Paradox Interactive & Paradox France

[Susana]

Hi all,

After almost 3 years of working together, Paradox France (formerly AGEOD) and Paradox Interactive have reached a mutual conclusion that the interest of both companies would be better served by separating and allowing each entity to focus more on their goals, “core competencies” and skills. It has been a really exciting journey and we have all learnt a lot and been able to utilize each other’s diverse and strong competencies. Perhaps the most important thing to take away from this is that there is a lot of admiration and respect on both sides and that we will all continue working together moving forward, both with already released Paradox France games as well as actively seek opportunities to work together in other areas. We will be taking our time with this so it’s not something that will be rushed but we wanted to let you know what is in the works. All details will work themselves out over the course of the coming months.

So what does this mean practically?


• Paradox Development Studio will run and work more heavily with the Clausewitz developed games from Stockholm where the core team PDS is based
• Paradox France will regain autonomy to develop and design games on the AGE engine, and will keep both commercial and cooperation ties with Paradox Interactive. We already have several plans for the existing Paradox France titles in terms of support and content.
• AGE engine games will be handled solely by Paradox France/Ageod
• Napoleons campaigns II, being developed on the Clausewitz engine will move from being partly developed by PDS to being fully developed by PDS. As such it become a stronger “Europa Universalis” product than previously planned.

Again, the main goal for this shift is to ensure both team can focus on what they do best for the good of gaming and their communities. As soon as we have more to announce in terms of what you can expect to see on the Paradox France games, you’ll find us right here.

Best Regards
Paradox Interactive & Paradox France

 

[Johan]

My concerns with moving to Clausewitz were
It would change from PBEM to simultaneous online for multiplayer which has a massive difference on how player diplomacy works and makes organising large games a challenge - I am currently playing PoN with 24 nations being played by players, with time zones ranging from +8 to -8.
That is would loose the detail and complexity of the units and combat. I have always found the combat side of things on Clausewitz games to be a weakness - Rome was so bad that I simply can't face playing it, HoI 3 was OK apart from the leaders.

Without PF I fear it will end up as a war and diplomacy game with very little interest in the war and diplomacy side of things.

PBEM and turnbased games are simply not something we'll ever invest money in. It is too niche and unprofitable to justify professional development.

 

[Johan]

... like the Civilization series?

I meant as an aspect of MP.

Civ doesn't really use PBEM.

 

[Johan]

Ah, ok. I thought that you were referring to turn-based games in general, too.

They usually sell less than real-time counter-parts.

 

[Johan]

Creative Assembly would disagree.

Total war is basically a real-time battle game.

 

[Johan]

I think that PI France / Two Phils simply didn't see their ideas and ideals well implemented under PI - to create a RTS Napoleon II in the first place was indeed far away from their original settings, and I could never understand the merging except from an economic (and a somewhat branch specific aspect.

Actually, to make it realtime was the idea of theirs.

 

[Johan]

The irony is... we had to simplify the Eu3 combat algoritm quite alot to make it work for the ncp system.