I am Fred Wester; CEO of Paradox Interactive, publisher and developer of games

What's your opinion of Minecraft™, the latest block building funfest from Mojang?

Great in every possible way, first of all it's a good bunch of people and the game really adds something new to the industry. And Markus, is that you trolling me? :)

...

yes.  
 
 
Sorry. I'll buy you a beer!

Any time :)

Oh noes! The Swedes among themselves!

Regarding swedish games, I'm so glad that Mirror's Edge 2 is more than a twinkle in someones eye.

There are rumors about ME2, just saw it in the news the other day. Sounds great!

Any chance of a space-based grand strategy from Paradox? :D

That is actually something I would really like to do. Being 4X space strategy game fan myself it would be a dream come true. We do not have anything planned in this genre yet but I know Johan Andersson (Studio Manager) is also a big 4X fan I hope we can do something in the future.

Splendid! Note to self: bug Johan about this.

Thanks Fred.

I do read this though :)

Hehehehe. Move along, nothing to see here...

Are you a fan of any specific 4X Games? I just picked up Star Ruler for the first time (a few years old) and it seems pretty much the indy equivalent to a 4X orgasm.

I loved MOO, but I'll check out Star Ruler

Sword of the Stars?

No, I want a Paradox studio-developed grand strategy, something along the lines of EU, CK or HOI only set in space!

So do I

Related to Sword of the Stars: What exactly did Paradox reconsider about their relation with external studios, after the SotS2 desaster? Was what happened with Magna Mundi a result of such disappointements?

First of all we are doing more research on the studios we work with and we also follow up more closely in the development. Previously most of our developers worked very independently, now we want to be an integrated part of the game development.

Hello there Fredrick, this is the moderator of /r/paradoxplaza so you know this is an important question.

Favorite Pokemon?

Since my son is a big Pokemon fan and I've spent too much money on that franchise it's hard to pick one, but I'll pick Twurtwig :)

How long until Mount & Blade 2? :p

That's in the hands of developer Taleworlds

Thanks for joining this AMA session, we have to do this again sometime!

Having just started studying biology in the university and also being a big fan of strategy games, I got this idea to make a strategy game based off evolution, where you control a species as opposed to a country and strives to be successful in the competative nature of natural selection rather than dynasties or politics. I think the Paradox-model for strategy games, although tweaked to fit the subject at hand, could work well for such a game (it would be historical after all, just way back). I just wanted to say that.

Sounds really interesting, something like a hardcore version of Spore...

Exactly! Just more accurate to the actual theory of evolution, since the actual process is way cooler than what goes on in Spore and indeed most evolution-based games (I'm kind of a nerd in this subject though...).

Sounds like a great idea!

Just added 30 minutes to this session :)

Consider coming back after another few hours; people typically keep asking questions for quite a few hours.

Thanks for the tip, will do

Great to have you here, Fred! Thanks for doing the AMA!

I've got a question and a suggestion, and since you probably get bombarded with the latter all the time I'm going to voice my question first:

Victoria II, the greatest Paradox title ever. Vicky fans have been waiting months for news, at the least of further updates and hoping against hope for an expansion. I've already heard from somebody over at Paradox that Victoria wasn't considered a "dead game" yet and that there were to be a few more updates at the least after Their Finest Hour was finished, but as far as I know there's not been any word on if we're only going to be seeing those wrap-up updates or if there's a genuine chance for a new expansion. I don't want to be that guy who asks you to tell us about stuff you can't, but there are a lot of Vic2 fans here, and I'm sure we're all dying to know: is there at least a chance for us to see another expansion? I beg of you Fred, nag somebody until it happens!

Now, as for my suggestion, I know that Paradox spends a lot of time and effort to support the modders in the community, even going so far as to include functions to help modders out in updates (you guys are awesome for that, by the way, and speaking just from a business model I know you guys are aware of how many sales that makes you). In terms of CK2 I think there are two big things the community wants aside from your generic "more features": more people to play as and more Game of Thrones mod. I dunno if you guys at Paradox are aware or not, but the Game of Thrones team has stated they're not going to include Essos, a whole continent, until CK2 has a Republic DLC that makes playing Republics "interesting". This means, of course, that if CK2 doesn't get a Republic DLC a lot of things in the Game of Thrones mod can't be properly modeled and things stay boring and confined to Westeros. Just sayin', I think it'd be a win-win if Paradox released a Republic DLC; regular players get to play as Venice and such and the Game of Thrones mod blows up, with you guys raking in money from all directions. Just, y'know, keep it in mind. Please. Poke Johan.

Thanks again! Your company is responsible for a $300 hole in my wallet, but I love you guys anyway!

