox Interactive was Crusader Kings, another grand strategy title. Their publisher, Strategy First, filed for bankruptcy about two months into its release, costing Paradox revenues from those sales as well as the lack of a North American distributor. After the launch of the digital storefront Steam around 2003, Wester experimented with digital marketplaces by offering downloadable content for Victoria via their website. The experiment proved successful, and subsequently in 2006 the company launched Paradox On Demand, a digital storefront with several of Paradox's back-catalog for sale.[3] This eventually was renamed as GamersGate later in 2006. To help support it, Paradox looked to sign on games from developers as to bolster the company's reputation as a world-class video game publisher. Wester stated in 2013 that many of these games were 'terribly bad', but that some proved to be strong performers, such as Mount & Blade.[3] GamersGate eventually was spun off to be its own entity in 2008, while Paradox continued to acquire additional titles to fill its distributor catalog which helped to finance continued development of grand strategy titles from the Paradox Development Studio. By 2013, the company had reached 100 employees, and established new offices in Stockholm, Sweden.[3]
Paradox Interactive continued to publish numerous games from smaller developers over the next several years, finding success in games like Magicka from Arrowhead Game Studios (the publisher's first title to break 1 million copies sold) and War of the Roses from Fatshark. Wester and others in Paradox admitted in 2013 that this approach had been ambitious and led to issues with quality control in the resulting games, leading to a general impression about Paradox games being buggy.[2] The publisher also had greenlit and invested in several titles by its internal studios without careful review that failed to pan out, such as East vs. West, a spinoff of the Hearts of Iron series, By 2014, the company had made a decision to become much more selective of which titles to publish, making sure they were able to provide the necessary quality control support each title needed before agreeing to publish.[4]Crusader Kings II in 2012 was one of the first games developed and published by Paradox with more attention focused on development timelines and testing to avoid past mistakes, and Paradox has since followed a similar model on its future titles.[5]
One of Paradox Interactive's more notable publishing deals was their agreement with Colossal Order in 2011 to publish their Cities in Motion transportation simulation game, and later its sequel Cities in Motion 2.[6] Colossal Order ultimately wanted to produce a city simulation game to challenge Electronic ArtsSimCity series, but Paradox had expressed concern about the competition. However, the release of the 2013 SimCity game was poorly received due to several difficulties with online services required to play the game. Paradox greenlit Colossal Order for its city simulation game, Cities: Skylines,[7][8] which was released in 2015 and has sold over 5 million copies by 2018.[9]
Another notable collaboration for Paradox was with Obsidian Entertainment. Obsidian, having struggled financially, crowd-sourced the development of a new game, Pillars of Eternity, and entered into a publishing deal for it through Paradox.[10] Obsidian published their next title, Tyranny through Paradox.
Paradox also opened its second internal development studio, Paradox Arctic, located in Umeå, Sweden, formed from former members of EA DICE and Starbreeze Studios, in 2014.[11]
Going public (2016)[edit]
In March 2016, CEO Fredrik Wester stated in an interview with Di Digital that Paradox Interactive has launched the IPO process. The company will complete the process within the year with the intention of spreading ownership between employees and players of their games and 'looking for long-term owners who want to take part in the Paradox journey'.[12]
On 31 May 2016, trading in Paradox Interactive commenced on Nasdaq First North under the symbol PDX.[13] The initial price offering was 33 per share kr (US$3.96)[14] valuing the company at 3,485 million kr (US$420 million). Paradox set aside about 5% of the shares to allocate to Tencent, valued at about 174.24 million kr (US$21 million).[15] Wester continued to hold 33.3% of the shares of the company, while investment firm Spiltan held to 30.5% of the shares.[15] Finances created by the offering allowed Paradox to begin several acquisitions of various studios and intellectual properties.[15]
Continued development (2017-onward)[edit]
Paradox announced the opening of its third internal studio, Paradox Malmö located in Malmö, Sweden, in May 2017. The studio was established to develop mobile games based on Paradox's properties.[16]
Wester announced in February 2018 that he plans on stepping down as CEO by August 2018, but will remain as the executive chairman of the board, while current board member Ebba Ljungerud will take his place. The move is aimed to give Wester more ability to look for growth opportunities while Ljungerud handles the day-to-day operations of the company, which had since grown to about 300 employees since its foundation.[17][18]
The company's financial performance for 2017 saw a 24% year-on-year increase in revenues to 813.8 million kr, and a 10% year-on-year increase in profits to 339.8 million kr.[19]
Paradox announced the opening of Paradox Tectonic, located in Berkeley, California, in March 2019, with Rod Humble serving as studio lead.[20]
Game characteristics[edit]
Grand strategy[edit]
Paradox Interactive has generally focused on publishing grand strategy games made by its subsidiary, Paradox Development Studio. Grand strategy games are played on a real-world map, marked by the use of standard real-time elements but with an ability to make any and all changes even while paused. Almost all Paradox games have historical settings and demonstrate a reasonable commitment to historical accuracy.[citation needed] The focus of each game is different, but generally a player must manage the economy, commerce, internal politics, diplomacy, technological development, and military forces of a nation. Paradox Interactive games are also characteristically complex, with highly detailed gameplay models and consequently steep learning curves.[citation needed] Over time, in an appeal to sell games to a wider market, they have sold games which attempt to preserve the historical accuracy of previous games while attempting to make the games less complex.[citation needed] The games are usually sandbox-style game with no set victory condition.
