„The Curse of Success” and Overconfidence Are Reasons for Paradox’s Failures. Company Returns to Its Roots and Focuses on Pre-Production

As a long-time Paradox Interactive fan, it’s been quite a rollercoaster ride these past few years. From the highs of successful releases like Stellaris and Hearts of Iron IV to the lows of premature debuts and canceled projects, it feels like the company is finally coming full circle and returning to its roots.

After a series of less-than-successful game releases, The Paradox Company is choosing to retrace its steps and return to its original principles, as stated by deputy chairman Mattias Lilja and chief creative director Henrik Fahraeuz in an interview with Game Developer. They attribute the company’s recent struggles to issues that have arisen over the past few years.

Paradoxical “curse of success”

It’s worth noting that despite Paradox Interactive having a string of successful games lately, their releases can sometimes be overshadowed by significant setbacks, like the launching of highly anticipated titles that didn’t meet expectations. Titles such as Victoria 3, The Lamplighter’s League, and naturally, Cities: Skylines 2 are examples of games from their library that encountered issues upon release.

As stated by Lilja, Paradox encountered what he calls the “burden of prosperity” – the publisher overestimated their abilities and prioritized swift growth and substantial investments, even in areas beyond their traditional expertise. This led to multiple teams working on distinct projects, supposedly minimizing the chance of failure. However, Fahraeus argues that this approach was actually counterproductive, and in hindsight, he described Paradox as “unfocused” in its choices.

A while back, our team found ourselves pouring considerable resources, including finances, into ventures that were unfamiliar to us. We thought we could expand significantly and yet thrive, but looking back, I think we erred on several points.

As a gamer, I can say that our rapid progress was fueled by our taste of success and an eagerness to explore new avenues. We were eager to test boundaries and had some extra resources at our disposal. However, in our early stages, we may have lacked discipline in certain areas, particularly when it came to trusting a larger team would equate to less risk. In hindsight, I now understand that the opposite is true – smaller teams are more effective.

Life By You Problems

“Life By You, which was intended to compete with The Sims series, ended up costing approximately 20 million dollars and was eventually scrapped. This wasn’t a result of financial hardship; Paradox didn’t need to borrow money and had the means to take on the risk. However, it turned out that the investment was unnecessary in this instance.

Lilja was straight-forward: “Life By You” would struggle against The Sims 4. Issues in the work of Paradox Tinto studio were spotted promptly, ranging from the visuals, particularly character appearances, to the uninteresting gameplay.

Additionally, it’s worth noting that the overall impression didn’t surpass the competition, which would have made it challenging to persuade dedicated Sims fans to try out LBY, even if we had provided early access. The advancements made by the developers might not have significantly impacted this situation.

The game, as edited, didn’t offer anything exceptionally unique. Comparatively, it wasn’t superior to The Sims 4. While the customization options were impressive, they primarily focused on aesthetics rather than gameplay. Given that this was an early access game, I believe it should have provided a fun and well-polished experience from the outset, but this wasn’t the case here.

At the outset, I must admit that while it offers less complexity in its latter stages, it should still deliver an enjoyable gaming experience right from the start. Regrettably, our team fell short of reaching that mark.

(Too) early access and beta testing

Here’s another way of putting it: Paradox has mentioned his reservations about early access once again. Specifically, he’s not a fan of the fact that early access games often lack substantial content and endgame options. Instead, he believes that the primary focus should be on making the initial version enjoyable and well-polished, rather than rushing to release incomplete content.

This statement does not imply that Paradox is against testing their game with players; instead, one of the key principles behind the company’s “reconstruction” strategy is to engage players as early as feasible, even before the official release. Lilja acknowledges that while it was still employed for DLC and major updates in the past, they have not emphasized this aspect much when it comes to recent games.

In our usual practice, we apply enhancements to our DLCs and significant updates, which you can explore in the open beta version on Steam. Historically, we excelled at this process because we held extensive closed beta tests and had an enthusiastic fanbase that joined us earlier. Lately, it seems we’ve been falling short, and we need to regain our former expertise in this area.

Essentially, Paradox is planning to let players test the game in a way similar to early access, but the game should still be polished enough for players to enjoy their gaming experience. This approach aims to prevent issues like those that impacted Cities: Skylines 2, and other games.

Humble beginnings instead of great failures

The publisher is shifting its strategy to emphasize smaller development teams and extensive prototyping during pre-production. This approach aims to identify critical problems in projects more efficiently. If issues arise that can’t be resolved, it’s better to abandon a project early rather than cancel one developed by a large team after investing several months of work.

A more effective approach for crafting games involves assembling a smaller, focused team from the outset, rather than expanding a team and later discovering that the project has strayed off course. This misstep can be detrimental to both teams and game studios alike.

What I’m trying to convey when I suggest going back to the basics is this: Let’s focus on what we do best and grow from there. Begin by taking small steps. This approach can serve as a guide for us. It might seem straightforward now, but just a few years ago, we weren’t in a position where we could consider such an approach.

Premature debuts and Paradox’s restart

Skylines 2_ initially looked like at launch. In fact, players still have valid complaints about it even today.

To put it simply, a sort of “refresh” or reset within the company seemed necessary, returning to areas where the developers are most familiar. This doesn’t imply that Paradox is abandoning larger games altogether; instead, these will primarily encompass genres closely related to their expertise.

2024-10-09 15:32