Paradox Interactive - Going Public

Knights of Pen & Paper was an entertaining fun game. Hex games seem to me a natural fit for tablets, like Battle World Kronos.

Originally Posted by Galaad
(admittedly they would need to tweak the interface)

Okay, maybe we are doomed. There is something that Paradox really doesn't have: UI designers.

Oh, and a localization team, of course. What they did to Pillars of Eternity was… it was cruel.

Originally Posted by Avantenor
Why not? Being public doesn't mean everyone wants to compete instantly with ActiBlizz, EA or Ubisoft. It's hard to tell the future, but you simply can't attack the big ones (including Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo) by just going public. You have to grow in a sustainable manner. So why leaving the niche that created your success? There could even be more profit for a shareholder to invest in smaller companies, because the ROI is higher than for big players. These companies make a lot of money, but at the same time they also spent a lot of it and have to make large investments. I don't think investors had a good time with EA during the Riccitiello era. The same for Nintendo or Sony.

If you take a look at different creative branches, you can see public companies still doing smaller and more creative projects, like book and movie companies.

Simple, when you have to respond to a lot of shareholders, they want a reasonably soon ROI. A game like Victoria 2, which even the CEO didn't think would make any money, simply would not be feasible.

Originally Posted by Capt. Huggy Face
Enjoy the corporate world's committees of morons and answering to the avarice of shareholders, Paradox.

R.I.P., Paradox.

That's not any different from private companies, which are also run by boards and also have shareholders. The primary difference is that private companies are less accountable to public standards and regulations.

I'm guessing you're referring to the effect of prioritizing "shareholder value" over company mission, which, sure, is more likely with public companies because the company can't hand-select a mix of investors that aligns with its goals. But there's a ton of latitude for companies like Paradox to pursue long-term strategies that aren't immediately "accretive to shareholder value", especially outside of US markets.

Don't get me wrong, I think there's a lot to criticize re. market operations and typical shareholder expectations of public company behavior. But these issues aren't inevitable - there are multiple ways to mitigate or eliminate them in the US, and some European and Asian markets are even friendlier.

Originally Posted by wolfing
Simple, when you have to respond to a lot of shareholders, they want a reasonably soon ROI. A game like Victoria 2, which even the CEO didn't think would make any money, simply would not be feasible.

As a company, you set policies that drive that kind of shareholders you want. You can choose to do nothing intentional, of course, in which case you deserve what you get. But hey, maybe Paradox will target low-growth, steady-dividend performance, which would attract buy-and-hold investors rather than the speculative investors you fear. There are a lot of levers that the company can pull, in terms of its public communications as well as actual financial policy decisions.