Examples of these grand strategy games in Paradox' catalog include Europa Universalis series and the Hearts of Iron series.
Other genres[edit]
Along with grand strategy games, Paradox's catalog also has come to include simulation and management games, such as the Cities in Motion series and Cities: Skylines, and computer role-playing games such as Pillars of Eternity. The publisher has ventured into other genres in the period between 2011 and 2014, but have since shifted focus back to these three core areas; according to Shams Jorjani, the vice president of business development, 'We had this vision of people buying a Paradox game without knowing what the game was; that 'Paradox' should be a guarantee for a type of game experience'.[4] The period from 2011 to 2014 was marked by the publication of the first Magicka game in 2011, itself having been greenlit for publishing after seeing the success of the Mount & Blade series in 2008, which did not quite fit their grand strategy profile. Magicka had been successful, so between 2013 and 2014, the publisher greenlit a number of different titles from across a number of genres, which, on retrospective, the publisher found that they could not properly manage or promote well, leading them to limit themselves to three core genres.[4]
Post-content model[edit]
Paradox is known to support games following their release with a long tail of updates to their games often several years after release. Some of these are free updates or DLCs, many add large game changing elements to the game and the way it is played. Paradox board member Ebba Ljungerud justified this part of their business model by stating 'We want to make really great games for our fans, and we can't do that if we don't charge something for the development'.[4] But many fans dislike this model[citation needed] as it requires them to pay for game changing content as well as buying the base game. This leads to several games having large amounts of DLC, which leads to large costs in order to obtain the new features.
Modding[edit]
Paradox tries to make games that are open and easy to edit (moddable), from tweaking a saved game to creating an entirely new scenario. Modding can be accomplished with simple tools and basic knowledge of scripting. To assist modders to figure out how to edit the game on their own, the Paradox forums provide fan-compiled libraries of 'how to' advice. Due to this, each game has a very large number of mods, ranging from minor additions to complete system overhauls.[citation needed] Paradox worked with Microsoft to develop Paradox Mods, an open modding platform that allows the same user-created mods to work both on Microsoft Windows and Xbox One system, with initial testing being done through Surviving Mars starting in February 2019.[21]
Acquisitions[edit]
White Wolf[edit]
Paradox Interactive purchased White Wolf Publishing's assets, including World of Darkness and Vampire: The Masquerade, from CCP Games in October 2015.[22] White Wolf became a self-operating subsidiary of Paradox Interactive with its own management and goals.[23]
In January 2017, White Wolf announced its partnership with video game publisher Focus Home Interactive for the video game adaptation of Werewolf: The Apocalypse, a tabletop role-playing game set in the World of Darkness. The game will be developed by the game development studio Cyanide and released on PC and consoles. [24][25]
Triumph Studios[edit]
Paradox Interactive acquired the Dutch game development studio Triumph Studios, the creator of the Age of Wonders and Overlord series, in June 2017. The acquisition was considered to be a good fit by both commentators and the involved companies, based on similarities in product genres and corporate culture.[26][27]
Hardsuit Labs[edit]
Paradox acquired a 33% minority stake in developer Hardsuit Labs, the creators of Blacklight: Retribution, at a cost of US$2 million in January 2018.[28]
Harebrained Schemes[edit]
