For this week's "Game On," The Fly spoke with Shams Jorjani, chief business development officer at Swedish video game publisher Paradox Interactive (PRXXF), about some of his company's recent games, the publisher's relationship with Nintendo (NTDOY) and Microsoft (MSFT), and his thoughts on the future of video game streaming.
2019 RELEASES: Paradox has released two main games this year: grand strategy PC title "Imperator: Rome," a PC exclusive, and Triumph Studios-developed 4X turn-based strategy game "Age of Wonders: Planetfall," which rolled out for PC, PlayStation 4 (SNE), and Xbox One last month. When asked about how both games have been received, Shams Jorjani that both games "have performed well," particularly within the company's expectations. The executive noted, however, that while "Imperator" received positive reviews, it was "not as well received as we hoped" with fans.
When it comes to "Planetfall," Jorjani said that everything surrounding that game and its release has been a "joy from start to finish." "We acquired Triumph when they’d started up the game, so we didn’t have a massive amount of influence on the direction of it," he said. "But we’re very happy that it’s landed well. It’s been received well, and it’s sold well within normal parameters.”
Jorjani went on to discuss the importance of games that have long-term impacts, and how Paradox as a company prefers to release products that can hold an active audience for a long time. "We are absolutely not generally interested in games that are just ‘fire and forget,’" Jorjani said. "It’s great if a game sells 2M copies, but it’s terrible if it sells 2M copies and nobody’s playing after a month. We’d rather then just sell half a million copies and have half of those stick around five years later. So we definitely want to get away from the ‘fire and forget,’ hit-driven kind of thing. And that’s been the basis for the company’s strategy and growth for the past ten years."
2020 RELEASES: Two of Paradox's biggest upcoming titles for 2020 include "Vampire: The Masquerade -- Bloodlines 2," a role-playing game set in the "World of Darkness" fictional universe, and "Empire of Sin," a real-time simulation game developed by Romero Games. When asked why Paradox chose to work with these properties and companies, Shams Jorjani said that it was important for the publisher to build and acquire intellectual properties and brands in order to create a successful long-term strategy. "Building IPs and maintaining properties had not been one of our strengths," he said. "So we bought the World of Darkness IP catalog because it came with a rich set of IPs and worlds for the player to explore. So having acquiring World of Darkness at the end of 2015, the natural first step was to make one of the most anticipated sequels that people wanted from that universe, which was a Bloodlines sequel.”
With respect to "Empire of Sin," Shams said that what Brenda and John Romero had created had all the "secret ingredients" found in Paradox game, saying that the title "aligns quite well" with what the publisher was seeking for years. "It was kind of a match between our long-term strategies and criteria, plus it was a passion project for the Romeros," Jorjani said, noting that both Romeros have "a tremendous amount of experience" buidling IPs, including "Doom," "Wolfenstein 3D," and "Wizardry." “We’re not terribly good at building IPs ourselves, and we know Brenda and John have a tremendous amount of experience with that," the executive added. "So we felt like we could kill two birds with one stone in the sense that we’re working with a great team who knew how to make complex games but also had a good hand in creating IPs.”
E3: "Empire of Sin" was officially announced during Nintendo's presentation at E3 this past June. Jorjani said that it was Paradox's decision to unveil the game at Nintendo's presentation, even though the game will also release on PC, Xbox One, and PS4, saying that Nintendo was "particularly" interested in the game. "We had many different options for how we could potentially announce 'Empire of Sin' but that felt like it was a good way of doing it," he said. "But it was definitely a first for us. I think it took a lot of people by surprise, even internally.”
On the topic of Paradox's relationship with Nintendo, the business development chief said that the rapport is "good" overall. "We have had limited interaction with Nintendo over the years until the Switch took off, [and since then] we have had a very healthy and good relationship with them," he said. "They’ve been very active and clear and easy to communicate with, very clear on what their priorities have been and very simple to work with."
STREAMING: On the subject of video game streaming and Google (GOOGL) Stadia, Jorjani said he thinks streaming is "really interesting" on a broad level, noting that there are certain parallels you can draw to a few years ago when many game makers were leaning heavily into virtual reality. "VR didn’t end up being vaporware, but... I think a healthy dose of skepticism is warranted." Jorjani added, however, that while VR was a solution to a problem that nobody had, streaming could solve a lot of issues that do actually exist in video gaming, including reducing the cost to entry, reducing the "pain of ever-increasing hardware," and eliminating the pain of loading times. "It definitely eliminates a lot of problems that exist," Jorjani said. "So in that case it has a strong value proposition in and of itself. It actually serves a purpose. That’s one of the first things one should ask whenever a new piece of technology or trend comes along.”
When it comes to how Paradox as a company views streaming, the executive told The Fly that it is of "two minds" on the topic. Jorjani, who said he is in charge of streaming initiatives at the company, said that his company's games are "very suitable" for streaming, since they are slow-paced and don't require perfect latency to run effectively. He also said that Paradox is using streaming as a "test bed" for innovation and improvement at the company, since, for example, they would have to make their games more mobile-friendly if their games were to be streamed onto mobile devices.
"To summarize, we have a very positive outlook when it comes to streaming," Jorjani said. "It doesn’t mean we are going to bet the entire farm on streaming. We’ll continue to do what we’ve been very good at, but we’re also going to put serious effort into exploring and testing out streaming, if not because of streaming but because it’s going to solve a bunch of other challenges that Paradox has regardless.”
GAME PASS: Paradox's "Imperator: Rome" and "Tyranny" are currently available on subscription service Xbox Game Pass PC. When asked what drew the company to the service and whether it will put more titles on Game Pass, Jorjani said that Paradox has a "very good" working relationship with Microsoft and that the company has had "positive experiences so far" with Game Pass. "Whenever somebody is building those kinds of services, they’re always looking to check a number of check boxes," he said. "They want sports games, they want action games, and they also want, naturally, the type of gameplay experiences that Paradox provides. Generally speaking, there are not a ton of other publishers or developers in our place in the market. So we fill a very specific niche."
"We're never going to be the 'Call of Duty' (ATVI) of games, and we’re quite happy with that, but we serve a very important and sizable and dedicated fan base," he continued. "That’s a natural part of [Microsoft’s] strategy as they build their portfolios, and we’re very happy to be a part of it. It allows us to reach one of our long-term strategic goals, which is that we want to get our games to where the gamers are."
EPIC GAMES STORE: When asked about the company's opinion on the Epic Games Store, which has recently landed several PC exclusives due to more favorable agreements with developers, Shams said that the new store is near the point of being a "top five thing" that has happened to PC gaming since they have introduced "a bunch of disruption" by offering an alternative to Valve's Steam when it comes to PC gaming. "They are rewriting some of the rules and conceptions about how this industry should work and will work, and they are challenging the status quo," he said, adding that the Epic store won't have any impact on Paradox's relationship with Valve, which he said is "one of our most important partners."
When asked whether Paradox will put any of their games on the Epic store, PR Manager Jesse Henning said that "Bloodlines 2" is available for pre-order on Epic, so it will be there at launch. Investors in Epic include Tencent (TCEHY), KKR (KKR), and Disney (DIS).
"Game On" is The Fly's weekly recap of the stories powering up or beating down video game stocks.
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