Answer 1: There is a chance to see more stuff for Victoria 2, not saying anyting more :p Republics for CK2 sounds interesting and I follow the GoT mod closely so I hope we can include it in the future. Still it's not really my thing to decide since the dev team work quite independently from me, which is good since I suck at Game Design.

Wooh, a chance! A chance that sounds decidedly like a probability! A chance is better than nothing!

Good to know the GoT mod is being closely watched; I ask for nothing more, save that you poke Johan. Poke him, prod him, stick pictures of Venice in his office until he's forced to agree. Do it, Fred! We're counting on you!

That's what I do ;)

Will you reconsider the current policy of having the mod forums hidden from public view, and no longer giving out sub-forums to mods (like in the case of Crusader Kings II)? I feel these two policies hurt the modding scene quite a bit. Considering how moddable Paradox games typically are, those two policies seem quite strange.

It's ultimately up to the development team, but we look into our policies quite open so I can't say it's written in stone.

Will we ever get to see a game that takes place from ~476 to 1066?

It's not in the plans, but maybe as an expansion to another game... ;)

Did you always plan for and expect Paradox to grow so much in the last 10 years? I can't believe how popular it has become since hunting for a shop that was actually selling Europa Universalis 1! Also what would it take to bring back Falalalan for EU4?

Falalan has a place in the heart of every serious strategy gamer ;) We have had wild plans for some time, but most of the time you don't even believe them yourself. This has been a great ride for sure.

What is the game that you dream to make ?

I really really want to make more with War of the Roses, but also an epic multiplayer heavy 4X space strategy game.

I can promise you at least one pre-order if you make that.

Maybe time for a Kickstarter ;)

For the 4X, is this more at the level of pipe dream, or more like something the company might actually develop in between Clausewitz games and being a publisher :p

It's a dream at the moment, but sometimes dreams come true :)

What is/was the relationship between Paradox and GamersGate?.

I started GamersGate in 2006, but today we are not related at all apart from some people owning small parts in both business. But we have no official ties.

Are you a vampire?

At first I thought I was a vampire, but then I told myself I'm not. God am I relieved.

Paradox publishes more games than they make develop. How's the transition from creator to publisher affected your role, is this something you had as a goal from the outset?

I come from a business background which is different from most people who build gaming companies, therefore publishing and financing external teams was natural since I was a part of taking over the company in 2004. The transition has been great most of the time and it's also nice to be able to release many different types of games.

What came before, the business guy or the gamer? Did you like/played games before entering the industry? Which?

I was a pen & paper role-player, an Atari, Spectrum, C64 and Amiga player long before I started business school... :) I had an addiction for Football Manager for many years, but have been clean since 2008. That's the only game that started to seriously affect my social and family life.

Which would you rather read: a very positive review of one of your games, or an epic and brilliantly-written AAR from one of your games?

AAR, any day. I read AARs on our forums, previously almost every day, now not as often but we have some really skilled writers. Our best AAR writers outshines any game reviewer 32 days a month

Ooh, have you got any faves that you'd care to share AAR wise? I love the Carnage series with HOI3, and the subcontinental subtleties V2 comic AAR is amazing.

Many of the CK2 AARs are fantastic, the game just has such a rich background for great stories

As a fellow who loved the Penumbra trilogy and has been addicted to Magicka's multiplayer and Crusader Kings II: well done on maintaining a great quality of games over the past few years.

In terms of grand strategy - and chance we'll see Victoria revisited in the future? Europa Universalis IV looks great and I'd love to see a Victoria III in the same sort of vein; updating the game to take advantage of the well-polished CKII engine, and making it a little friendlier to newcomers. I really want to get into Victoria II, but it's difficult to go from CKII to it, especially when you can't do the middle click and drag to scroll :(

We'll see if Victoria is re-visited, there are so many great games we want to make at Paradox Dev Studio and they are only 23 employees...

I'd like to volunteer as an employee. Granted I'm still in school, across the world and know absolutely nothing about making Grand strategy games. CAN I?? CAN I?? CAN I??

Start making mods on the forums, and get our attention that way. It's a great way to start.

Do you have to speak Swedish to work for the Paradox Development Studio ?

No, but you have to speak English

Are there any plans for another Victoria 2 expansion, and if so what would it be? I'd like to see a bit more depth on the German and Italian Unifications, leading up to a WWI situation, but I'd be happy with most anything :)

I've heard rumors of a Vic2 expansions but can neither confirm nor deny it at this point. ;)

What's the least fun part of your job?

All the legal stuff, like lawsuits and copyright infringement claims. Most people would be shocked at what happens behind the scenes with people try to sue you for nothing on patents that doesn't make sense.

Just be happy you're not in the smart phone business. Otherwise, watch out for those 90 degree curves.