On 5 June 2018, Paradox Interactive announced its acquisition of Harebrained Schemes, the maker of Shadowrun Returnsand the Paradox-published game BattleTech for a fixed price of US$7,500,000 and 25% of the earnings of Harebrained Schemes excluding publishing cost in the next 5 years, provided that amount exceed the fixed purchasing price.[29]
Prison Architect series[edit]
In January 2019, Paradox acquired the intellectual property rights to the Prison Architect series from developer Introversion Software, with plans to continue to expand more games in the same theme. Introversion had stated they had taken the series as far as they could and believed that Paradox' purchase would ultimately help the series in the future.[30]
Studios[edit]
Paradox currently operates six internal studios:[20]
- Paradox Development Studio, Stockholm, Sweden (founded in 1995)
- Paradox Arctic, Umeå, Sweden (established in 2014)
- Paradox Malmö, Malmö, Sweden (established in 2017)
- Paradox Tectonic, Berkeley, California (established in 2019)
- Triumph Studios, Delft, the Netherlands (acquired in 2017)
- Harebrained Schemes, Seattle, Washington (acquired in 2018)
Other activities[edit]
PDXCon[edit]
Prior to 2016, Paradox Interactive had invited members of the gaming industry press to Stockholm to preview upcoming titles at an annual press day. Starting in 2017, Paradox transformed this to an weekend event opened to the public called PDXCon. PDXCon 2017 was held in May at the Gamla Riksarkivet in Stockholm, and included four hundred gamers alongside the press at the event.[31] For the 2018 PDXCon in May, Paradox expanded the public attendance to 800 gamers.[32] The 2019 PDXCon is scheduled to be held in Berlin in October 2019, giving them access to a larger space and more ready access for gamers to attend.[33]
Board games[edit]
At the 2018 PDXCon, Paradox announced it was working with board game designs and publishers to produce a number of board games based on their video game properties, including Europa Universalis, Crusader Kings, Hearts of Iron, and Cities: Skylines.[34]
References[edit]
- ^ abcd'Annual report 2018'(PDF). paradoxinteractive. 17 April 2019.
- ^ abcDean, Paul (September 25, 2013). 'Inside Paradox, the strangest company in video games'. Eurogamer. Retrieved January 8, 2019.
- ^ abcdefHall, Charlie (August 7, 2013). 'Solving Paradox: How the historical strategy game maker stayed alive'. Polygon. Retrieved January 8, 2019.
- ^ abcdHandrahan, Matthew (May 31, 2018). 'Paradox: 'If a game can't be played for 500 hours we probably shouldn't be publishing it''. GamesIndustry.biz. Retrieved May 31, 2018.
- ^Brown, Frasier (13 October 2018). 'Paradox's new CEO Ebba Ljungerud on fans, growing, and karaoke'. Venture Beat. Retrieved 9 January 2019.
- ^Eskelinen, Päivi (19 May 2011). 'Vakavasti mukana pelibisneksessä' [Seriously in with the Games Business]. Rajapinta (in Finnish). Tampere University of Technology. 2011 (3). Retrieved 21 November 2015.
- ^Livingstone, Christopher (19 March 2015). 'Cities: Skylines greenlit 'after what happened to SimCity''. PC Gamer. Retrieved 19 March 2015.
- ^Peel, Jeremy (18 May 2017). 'How Cities: Skylines was nearly a political sim'. PCGamesN. Retrieved 18 May 2017.
- ^Kerr, Chris (8 March 2018). 'Cities: Skylines has sold 5M copies on PC alone'. Gamasutra. Retrieved 8 March 2018.
- ^Ray Corriea, Alexa (March 18, 2014). 'Paradox Interactive to publish Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity'. Polygon. Retrieved August 31, 2015.
- ^Dingman, Hayden (January 23, 2014). 'Paradox Interactive announces a slew of new strategy games and expansions'. PC World. Retrieved March 7, 2019.
- ^7 March 2016, Retrieved 8 March 2016
- ^'Year End Report'. Report. Paradox Interactive. 2016-02-23. p. 1. Retrieved 2016-10-23.
- ^'Exchange rate history'.
- ^ abcSinclair, Brendan (27 May 2016). 'Tencent acquiring 5% equity in Paradox'. GamesIndustry.biz. Retrieved May 13, 2019.
