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Dnote

Product Manager
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Dec 31, 2005
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Hey everyone,

As we’re gearing for PDXCON, I wanted to share with the community some (cool) changes that have been happening at PDS in the past year. As the studio is now 150+ developers strong, and each game team has its own challenges and plans to work with, we felt like we needed to better adapt to our new reality. We also wanted to find a way to stay focused and close to our games as PDS grows ever larger.

To make a long story short and simple: earlier this year, PDS has split into three distinct studios. Internally, we call them PDS Green, PDS Red, and PDS Gold. Each team is in charge of both maintaining existing game(s), and developing new games (unannounced for now, but at least one of them you’ll discover more about at PDXCON this month!). Each also has its own Studio Manager and will grow its own team, with one common objective in mind: making the best strategy games in the world. We’re one big family, and together we’re still Paradox Development Studio. As of now, Green, Red & Gold are only internal names, but we know how interested you are in knowing what’s going on behind the scenes, and some of us might refer to these names during PDXCON, so we wanted to share this with you before you hear the names and get confused as to what it’s referring to.

PDS Green is in charge of the development of Stellaris. Rikard Åslund (Zoft), a veteran from the Stellaris team, has taken the lead as studio manager. PDS Green also works with the support of Paradox Arctic, our studio in Umeå.

PDS Red is in charge of the development of Crusader Kings III. They are also working closely with Paradox Thalassic in Malmö. The studio is led by Johanna Uddståhl Friberg (JohannaUF), another veteran of Paradox who you might not know, but who has been Studio Manager for Arctic and has worked on the coordination between all Paradox studios previously.

PDS Gold is in charge of Hearts of Iron IV. The lead of this studio is Thomas Johansson (Besuchov), having been a part of the PDS journey from small to not so small studio and more recently working together with Johanna on studio organizational topics, he’s been delighted to be back working closer to the games he loves.

You might have noticed that Imperator: Rome isn’t assigned to any of the studios mentioned above. The reason for this is that on a regular basis we analyze the projects we have in development, where they are at, what they are trying to do and also what people and resources we have working on them. As part of this analysis we realized that there was a need to bring reinforcement for a couple of the projects at PDS, and given where Imperator was at in the run up to 2.0’s launch, we decided that after the launch of the update we would move people from Imperator to these other projects. Right now we’re working on plans to regrow the team for Imperator and continue development, but for the short term we needed to focus our efforts on these other projects.

I wanted to break the news now to manage everyone’s expectations: don’t expect much Imperator news at PDXCON, or any new content coming out in 2021. We’ll of course get back to everyone with news about it as long as we have something to share!

We’ll see you during PDXCON for a first reveal of what we’re working on, and of course, much more to be expected in the future.
 
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:confused:
 
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Disappointing but understandable. Hoping for more I:R content in the future!
 
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I'm confused: how is this different than the existing structure of the dev teams split among the core franchises (CK3, HoI4, Stellaris, EU4, I:R)? It kind of just sounds like the CK3, HoI4 and Stellaris teams now have color-coded names (since EU4's team is now in Barcelona).

For what it's worth, I think being up front that we won't hear much about I:R at virtual PDX Con is a good move in setting clear expectations.
 
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I assume Paradox Tinto is seperate from Paradox Development Studios, since EU4 isn't listed as part of one of the three internal PDS teams here?
 
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Wait is Podcat being replaced as Hoi4’s head? I’m surprised he isn’t in charge of Gold
I think perhaps the post should have explained what a studio head is ;D I am a Game Director which means I work with the game and do the fun stuff. Thomas does the boring personnel, budget and money things for PDS Gold, if I may simplify it a little :D
 
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Mad few days as a paradox fan ngl...
yeah man. I need some beer and chill now :D

I'm confused: how is this different than the existing structure of the dev teams split among the core franchises (CK3, HoI4, Stellaris, EU4, I:R)? It kind of just sounds like the CK3, HoI4 and Stellaris teams now have color-coded names (since EU4's team is now in Barcelona).
I mean kinda. Its not a big deal to you guys but I think they worried there would be some confusion with listing several people as studio managers. And remember that there may or may not be other secret games going on too inside those studios. Basically its a way for us internally to organize better so we can focus on the games and have less overhead and distractions from having grown quite large.
 
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yeah man. I need some beer and chill now :D


I mean kinda. Its not a big deal to you guys but I think they worried there would be some confusion with listing several people as studio managers. And remember that there may or may not be other secret games going on too inside those studios. Basically its a way for us internally to organize better so we can focus on the games and have less overhead and distractions from having grown quite large.

@podcat I just want to take a moment to thank you for generally answering questions on these forums pretty directly, even when they aren't about the games themselves. I've noticed it on the HOI4 forums a lot, even when the comments are flying fast and furious and I for one appreciate it. It sounds like there has been some turmoil at PDS lately and it helps to get fairly straightforward answers when we can. Now what can I do to also get a straightforward answer to whether Victoria 3 will ever get made and whether I need to send my toddler to his grandparents for the weekend when it comes out (unless he is a teenager and old enough to play with me by then)? ;)
 
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Craaaaaaaaawling innnnnnn my skiiiiiiiiiin, these woooounds they will not heaaaaaaaalllllllll

Good night, sweet Imperator, we hardly knew ye
 
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you should really start to look into how you release the past dlc's because that's not ok. I uninstalled after several years playing EU4 and I 3.7k hours currently.
 
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