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Johan

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You guys may have seen the title “Game Director” thrown about in development diaries and on various streams, but we’ve never explained what a game director is.

The Game Director is the vision owner for a game. They develop this vision with the help of others, communicate it to the rest of the team and external partners, and ensure the final product is something fans will enjoy and spend money on. They have final creative control of their games.

Historically, I was basically the game director for every game we made until CK2, which was the first time someone else owned the creative vision of the game. Victoria 2 was almost entirely Chris King’s design, and if we’d had today’s organisation back then, he would have been GD of that game. Until the release of Stellaris, Henrik was the GD of that game, and until this week, I was the GD of EU4.


Our game-director team these days include the following people.

Chris ‘King’ King - Secret Project
Dan ‘podcat’ Lind - Hearts of Iron IV.
Henrik ‘Doomdark’ Fåhraeus - Crusader Kings 2 & Secret Project
Jake ‘DDRJake’ Leiper-Ritchie - Europa Universalis IV
Martin ‘Wiz’ Anward - Stellaris


As you may have noticed, my name is absent from that list, as I now work with leading and supporting all our game directors equally.

I am very proud to hand over the reigns of EUIV to Jake now, I’ve worked with him for the last 18 months, with designing Rights of Man, Mandate of Heaven & Third Rome together, and now we are soon releasing Cradle of Civilisation which is basically entirely his vision.
 
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Who, if anyone, was GD of EU:Rome?
 
Who, if anyone, was GD of EU:Rome?
As Johan said we didnt really have these exact roles back then. It was a while ago but pretty sure Johan was lead designer on it so thats as close as you can get.
 
So if there can only be one GD for each game, does that mean there are three secret projects? Does every single project have to be a game, or can they be more broad things(no idea what I mean by that). Do these have to be PDS games or can they be PDI games? And how long ahead of time do you assign these. For instance, could two of the secret projects not have even been starting to be made yet?
 
I must admit, the hiring practices of PDX are pretty cool. I don't know how many video game developers can say they hire fans/players let alone eventually put them in leadership positions (obviously talking about Jake and Wiz here).

I wouldn't be surprised if Shafer's project is V3.
 
I must admit, the hiring practices of PDX are pretty cool. I don't know how many video game developers can say they hire fans/players let alone eventually put them in leadership positions (obviously talking about Jake and Wiz here).

I wouldn't be surprised if Shafer's project is V3.

I remember reading in a Rock, Paper, Shotgun interview with Shafer shortly after joining the Paradox crew. He basically said that the release of Stellaris convinced him Paradox was capable of branching out into different types of grand strategy aside from historical. He joined with the intent of doing something very different with the genre.
If I had to guess, his new project is certainly going to be a new IP and definitely going to be atypical from what Paradox normally does. Probably something closer to Stellaris than V2
 
I remember reading in a Rock, Paper, Shotgun interview with Shafer shortly after joining the Paradox crew. He basically said that the release of Stellaris convinced him Paradox was capable of branching out into different types of grand strategy aside from historical. He joined with the intent of doing something very different with the genre.
If I had to guess, his new project is certainly going to be a new IP and definitely going to be atypical from what Paradox normally does. Probably something closer to Stellaris than V2

Interesting, I didn't see that. Perhaps a fantasy grand strategy then (if "grand strategy" at all).
 
Oh, so let's play match the Game Director to the secret project!

My guesses:
Shafer: a non-historical GSG/4X hybrid most likely in some kind of fantasy setting. I'm thinking a modestly strong focus on characters like CK, but not full CK.
King: Victoria 3 seems the obvious guess. I could also see it being a game that is mechanically inspired by V2, but is not actually Victoria.
Doomdark: Rome 2? Roman Empire is something that PDS fans are very interested by, but there is just the one game set in the era. Perhaps a game set in this era that is not a strict sequel to EU:R.
 
Henrik ‘Doomdark’ Fåhraeus - Crusader Kings 2 & Secret Project
Ok, Doomdark is involved in another project, that sort of explains why CK2 didnt get much love recently and looks semi abandoned now.
- lets add societies, the great idea of mine; but lets do it only halfway through and leave the game unpatched for few months
- we are making MnM, adding China and we are done with CK2; but maybe we should actually add China without adding China

but that might mean that at least the second project gets some love
 
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Doomdark: Rome 2? Roman Empire is something that PDS fans are very interested by, but there is just the one game set in the era. Perhaps a game set in this era that is not a strict sequel to EU:R.

It's going to be Byzantium Universalis, about PDX fandom's favourite Rome. So much purple. Zero unnecessary playable countries, all Byzantium.
 
Ok, Doomdark is involved in another project, that sort of explains why CK2 didnt get much love recently and looks semi abandoned now.
- lets add societies, the great idea of mine; but lets do it only halfway through and leave the game unpatched for few months
- we are making MnM, adding China and we are done with CK2; but maybe we should actually add China without adding China

but that might mean that at least the second project gets some love
Adding china without actual china isn't such a crime. But this isn't a thread about that
 
Excellent, I love insights like this! :)