1

Yup, Paradox Interactive is going public. Tweet from the CEO himself:

https://twitter.com/TheWesterFront/s…42023199289345

I’m not sure what to think. On one hand, it could be great for Paradox, allowing it to grow even more and create even greater games. On the other hand, it might end up completely changing what Paradox is, which could be good or bad.

I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

2

I would like to see more IPO’s like this. Solid gaming company with a non speculative business model. I hope it goes well for them. It should, they are well placed to drive growth with the cash.

3

This is terrible news, IMO. Well, great news for the people earning their just rewards, but bad for me as a fan of their games. My only hope is this:

4

Kevin, what are your concerns with them going public? I’m just curious, need more information to form my own opinion.

5

Zynga CFO poised with suitcases of money? EA buyout?

6

No deep analysis or anything, I just find publicly traded corporate entities aren’t well suited for a creative endeavor like video games, especially one in a niche.

A lot of my concern comes from my own experiences as a software developer working for a privately owned company which was later purchased by a very large corporation. I’m back working for a private company again (staffed roughly 90% of ex-employees who fled the corporate environment. Thankfully, we were able to salvage a customer base after 10 years of corporate ineptitude, greed, and myopia). IMO, it just changes things when you’re trying to ship a good niche game vs appeasing shareholders.

But who knows, maybe they maintain control or otherwise just continue to make awesome games. Like I said, it’s not really an in-depth analysis on my part, just trepidation about how I’ve seen these things go in the past.

7

Yeah, like KevinC, I have the same fears for pretty much the same reasons. Also, as I said on Twitter, I find change unsettling when it comes to things I appreciate just as they are.

8

Paradox have made such a smart move the last few years to start delaying or cancelling games that weren’t functional. I’d hate to see shareholder pressure reversing that trend. On the other hand, if this lets them expand and make more games simultaneously, could be great!

9

I agree with KC, not good news IMO.

10

If you look at the last 3 DLC releases from their most popular franchises - CK2, EU IV, and Cities Skylines… people are not happy with Paradox. This is all a very worrying trend.

11

Based on what? Steam reviews? Few people bother to post DLC-specific reviews unless they have an axe to grind. And being gamers on the Internet…

12

If that were true they wouldn’t have huge positives for every single release and DLC beforehand. I considered that before I posted, and if one reads the reviews they are extremely well written and insightful, and go right in hand with what people have written here. Also, the music DLC for Conclave is very positive. So this is not the case of Internet crazies hijacking Steam reviews for Conclave, Cossacks, and Snowfall but am well aware that happens all too often.

13

It seems that Fred Wester is looking to cash out / get acquired. And I’m not sure teh

14

Well, okay. I just skimmed through the negative reviews on The Cossacks and it was 90% people moaning about it being $20 instead of the “correct” price. One review (the highest rated one) even helpfully breaks down what each feature of the expansion should cost and comes to the conclusion that:

Man, if they had only consulted him beforehand they could have avoided all the riots outside their Stockholm offices! I bet they feel dumb for not releasing it at $9.10.

Sorry, don’t let my eye rolling get in the way of discussion.

15

According to him, the estates feature is “worthless / should be free” and contributes 0 points to his price equation. That gave me a good laugh. I feel sorry for Paradox to have guys like these write the highest upvoted steam reviews for their products.

Not trying to be elitist but Cossacks did at least get two very positive reviews from critics (HardcoreGamer and Softpedia).

16

I am disappointed too. Good for those who will make money, bad for the idea of making niche products. In a couple of years I am guessing we’ll start hearing phases like streamlined, balanced, and mainstream… and it’s downhill from there.

17

Is there any reason Paradox needs to make more games than they do? They have, what? three or four ongoing series from their own development studios including EU, and they publish four to six games a year from other developers? I guarantee if they start trying to publish more external titles and, especially, spin up more internal teams, the quality is going to suffer.

18

I should have qualified my statement as I knew that would come up. You are absolutely correct. But I do stand by the fact people don’t just post Paradox Steam reviews just to be negative Nancy’s. In fact one might daresay the opposite, has been true for the last 3 years. However the last 3 DLC’s for their differing strategy brands have not been some conspiracy plan of the PC crowd trying to undermine Paradox. I never expected to be disappointed with them either but I am. Price didn’t matter, the changes, content, and execution did.

19

The company that’s going public is the parent company (the publisher). It remains to be seen how well protected the development studio is from external intervention (or not).

Let’s see what happens. It might be too soon to jump to conclusions as to what the effect will be.

20

Well presumably the development studio’s games are going to be published by the publisher. Even if they weren’t fully owned by the public parent, they’d be subject to the same commercial pressures by virtue of that relationship.