New episode! This week Jordan Weissman and Mitch Gitelman tell the tale of how they came to start Harebrained Schemes
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We got Rod Humble on the podcast to talk about his vast experience in the games industry!
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Here's the link to the feed with downloadable episodes, for the ones like me who like their computer handle the menial tasks for them:
https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/164561.rss
https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/164561.rss
This was a fantastic episode. Probably more surprising and interesting than any of us could have hoped for. I think I definitely share Rod's optimism about the future of Paradox. Since I think you guys did not do a top 5 this time, I am curious what you would say are the top 5 parts of the world where you would like to expand Paradox-owned studios in the future? It looks like you already have parts of Europe and the U.S. covered!
The youtube description also has links to various podcast providers such as Spotify, iTunes, and more.
One idea for a podcast episode that I have would be to hear more of your thoughts on licensing vs developing your own IP, with some examples. I recently read some articles about the history of Blizzard and it really surprised me to find out that they originally wanted to license the Warhammer IP from Games Workshop, but ended up developing their own IPs of Warcraft and Starcraft instead, which obviously became wildly successful. It was a little crazy to think that two of my favorite franchises would not have existed if Blizzard had licensed the Warhammer IP like they wanted originally.
I would love to hear you interview someone about this type of process in general or specifically, whether focusing on your own games or the experiences of other companies.
I would love to hear you interview someone about this type of process in general or specifically, whether focusing on your own games or the experiences of other companies.
So given the latest exciting news, are you guys planning to do a podcast with someone from Hardsuit Labs about Bloodlines 2 as well as what looks to be Paradox's first venture into AAA games?
Given we had Rod Humble on with the announcement of the Paradox Tectonic, I certainly hope so.
The next podcast is coming very shortly, although it's on a very different topic which was recorded before the Bloodlines 2 announcement while @danielg0ldberg was on vacation.
Spotify: https://pdxint.at/2HFshtu
Soundcloud: http://pdxint.at/2EYDl15
iTunes: http://pdxint.at/2BnBWBo
Player.fm: http://pdxint.at/2EWTCnl
Poddtoppen: http://pdxint.at/2CiqXGw
Acast: http://pdxint.at/2ExBD9l
Well that is quite a career.
Very interesting to listen to though, with all the ups and downs and more ups along the way
Very interesting to listen to though, with all the ups and downs and more ups along the way
I'm actually very curious about how the Vampire numbers compare to classic PDS titles, luckily there's one in pre-release right now; not sure how many of these you can answer:
- how would you compare preorder dynamics between Imperator and Vampire?
- how does Owned and Earned traffic compare between the two, one being a classic IP, the other being a new one?
- how "hardcore" pdx fans are those that convert for Vampire? is it an entirely new audience or are the people that own 5+ pdx products a majority in that group (are those products newer, more accessible titles like Cities, SM and Stellaris or are there the Vic2, Eu2 and HOI3 players as well)?
Not sure if this'll be seen here but I wanted to say thanks for doing this podcast. I've been listening regularly for over and year and I really enjoy it. I only wish you could do it more frequently.
I think we've had a potentially really interesting topic come up recently: the poor release of Imperator. It's pretty clear from public data (generally negative steam reviews, low player numbers, etc) that Imperator has had one of the worst received launches of a major PDX title in years. Paradox's business model has shown it's very capable of building on top of an already successful foundation with continued development but how does Paradox approach a situation like Imperator's launch? How does Paradox reevaluate, take stock of the situation, and build a plan to move forward? How does Paradox go about convincing fans who bought, played, and abandoned the game (and maybe even feel burned by a pre-order) to give it another try over the coming months and years?
While Paradox can clearly make successful games even more successful, it's unclear if Paradox understands how to turn around and build up a middling or poor game. Surviving Mars, for example, released to a pretty mediocre reception and despite the last year of continued development and expansions, recent reviews haven't really improved.
After all, it's easy to talk about how great our successes are and Paradox has definitely had quite the impressive winning streak of successful games in recent years. Examining our failures, however, can be far more enlightening. I understand if Imperator is maybe a touchy subject right now, but I think ignoring it would be a disservice to the stated intent of this podcast and I hope you think that too.
I think we've had a potentially really interesting topic come up recently: the poor release of Imperator. It's pretty clear from public data (generally negative steam reviews, low player numbers, etc) that Imperator has had one of the worst received launches of a major PDX title in years. Paradox's business model has shown it's very capable of building on top of an already successful foundation with continued development but how does Paradox approach a situation like Imperator's launch? How does Paradox reevaluate, take stock of the situation, and build a plan to move forward? How does Paradox go about convincing fans who bought, played, and abandoned the game (and maybe even feel burned by a pre-order) to give it another try over the coming months and years?
While Paradox can clearly make successful games even more successful, it's unclear if Paradox understands how to turn around and build up a middling or poor game. Surviving Mars, for example, released to a pretty mediocre reception and despite the last year of continued development and expansions, recent reviews haven't really improved.
After all, it's easy to talk about how great our successes are and Paradox has definitely had quite the impressive winning streak of successful games in recent years. Examining our failures, however, can be far more enlightening. I understand if Imperator is maybe a touchy subject right now, but I think ignoring it would be a disservice to the stated intent of this podcast and I hope you think that too.
Great questions. Pre-order dynamics - there is a lot of interesting stuff to talk about there. On Bloodlines 2, we decided to put pre-orders live directly at announcement, which is a bit of a rare move for us as well as for the industry at large. A couple of months down the line, or when the game is actually out, we could perhaps dig into learnings and results from that.
As for earned/owned traffic and conversion of core PDX fans, it is a bit early as the game isn't out until next year, but our approach to this is that we will have to invest quite a bit more money into getting the word out about Bloodlines 2 than we typically do for one of our strategy games. Simply because - as you point out - we do not have direct access to the Bloodlines/action-RPG audience in the same sense as we do with (grand) strategy players. That said, Bloodlines is far from a new IP and there is very much an existing audience out there for us to tap into.
Would love to revisit these topics in an upcoming episode.