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I’ll be very interested to see how the realities behind this announcement shape Paradox entries to the BattleTech franchise in the next 3, 6, 12 and 24 months ahead. : )
 
We gave them money to make BATTLETECH, and they did. What they do after that, to insure continued success.. has zero to do with the Kickstarter.
Besides, that Kickstarter money is long gone. I'd be extremely surprised if it wasn't gone a year ago, or even earlier. Running a 40-60-employee company in any business isn't cheap*, and game development doubly so since you have little to no revenue stream while in development.

*quick and dirty estimate of break-even revenue for any company: # of employees x average salary for the industry x 1.25. According to glassdoor, the average game dev salary in Seattle is $87,000, times 40 is $3,480,000, times 1.25 is $4.35 million. Yearly. To break even. The Kickstarter made about 2.8 million, even at an average salary of $40,000, that's only enough for a year and a half.
 
A small independent studio on it's own has a lot on it's plate. It has to be able to fund their projects (in HBS's case, with Kickstarter), it has to be able to get word of it's product out, and with a sea of titles out there it needs to get noticed and sell enough copies to not just break even, but make a profit.

These financial realities often get overlooked by people opposed to major publishers. I know we all love our scrappy independent artists who brazenly refuse to sell out to The Man, but the fact is that one serious blunder on their part means all their success is swept away, and a bunch of people are suddenly looking for new work, with nothing to show for it but updated resumes.

But this partnership could be freaking awesome. Don't know why we have to assume the worst here. Now, if Harebrained were being bought out by Sony or EA....

PLEASE DON'T EVEN JOKE ABOUT THAT. :eek:

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For my part, I'm perfectly okay with the acquisition as long as HBS remains independently run, as promised. After all, HBS did make it this far largely on their own, so they have to be doing something right, and I suspect Paradox is smart enough to realize that.
 
It seems every time Jordan has a golden goose, he sells it. This move betrays the very concept of why HBS was created in the first place. An independent studio that could do whatever it wanted. Not having their ideas shot down by a publisher. I guess we should have all seen it coming when HBS put in the online only DLC. Next will be hundreds of microtransations. I'm so disappointed we are losing such a great company. I hope they dont have the audacity to ever go back to kickstarter moving forward.

The sky isn't falling and the whole point of this merger is so that HBS has financial backing so they don't have to rely on Kickstarter ever again. I suspect that the only change will be greater stability and whose signature is on employees' paychecks.

Paradox needs to expand their horizons and has money. HBS needs financial stability to bring their dreams to reality and exists inside the capital of games development in the US. It's a win-win-win for them and us.
 
I'm cautiously optimistic. I do like Paradox, and I like HBS. I like that HBS now has a strong financial backing and access to a supplier of key services like marketing etc.

I do have an important question I'd very much like an official answer to, mind you: does this mean that for future titles, HBS won't be running Kickstarters?

I'm in two minds on this. On the one hand, it would smack of double-dipping a little. On the other, I appreciated that it enabled the community to get "sweet loot" (I love my jacket by the way) and provided a vehicle for us to get far more deeply involved with the development process than we would be in a more traditional development cycle.
 
And now, as the Argo sails merrily through space, we get to experience a full drop in morale or someone randomly being sent to the medbay after our all too common event -- "Comet Sighted" :)
 
Who knows, maybe the bosses at Paradox will want to discontinue the Battletech franchise [audible gasp from the audience] for something, well, more oriented towards the average playerbase?

I do not see this happening, the biggest success for Paradox have been what many would consider nitch market games. I mean look at their library... Hearts of Iron, City Skylines, Europa Universalis, Stellaris, Surviving Mars. Unlike so many studios they do not try to make games that appeal to EVERYONE. They have a target audience and make their games for that target. They may not get the million plus sales numbers for each title but the fan base is loyal and solid.

As for new titles, I would love to see Paradox pick up a good shooter/sim creator and take the Mechwarrior franchise over, do it right. Just scared they are gonna screw this up like they did MWO.
 