Hehehe, yes. That's exactly the stuff I'm talking about

Judging by your Twitter feed, you don't seem especially fond of meetings either. :)

Meetings is not my thing; I've also been banned from Marketing Meetings due to the fact that I always start talking about "the good old days"

Is the current long term plan to issue new installments of series in chronological order (I.E. CKII->EUIV->Vicky3->HOI4)? Or is this just a quirk of release plans?

It's coincidence I think, I guess Johan is the man to ask.

Hello Mr. Wester, you asked for this question, so you get it.

I would so love to see a real city builder from you guys like Sim City series since the genre is really dead atm. There are many fans of those games out there and since you do in fact make a lot of niche games I want to know if you ever gonna do one :).

With the new Sim City planned for Q1 2013 I think the competition will be fierce, but our Cities in Motion series is the first steps in that direction.

Was the London 2012 scenario in Cities in Motion: London officially sanctioned by the body that was doing all the London 2012 licensing rubbish earlier this year? I remember there being trouble with third parties not allowed to tie their products in with the Olympics without paying a fee.

It was not in this time, maybe for the future :)

1. You guys seem pretty content with doing sequels right now (not that there's anything wrong with that- I'm super excited for EUIV). But if you were going to make a new series of grand strats, when (and possibly where) would they be set?

2. Paradox games are famous for their ridiculous levels of historical detail. How do you go about researching it all?

3. How did you guys come up with the idea for Sunset Invasion?

Thanks so much for doing what you do. It's really refreshing to see a games company who know who they are and what they're good at and constantly try to refine that, instead of chasing the latest trends.

1. In Space I hope
2. A lot of help from the forum + lots of dedication from the team
3. I wasn't involved, but maybe beer was ;)

Thanks!

1 How involved are you in the game developing process? Are you ordering games (I.E. I want game X and i want it in 12 months) or are you strolling around the development office, tasting all the goods like a kid in a candy store, with no say about the end product? :p

2 Have you ever been disappointed at, or felt that a released game did not live up to your (or the consumers) expectations?

In the event of a zombie apocalypse, what measures have you taken to secure the PI studio from being overrun?

P.S. EU: Rome 2?

1. I am involved at a conceptual level, like with War of the Roses
2. Oh yes

I don't want zombies to read this and come prepared, but our office is on the 23rd floor so there are a lot of defense options.

[deleted]

We have a lot of funny people and I every now and then hear jokes that are borderline offensive, however we try to keep a civil tone :) The best jokes are the nerd jokes that fly around all the time.

Will we ever see a sequel to EU: Rome?

It's not in the plans, but you never know...

What did you do before getting into the games industry & how did you start out to get there?

I used to be a management consultant and joined since the games division needed help to become profitable, it was purely by chance. But I've been a gamer since I was 6 years old.

1. Is there any possibility that Paradox might make another game in the CK/EU/Vicky/HoI series that covers an earlier period?
2. Are there plans for a Pagan expansion for CK2?
3. What is the funniest thing that happened at work in the last week (that you can tell us about)?

1. There is always a possibility ;)
2. If there is one, I want it to be named "Wrath of Odin"
3. Funny things happen all the time, but I guess I laughed out loud when I heard that a journalist got killed in-game during the Salem live stream. Salem is a source of crazy stories.

Any chance of additional content for Victoria II?

There is always a chance ;)

The mobile market is expanding and keeps evolving, be it smartphones or tablets. So far I believe Paradox has released one game for such platform.

Does Paradox plan to expand further in that direction?

Yes, a lot of our games work well for tablets and you will see more of our titles releasing on tablets in the future.

In an aftersight, do you think that buying the rights for "Majesty" was a good investment? Would you consider purchasing another IP?

I think it was the right decision, we did not really achieve what we hoped with Majesty 2, but I hope if we do a sequel we'll make a kick-ass game. We would consider buying any good IP.

Hmm. Buying IP has been mentioned. Space strategy has been mentioned.

When are you going to buy the rights to Joss Whedon's Firefly?

Not a bad idea...

As someone new to Paradox games, I'm extremely excited for the East vs. West game as I love the Cold War. The only other game I thought captured the Cold War on a global scale well was Rise of Nations.

I hope you'll like it, it is detailed enough for sure

Does Paradox have plans to expand into the console market? Do you see it as something that is viable, considering that you have upcoming games that look like they would fit on something like the Wii U, like Dungeonland?

I hope the upcoming generation of consoles is easier to develop for. At the moment you can wait for a greenlight for months and sitting with a finished game for several platforms is costly. But I surely hope we can deliver games for more platforms going forward. We have continous talks with the big console makers.

Thank you for being a fantastic company!

Thanks, much appreciated!

