Paradox Convention 2015: No News is Good News?

"There will be no new game announcements today," said Paradox Interactive CEO Fred Wester as an assortment of games press assembled in their offices in Stockholm. It was a shocking statement from a company that used to showcase a line up of fifteen titles a few years back, and that now was happy to show six projects (all of which are targeted for release in 2015, and half of them due out this quarter).

We've been to similar events in recent years where Paradox has announced upwards of five new projects, but to some extent the crazy days are over for the publisher. Among the games at this year's line up are mostly bigger projects, ranging from teams of a dozen or so developers, to perhaps around forty. It's a marked difference from the days when Paradox signed a bunch of one or two man projects. Wester later reveals that he doesn't want the company to lose its edgy, crazed ways, but there is also a heavy emphasis on their strongest IPs: Crusader Kings, Magicka, Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron.

One big change for Paradox in recent years is that they have actually started cancelling projects that don't live up to the quality they want to achieve. Two externally developed projects that used the internally developed Clausewitz engine - Magna Mundi and East vs. West - were cancelled and last fall the internally developed RPG, Runemaster, also got the axe. Executive Vice President of Game Development Johan Andersson explained the anguish involved when he cancelled his dream project, and how he lost sleep over the decision he knew had to be made. The story was there, the concept was great, but the combat and the gameplay loop simply wasn't fun. After three years in development and no end in sight, the call had to be made.

Paradox Development Studio has five to six teams working on as many projects, with the studio having grown to seventy-two people at the last headcount. Each of the teams is larger than the team that made Hearts of Iron 3, and QA is now integrated into each team.

Three teams are accounted for. There's the team that continues to work on Crusader Kings II some three years after release, via free patches and content as well as expansions. Then there's the Europa Universalis IV team, and there's is currently the most popular PDS title with 200,000 monthly players. That is set to launch its next expansion - El Dorado - this month. On top of that, naturally, there's the Hearts of Iron IV team.

The other two or three teams (depending on who you ask) are unknowns. But none of them are working on smaller or mid-sized projects (like, for example, Sengoku) and there is no team working on anything to do with Victoria at the moment. It would surprise us if Europa Universalis: Rome 2 wasn't among the two or three unannounced projects given the tremendous amount of teasing, but as for the others we simply don't know. However, they are all to do with grand strategy and there are no RPG projects like Runemaster currently in development (even if the dream of making an RPG hasn't quite died).

Shams Jorjani, who is in charge of the Paradox portfolio, said that the difference in strategy where they announce projects later on in their development cycle may actually mean they sign more projects, but end up cancelling plans to publish if the projects don't pan out. It's a reaction to the fact that in the past Paradox has pushed on and released some games that perhaps, in hindsight, should have been cancelled.

The partnership with Sony that was announced at E3, where Magicka 2 was confirmed on PlayStation 4 (and was playable on PS4 at the Convention), and came about in an interesting way. Paradox struggled with console development and (perhaps more importantly) with console publishing during the last generation. Fred Wester explained that the $10,000 price tag on patches was something of a deal-breaker for the company. But with the new generation came some major changes in policies at both Microsoft and Sony, and both were interested in getting Paradox on board.

The reason for the partnership with Sony was simply down to them pursuing Paradox more aggressively. One day Sony called and said we're coming over to Stockholm, three guys, and Wester replied they should probably not waste their time. Paradox had no interest in console. They persisted and the deal came about. At the moment Paradox only have plans on PlayStation, but there's nothing to say that can't change in the future.

Wester quoted the head of PlayStation's third-party publishing as saying that their old policy (in the PS3 days) when dealing with independent developers and publishers basically boiled down to: "go eat a bag of dicks". Not the most welcoming of policies in other words.

"What project of ours do you think Sony are most excited about?" asks Fred Wester. Probably not the sequel to the multi-million selling Magicka when it's put like that. "Hollowpoint. They ask about it all the time."

Hollowpoint is another great example of how Paradox has changed. The Dundee-based developer was set up by Microsoft to create Crackdown 2, when Real Time Worlds focussed their efforts on the ill-fated APB. Since Crackdown 2 they've mostly done contract work on a "big load of Kinect stuff I don't ever want to think about again" as co-founder Billy Thomson put it. It's a great relief then to work on something like Hollowpoint, that's more of a passion project. From the standpoint of Paradox, it offers a marked difference from working with less experienced teams.

The same can certainly be said of Pillars of Eternity, but that is also a different sort of partnership. Obsidian and Paradox are co-publishing the game but Paradox aren't really involved in funding the game. Instead they lend their expertise in publishing and marketing. What is notable is that talks are also in place regarding further co-operation between Paradox and Obsidian further down the line. While nothing is set in stone, Pillars of Eternity could spell the beginning of a beautiful friendship. The recent breaking news on Eternity 2, though, should perhaps be taken with a pile of salt. Josh Sawyer, game director, simply laughed it off saying he had no "Eternity 2 meeting" planned. But naturally they are thinking about doing it at some point, though for now, the focus is on finishing Pillars of Eternity and producing its DLC.

Another big upcoming release is Cities Skylines, a game that hopes to fill the hole left by the disappointing SimCity, with large cities and lots to integrate and plenty of micro-management decisions to make (such as whether or not you want "it" legalised).

"One morning in the office I noticed that twenty-five people were playing the game on Steam,", says Wester. "Of course, there are only twelve people working at the studio so that meant that thirteen people at our offices were playing the game at 10.30am instead of doing their job. I went around looking at people's screens, but I think it's a sign that we're onto something."

Paradox has outgrown their current digs that are spread out over a couple of the top floors of the former tax building in Stockholm. Beautiful views, but come October they will once again cozy up next to Avalanche Studios at new roomy offices just a couple of minutes walking distance. The opposite side of the street is the new DICE offices, and not far away you'll find Fatshark and Mojang, to name a few other developers. More development is being moved in-house, not just for the sake of control, but also because Paradox wants to be sure they can support their games for years to come, something that can be troublesome at times when dealing with an independent developer.

It is clear that Paradox are consolidating themselves. 2014 marked the first time in eleven years that revenue didn't grow, largely a result of delaying some key titles like Pillars of Eternity and Magicka 2. War of the Vikings didn't perform as well as expected (the War franchise is currently on hiatus), but it was notable that Crusader Kings II enjoyed its best year since release in 2012. There's a plan in place for Paradox to grow its revenue to 500 million SEK ($60 million) by 2017 and become one of Sweden's top five employers. Transparency is also a key word, and as you might have been able to tell there was a lot of openness in the air at this year's convention, even if future projects were kept under wraps.