A most disturbing french column

[Darkrenown]

GoT did get promoted by the CK2 facebook page though I think it's been brought up in streams too.

 

[Susana]

I can understand that a magazine like Canard PC finds it challenging to work with publishers when so much happens in real time these days (in particular for a company as digital as Paradox) and they have lead times of 30 days or more to print their magazines. In the past games went to print 6-8 weeks before release, these days with digital distribution the lead times are much shorter. We we work very hard to keep good relations with media, however our main responsibility is and remains to the developers and the games they have poured blood, sweat and tears over & our gamers. In the past reviews were one of the only ways we could do this, these days we also work with bigger betas (War of the Roses had a 150,000 sign ups), frequent live streams, we create many opportunities where devs and media can play our games and usually do not embargo much from these. Not sure if Candard PC believes that because we are smaller we shouldn't be as concerned with giving our games the best possible chance to make it on a market where AAA titles still carry a lot of weight but I know our gamers today have much more insight into our games and what they can expect from them than they did when I started here 9 years ago and that's something we'll continue to work hard for.

Kind regards
Susana

 

[Susana]

Sure:

1. Not sure he's talking about Paradox specifically, more the industry in general.
2. We basically now ask people shoot us an e-mail and tell us what games they are interested in reviewing rather than automatically push them out. The # of reviews we receive since we started doing that are pretty much the same, but we no longer send out 5000 + review copies at random. This makes total sense for us and we want to know someone on the other end is interested/will actually take the time to play the game before reviewing it. But yes it does require a bit more from the media outlets as they need to reach out to us proactively.
3. I think he's added the week after release for effect to make a point. But it's true devs put finishing touches on the game close to release and to us review code is finished code.

Other than that I think we've worked in pretty much the same way for the past 9 years, if anything I think we are more open with our games earlier these days both to gamers and media than we were before becaue we usually have something playable earlier even if it's not the final game.

Kind regards
Susana





Kind regards
Susana

 

[Susana]

Can I have a reply to this specific allegation?

I know you're joking but I'll respond: I totally disagree that is the case, I think we as a company try to promote our own accomplishments and fix what we are not happy with rather than focus on what others do. But anyone who interacts with us here or twitter, or streams or wherever know that we have fairly little PR interferance between employees/developers and community and sometimes people can get a bit carried away...

Kind regards
Susana

 

[Shams]

I do a lot of the stone throwing - but also give praise to many of our fellow publishers. I guess it depends on when you listen - and what you like to hear.

/shams

ps. I play more EA games than PDX games -if that makes any difference

 

[Castellon]

*"World Company" is in French a kind of rare idiom used to designate big corporate monsters such as EA, in a cynical/satirical context, as in the original sentence 'la dernière des World Companies'

The English Equivalent is "Multi-National Corporation". Usually with the adjective "Big" and often even "Evil" Sometimes reaching the realm of Super Evil Multinational MegaCorporation.

 

[Darkrenown]

Any idea what that "dumbass methods" quotes he uses is from? No one here said that. Just curious.

 

[Castellon]

The word I used was much more violent than "dumbass" by the way, but nevermind that, I was passably irritated when writing this post, and it has little to do with the subject itself.

My point was that I perceived this column, in the way it was written and its arguments exposed, as an accusation against Paradox policies.
This was all the more disturbing to me because I give a lot of credit to Canard PC's saying, and seeing my favourite developper, which I always perceived as extremely reliable in terms of communication and game quality, be associated with the despicable methods of some major companies litteraly set me on fire.
Not against Canard PC, but against you. Because my confidence was seriously shaken after that reading.

It so happens that at the end of the day, I would be the one "misinterpreting" and translating badly. Well I guess someone has to be faulty, no matter if it's the one who was asking for explanations...

We appreciate that you brought this concern to us instead of harboring it in silence without an explanation.
We constantly strive to have better communication with our members and those that enjoy our games, constructive feedback is always welcome.
You also had the CMO of our company reply directly in this thread not once but three times, I doubt you would get that with other "World Companies"

 

[Darkrenown]

The reply that I copy-pasted and translated was an answer to someone on the CanardPC forums, in fact he didn't say anything about this topic here except that the opening post's translation was a bit too aggressive.

Ah ok, thanks.