What is your favorite paradox made/published game?

Hearts of Iron 2 has consumed most time, but I think Crusader Kings 2 is my favorite.

How many games do you have in the works, even if just on the drawing board, that we don't know about yet?

Including all studios I think we have 15 games planned over the coming 2 years, so it's looking busy...

How exactly did Paradox arise? How do you go about creating a gaming company and getting into the market?

Hard work, keep the money tight and have great people who develop games. And always think long-term, it's not a 100 meter race, it's a Marathon.

Just wanted to say I'm a huge fan. I've always been a major History geek, and your games really bring it to life without oversimplifying. I remember being really impressed that the gameplay in Victoria II was able to accurately recreate the era. I love seeing games use mechanics to create a world.

If you were to expand outside of your current game types, would you move away from the Strategy elements first, or away from the emphasis on History? For example, would you rather make a game like Assassin's Creed or keep the Strategic aspects but use a different setting?

Second question, if you don't mind me asking, is: are you guys working on making releases a little more solid? A lot of your stuff ends up fairly buggy on launch. Are you going to beef up QA at all?

We have beefed up QA in the past year, and it always takes time before everything is set up properly. Without saying too much you should be able to demand better quality in our upcoming releases. I would like to make a Space Game to be begin with, heavy on Mulitplayer (if the studio should go outside history games)

Hello, I have a question about the game creators, what kind of education do they have, and what kind of education is the norm in the video game business?

Some people have engineering background, others learn to program by themselves. If you're a graphic artist there are lots of great schools.

I keep thinking of more questions, my apologies! Have you ever considered implementing a custom-country system into a game? As in, the ability in-game to form a country, set its flag, its cores would be whatever you had when you formed it, ETC?

It could be done, but need very specific and well planned mechanics. I like the idea of forming countries like Scotland from the UK, historical potential countries from larger entities.

Role Playing Games.

Role Playing Games will not come from the internal studio, but we just might have something cooking with external studios... just saying.

Did you get to play Sengoku much? I gather it was more or less a tech demo for CK2, but I thought it was a fun little game in its own right.

Even though I have lived for a year in Japan, Sengoku passed without me playing it more than a few hours. I'll have to get back to it because I actually liked it.

With regard to EUIV, you guys have mentioned CK2 having a bit of impact with how the game handles rulers and such.

I was wondering if you could expand on that? How much "character" stuff will we get to do in EUIV? Is it just the ruler, their family, a council...?

CK2 may well be my favourite Paradox game, though EUIII is a very close second!

My advice is to keep a close eye on the Paradox forum, we will reveal more info the closer we get to release of EU4

Mr. Wester. I've been a huge fan of the Supreme Ruler series since SR2010 up to Cold War. It was not only a very fun political simulation but also a very educational device that not only taught me about geography but a nations economy and historic political relations - so I thank you for not just a great game but an informational experiance. So my question is: Does Paradox or Battle Goat have any plans for a new game in the series?

We have not yet agreed anything with Battlegoat on a future cooperation, but I'm sure they have a lot of great plans for the series even if Paradox wasn't involved.

What's an idea for a game that you've always wanted to do, but never got around to? Also, were you surprised by how fast people picked up the modding scene in CKII?

I was surprised that so many people got into CK2 so fast, the quality is there for sure but it's also a bit hardcore. I have always wanted to do a massive MP 4X space game, and a spiritual sequel to Capitalism.

Ah, I've always had the idea to create a mod myself, but I'm still trying to learn the basics. Till then, I'll have to make do with othes' work. I gotta say though, I love the idea of a space grand-strat. :) You guys are great, and keep making great games! :D

Thanks, much appreciated!

Are there any games from other publishers that you are excited about?

(also I suddenly have the urge to add some background music to this IAmA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPJplgvv5DA )

I am still excited for the new XCom (haven't played it yet) and for upcoming Sim City. But to be honest I mostly play Paradox games nowadays.

What kind of game are you really, really afraid to make?

Any game that get a bad Metacritic score. It hurts for weeks afterwards. But I think graphic adventure games are scary, mostly because I don't enjoy them that much myself so I can't judge if they are good or not.

Where did you think you would be 10 years ago?

I thought I would sell my consulting company to an American Giant Corporation and live on boat drinks in the Carribean. This life wasn't too bad either... :)

Follow up question. Where do you think you'll be in 10 years?

I think I'll be running one of the greatest gaming companies known to man (and aliens, if we discovered any by then)

I'm sure they'll use CK2/EU3/Vicky2 as a model for their invasions.

It will be called the Sunset Invasion! And the whole world will rise up in protest!

There will be griefing among man

Any more HoI DLC in the works?

I hope so ;)

What's your favourite non-paradox game?

Football Manager