Paradox, Never Sell Out

[Admiral Howe]

Don't forget the grand-daddy of game-company murders, Avalon Hill.

So much talent, so many titles, annihilated in a single transaction.

 

[Jarac Rassen]

Don't forget the grand-daddy of game-company murders, Avalon Hill.

So much talent, so many titles, annihilated in a single transaction.

Unfortunately (or fortunately), I'm too young to remember that. Who acquired them?

 

[Admiral Howe]

Hasbro bought them from their parent Monarch Avalon to clear some publishing debts Monarch had (they were primarily a book binder/published). Hasbro said all the right things at the purchase. And once the deal was finalized they fired the whole staff within a week as all Hasbro wanted was a few of the IPs of Avalon. I cried a bit that day, though am fortunate to have bought a lot of their collection in the decade leading up to the slaughter.

 

[Jarac Rassen]

Hasbro bought them from their parent Monarch Avalon to clear some publishing debts Monarch had (they were primarily a book binder/published). Hasbro said all the right things at the purchase. And once the deal was finalized they fired the whole staff within a week as all Hasbro wanted was a few of the IPs of Avalon. I cried a bit that day, though am fortunate to have bought a lot of their collection in the decade leading up to the slaughter.

That's just brutal... not even sure EA is that evil. They at least keep the staff... and force them to quit after a few years.

 

[Greyhound_Gen.]

That's just brutal... not even sure EA is that evil. They at least keep the staff... and force them to quit after a few years.

I'm not sure I'd say that's any better. I hope there's a special place reserved in hell for the EA and Konami execs.

 

[Hertzila]

I'm not sure I'd say that's any better. I hope there's a special place reserved in hell for the EA and Konami execs.

Unless I've missed something, I'd say Konami is the worst of that bunch. EA might treat the IP with wanton disrespect, but at least the devs will be treated with some basic level of human decency and even Hasbro had the courtesy of straight-up firing Avalon's staff.
Konami forced dev team members to become janitors and maintenance staff, randomly disabled their security passes to their actual workplace, basically pushing them until they'd "voluntarily" quit, all the while claiming those who had quit were only taking an extended leave from work pressure. That is straight-up evil. #fuckonami

Though I think Paradox is in no danger of getting gobbled up by any of them. Besides the big companies generally having absolutely no peripheral vision from their market plans, if any of them would spot Paradox, the moment they'd read that Paradox's game portfolio basically consists of Real Time Strategy games, they'd run away screaming in terror about the "resurrected zombie genre".

 

[Turin the Mad]

I think just about everyone here, myself included, agree on that. And that gets into my point...there aren't flavors of bad here, just bad. Even if a white knight company were to pick up a Paradox that left itself vulnerable it would still drastically alter - if not kill - the company culture we all love. Which is why, ultimately, it wouldn't matter to me who would be the buyer here...it'd suck badly and likely be fatal to a company I love dearly.

It appears I failed to convey that concisely or even clearly, and I apologize on that.

A white knight in this scenario would be (depending on # of shares issued for public sale and price-per-share) a wealthier Paradox fan gobbling up as many shares and possible, then sitting on them. The annual stockholder meeting would be a trip to Stockholm to go on a bar crawl with the devs and a few 'cool kids' from the other stockholders. *grin*