Cautiously optimistic.

I may have missed it, but has anyone clarified the plans for DLC - are they the same as they were previously? i.e. sizeable free DLC, not paradox-style (sorry) drizzles?
 
Cautiously optimistic.

I may have missed it, but has anyone clarified the plans for DLC - are they the same as they were previously? i.e. sizeable free DLC, not paradox-style (sorry) drizzles?
I am sure this will be crystal clear to us all in due time, but no, I have not heard anything to confirm or deny changes to HBS’s original intent with regard to DLC.
 
quick and dirty estimate of break-even revenue for any company: # of employees x average salary for the industry x 1.25
Based on my experience in the software industry, that 1.25 number is rather low. I’d use something more like 1.5 given the costs of payroll taxes, benefits, hardware, and software.
 
As for the merger, I am kinda meh about it. As long as HBS keeps their promises about delayed and cut content for the game and gets it all in. Then DLC for me is a la carte. Meaning I can buy or not buy based on what is there.

Now the real question is how does this play with the HG vs PGI situation and does HBS now have deep legal pockets?

If the deep pockets is the case, does this now mean that Paradox who generally supports the modding community is now gonna hire people (oh wait they are already hiring people) and install a steam workshop for Battletech? Fully supporting the modding community. And now will we finally see the real mechs of battletech.

Because steam workshop for battletech would be worth the merger alone. Anything else we get from this as fans would just be gravy.

Like I have said before. I will gladly pay a DLC fee for a stand alone purchase for all the unseen currently not in the game, and pay extra for a legal defense fund. And if after x amount of time or HG has lost its status. Then that xtra money could be used to purchase more dlc if it has not been used in court. Just saying, prearmed is always better.

Good Luck HBS and Paradox, well done HBS y'all earned it.

Chris
 
The sky isn't falling and the whole point of this merger is so that HBS has financial backing so they don't have to rely on Kickstarter ever again. I suspect that the only change will be greater stability and whose signature is on employees' paychecks.

Paradox needs to expand their horizons and has money. HBS needs financial stability to bring their dreams to reality and exists inside the capital of games development in the US. It's a win-win-win for them and us.

They can do this like most game developers, but just using the developer to help fund new projects. You dont need to sell your company. Mitch complained of all the issues he had working with publishers, and working at MS, and now they've done the same (again). How many times has Jordan sold his properties and companies. How well did those end up?

Watch some old videos on the inception of HBS, and what it stood for. All that is gone, being bought up by a publisher. Also look at all the over devs who's sold their company, and their companies are now garbage.

Now on the flip side, since they got bought out and have all this "money" perhaps they can put in all the features they cut that were promised in the initial kickstarter.
 
You guys are going to develop a new Shadowrun Game?
I mean, Battletech seems fun, but, the major public of HBS has a low end pc like me. I wish to know if you guys are going to relegate the "oldschools" fans of HBS who support them all these years since the Shadowrun Returns.
 
In Success ... Company Store?

I'm sure there's a bunch of other stuff that we won't hear about for years, if ever, that made this deal a requirement. Not going to lie, I'm a little bit worried as while I own a large amount of the games Paradox has published, there's also a fair amount of issues with almost all of them.

I hope Battletech manages to have success under the yoke of House Paradox.
 
Cautiously optimistic.

I may have missed it, but has anyone clarified the plans for DLC - are they the same as they were previously? i.e. sizeable free DLC, not paradox-style (sorry) drizzles?
Considering Paradox was always a part of that decision as the publisher, I suspect that plans haven't changed. More, Mitch and Jordan retain creative control over the studio because the real value of the company is in its talent and the name recognition of its two directors. The philosophies seem to align, and now they'll have more revenue to work with.

I was happy when Paradox came on as the publisher. I'm happy now for Mitch and Jordan getting their big payday. I'm happy for the future of the studio and those who work there. Paradox is a developer themselves and an excellent publisher to boot.