Ask Paradox (almost) Anything Thread (no support/tech or code questions)

[Shams]

Slim to none.

Before Microsofts press conference at E3 I was convinced they were going to announce a "middle ground" initiative but instead the opposite direction and left us with a gaming landscape that is even more polarized.

Today people are either pushing big AAA products or they focusing on Kinect/casual games. At the same time we see the big publishers begin to withdraw from Steam - as they want to sell their content directly to the user.

This means that there's a huge swath in the middle for Paradox - both as a publisher and a developer where we have room to grow.

We will keep making smart games for smart people. Johan and the team will keep pushing out the most complex and rewarding strategy games on the market while Paradox publishing will focus on games that other publishers wouldn't dare release.

We're talking about games like Magicka, Mount & Blade, Salem, Cities in Motion, Project Postman and more. I'm dying to reveal more of our upcoming games.

Open platforms - where we have great control over the content (updates, patches, DLC etc) will continue to be our focus - this means that besides the beloved PC you'll see more Paradox games on iPads, iPhones and Android mobiles - but it will be hardcore games (noticed that there are very few hardcore strategy games on those devices?

You'll also see more games on consoles - but open platforms - especially PC is where our heart is.

Hope that answered your question.

Sincerely,

Shams

 

[Shams]

No.

/s

 

[Shams]

The big publishers are entirely correct to do so IMHO - they have the catalogs to support such a bold move.

I honestly think they'll come out on top - They'll lose perhaps 10-15% potential customers - but will make that up many times over by not having to pay steam their cut - and I think they'll follow up with an aggressive DLC campaign -which will just further mitigate any potential steam losses.

After all it's BF3 - People are still going to play it.

We've got no plans for following suit - it just makes very poor business sense to pull entirely from steam - but offering a non-steam alternative is still very important.

But the next few years are going to be great for Paradox on Steam - especially because big publishers are moving off and we're filling their shoes.

/s

 

[Castellon]

Except that Steam is not just a distributor, it's also a marketplace. Access to this provides obvious potential for increased sales. Which is why I'd have to disagree with Shams: I just don't see most customers installing 3-4 company specific clients, or otherwise abandoning the ease of using Steam

That is why he said BIG companies. Companies that have games that people will install their client to play, after all steam makes you install a client, so if you don't like clients you are going to go with an alternative retailer that does not.
Also this is exactly how Steam got started. It was started to sell and DRM HL2. It worked for them, so if say EA does it with their new ORIGIN system for something like Sims franchise(the number 1 selling PC game) I don't think they will have any worries.

 

[Castellon]

Personally, I don't think that many people will move or embrace this 'multi-client' notion

Which is exactly what everyone said about steam when it started, That they would not embrace or ever join it, but almost all eventually caved in, as they had no choice with Steam exclusive releases (Recent example Civ5, even if you buy it from another vendor that has all your other games you still need to sign up for a steam account to actually play it). Just as those that want to play exclusive releases from Large vendors will have no choice but to download those clients. (Counter example: even if you buy the Sims3 from Steam you have to sign up and have both the Origin(EA) and a Sims Client installed to play it.) So it is already a reality. Now whether that is a good thing for games or not is another story, and boils down to More clients installed vs more competition in the industry.
-I should make it clear these are only my views and should not be construed as necessarily representing those of Paradox on this matter.

 

[Shams]

Gamersgate is its' own entity and has about as much to do with Paradox today as Impulse, Direct2Drive and Steam.

Regarding multi-client/multi-source - I definitely feel that there's a paradigm shift in the industry going on right now. A few years ago (as steam was really getting dominant) people generally felt that hey "I really don't want to hassle with 15 clients - I'm sticking to one - hello Steam".

But nowadays more and more people have to use multiple sources just because there are a lot of popular PC games that steam doesn't carry - for instance:

Minecraft
League of Legends
Starcraft 2
World of Warcraft

Soon we'll have Battlefield 3 and Diablo 3 there - those titles represent a very big chunk of the average gamer's time - right?

So yeah it's a hassle to download and maintain a bunch of different games/sources - but people are getting used to it. Besides what's to stop people from creating a 3rd party app that acts as a launcher for all these - (see pidgin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pidgin_(software) for example)

Heck - I have minecraft, League of Legends AND Starcraft 2 on my Steam list and launch them through steam - it's really convenient because then my friends can still get hold of me while I'm playing.

So in summary - I think definitely you'll see an option to buy Paradox games directly from the "paradox store" - www.paradoxconnect.com is the embryo of that. And that will be a great option for those who really want to support paradox and make sure a 100% of the revenue ends up in the "right hands". But in the meanwhile you'll be able to get our games from Steam, Gamersgate or even Origin (hopefully soon). Also I foresee a proper online library - meaning that if you have a game on digital service X that will mean that you'll be able to redeem that game on digital service y - see how the Humble Indie Bundle or Frozen Synapse lets you redeem the games on Steam - even though you bought it elsewhere.