- ^Dring, Christopher (May 17, 2017). 'Paradox opens mobile studio in Sweden'. GamesIndustry.biz. Retrieved March 7, 2019.
- ^Kerr, Chris (13 February 2018). 'Paradox CEO Fredrik Wester is stepping down after nine years'. Gamasutra. Retrieved 13 February 2018.
- ^Handrahan, Matthew (31 July 2018). 'Paradox Interactive chooses development over stagnation with CEO switch'. GamesIndustry.biz. Retrieved 9 January 2019.
- ^'Year-end report 2017 | Paradox Interactive - Global Games Publisher'. Paradox Interactive. 2018-02-13. Retrieved 2018-03-27.
- ^ abBatchelor, James (March 7, 2019). 'Paradox opens new California studio, Paradox Tectonic'. GamesIndustry.biz. Retrieved March 7, 2019.
- ^Kerr, Chris (February 20, 2019). 'Paradox and Microsoft have created an open modding platform for Paradox titles'. Gamasutra. Retrieved February 20, 2019.
- ^Futter, Mike (October 29, 2015). 'Paradox Purchases World Of Darkness, Vampire: The Masquerade Creator White Wolf Publishing'. Game Informer. Retrieved October 29, 2015.
- ^'White Wolf - Paradox Interactive - Global Games Publisher'. Paradox Interactive - Global Games Publisher. Retrieved 2017-05-19.
- ^'White Wolf partners with Focus Home Interactive for a video game adaptation of the World of Darkness Storyteller game, Werewolf: The Apocalypse. - Paradox Interactive - Global Games Publisher'. Paradox Interactive - Global Games Publisher. January 19, 2017. Retrieved 2017-05-19.
- ^Interactive, Focus Home. 'Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Focus Home Interactive'. Focus Home Interactive. Retrieved 2017-05-19.
- ^Donnelly, Joe (30 June 2017). 'Paradox acquires Age of Wonders developer'. PC Gamer. Retrieved 9 January 2019.
- ^'Paradox Interactive acquires Triumph Studios' (Press release). Stockholm: Paradox Interactive. 30 June 2017. Retrieved 9 January 2019.
- ^Barton, Seth (11 January 2018). 'Paradox Interactive acquires 33% of Blacklight developer Hardsuit Labs'. MCVUK. Retrieved 9 January 2019.
- ^'Paradox Interactive to acquire Seattle-based Harebrained Schemes'. Paradox Interactive. Retrieved 2018-06-05.
- ^Kerr, Chris (January 8, 2019). 'Paradox acquires Prison Architect franchise from Introversion'. Gamasutra. Retrieved January 8, 2019.
- ^Stanton, Rich (17 May 2017). 'Paradox Conference Lives Up to the Name'. Kotaku. Retrieved 9 January 2019.
- ^Barton, Seth (17 May 2018). 'PDXCON: 'The people who come are the ambassadors of Paradox' says CEO Wester on eve of publisher's biggest-ever event'. MCVUK. Retrieved 9 January 2019.
- ^Boadreau, Ian (1 December 2018). 'Next year's PDXCon will take place in Berlin'. PCGamesN. Retrieved 9 January 2019.
- ^Bolding, Jonathan (19 May 2018). 'Paradox board games are coming: Europa Universalis, Crusader Kings, and more'. PC Gamer. Retrieved 9 January 2019.
External links[edit]
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Paradox_Interactive&oldid=900925814'
That must've come out wrong: I was indeed playing as Prussia and united Germany, which was a lot of fun by the way. The India part was just an observation that boggled me, because it's so unrealistic. Similarly the conquered French lands were 50% German after ~20 years. As a person which sets value on the cultural aspect of the paradox games, this is bothersome. So, was that changed in any way?
Also I did not find the game too easy or anything, it was just that the economy run way too well (especially if I compare that to my few horrible minutes of Victoria I ... ) and I had money en masse. Maybe I just got super lucky, but I seriously couldn't find a way to even spend the money nearly as fast as it came in. I should note however, that this was a early version of the game, so this might have been fixed. Hence my question.
Oh, and don't misunderstand me: Even in that way the game was good. It was just that it felt like it wasn't running as it should or could be and so I went back to playing the other 3 games. I do plan on giving it another shot, though. I just wanted to know if those things were changed.