Also finally - Steam is much more than a distribution outlet - as ComradeOn writes - it's a marketplace with a fantastic marketing capacity. But most importantly it also makes development a ton easier by giving developers access to tons of nifty features like autoupdate, achievements, stats, the cloud and stats to name a few.
/s

 

[Shams]

Thanks,

Always fun to dish about the industry, and yes it feels like were miles ahead of most big actors.

I think that within 12 months you'll be able to buy digital games directly from PDX.

As for GameplayOutlet - I hope well have collectors editions there - 100 limited autographed copies of our games with unique items packed along with them - you know real collectors editions.

/s

 

[Johan]

I have become a Gamersgate loyalist. I tried Steam and decided in 20 seconds that I didn't like the client thingie. But I wanted to comment on "collectors' editions." Today I got spammed by Amazon to buy a CE for Skyrim: For sixty extra bucks I get a twelve inch dragon and a book of concept art. Whoopie! I'm no rich man, but I do plan to buy CK2 and maybe Sengoku at cover price, but for a CE I would hope for an autographed photo of Johan in full mail with the Paradox CoA blazoned on his tabard. Seriously, though, I know you guys can be more imaginative than that.

You can get a picture of me in chainmail here for free...

 

[Shams]

Is Rome II one of the other upcoming games (please!!)?

No Postman isn't Rome II.

And No Rome II isn't one of the upcoming games.

The astute readers might know that Fatshark is making Project Postman - meaning no complex grand strategy game.

But it's really good and very purty.

/s

 

[Shams]

Lead and Gold 2142!!!

nope!

/s

 

[Shams]

Next week gentlemen, next week.

/s

 

[artfox]

So a patch thats was sent "out of the blue" 2 WEEKS ago hasnt received any paradox time yet??? So your all so busy that after 2 WEEKS you cant say a word on its status?

One of the problems with planning an exact date for a patch release is the QA process. If the QA team finds anything that needs to be fixed immediately, then the whole team that were working on the patch need to fix the issues and send it to the QA team again. Now, if the QA team finds something new, the whole process have to be redone again... and again... and again.

This is one of the reasons why several games have been delayed. Setting a deadline for a game is tricky, patches are even harder. This goes for both big and small titles for big and small companies and big and small publishers.

Setting a definite date is hard. You would be upset if we told you a date for release and then could not hold it, right?

 

[Johan]

So a patch thats was sent "out of the blue" 2 WEEKS ago hasnt received any paradox time yet??? So your all so busy that after 2 WEEKS you cant say a word on its status? Your also saying that it hasnt been schedualed yet, not even a pencil mark in the calender? From what i can gather you need to check its okay before you release. So does that mean the publishing department hasnt given it to the dev department yet? Or that the dev department aren't done with it yet? Any of these questions could/should have been answered by now. I mean Irshappa ID have done the hard work and made the patch please don't let them and the players down with such silence.

They still have some hard work left to do, as it failed the internal QA.

 

[Johan]

You know that I'm on holidays till the end of August? You better not announce EU IV until I'm back online...

I can promise you that we will not announce EU IV this month.

 

[Fredrik II]

How would cloud computing affect the gaming industry?

To a great degree I think, with everything being accessible everywhere it can greatly increase the service to gamers.

 

[artfox]

I have a question that I could elaborate for a long time. But I try to keep it simple.

Do you ever feel that you are competing with yourself for the players attention?

I can only answer about testing: Yes we are competing with ourselves about really good beta testers. If we have several releases close to each other, our best fans will not have time to test them all.

 

[Johan]

Actually.. CK2 has 50% longer development time than Victoria 2 had...

 

[Susana]

Thank you. Its nice to have this information. I cant say it was quick but better late then never. I appreciate there is a process, i dont appreciate leaving the fans out of the loop. Again thank you for telling us the status.

I think this is as good time as any to just clarify that we don't plan to report in a more detailed fashion than we do today, what stage different patches, updates etc are in. In fact, I think we are pretty transparent and communicative about these things already in comparison to a lot of other devs/game companies. I appreciate you are passionate about specific games, but looking at it from our end of the spectrum we have a back catalogue of more than 150 games, work with more than 30 distribution platforms (excl. retail) and more than 20 dev teams at any given time. To go into day to day details and progress of every single project doesn't make sense, and is not something we plan to do. It's ok if you don't agree with our stance, but I thought I should clarify so that you know what to expect from us down the line.

Kind regards
Susana Meza

 

[ForzaA]

You have Johan's phone number?

You have King's phone number?

10 digits in a phone number, how much do you offer me per digit?

 

[Captain Gars]

10 digits in a phone number, how much do you offer me per digit?

I have ForzaA's phone number. Any takers for $1 a digit...?