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Rob Zacny

Episode 219: Meeting of the Minds

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Rob talks to the Paradox brain trust of CEO Fred Wester and VP Shams Jorjani to discuss publishing, Paradox's approach to the business, and whether reviewers are the enemy.

 

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Another good podcast.  Oddly, knowing Leviathan Warships was known as "Floaty Boats" internally makes me slightly more tempted to buy it.  Especially after that ad campaign.

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Fascinating interview. Rare blunt talk in public on that high level of publishing & business. Kudos to Rob for not backing from the unpleasent questions and kudos to Fred & Shams for answering and not hiding from them.

 

Releasing buggy games ... and making money off them ... "Paradox", indeed? They have an unique position in this industry? I hope they continue to have success and I hope they continue to release games, nobody would touch or think of. Maybe more polished, in the future? Maybe more accessible outside their core audience, which is their bread and butter?

 

To this day, I don't really know how to play Crusader Kings 2, but bought all the DLC anyway. I appreciate what the game CAN do, even if I cannot. I appreciate them taking the (financial!) "risks", as they say in the interview.

 

And don't ask me how I do in Europa Universalis, Victoria or HoI. Maybe, I am just bad and that's all.

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I thought it was unfortunate how down these guys seemed to be on kickstarter. The accusation that it's just a nostalgia machine comes up a lot, and I think that is true to a degree, especially if you look at the RPG space, where I think there is a serious argument to be made that they don't make 'em like they used to... but I've been impressed with the new games getting funded in the strategy space (Massive Chalice, At the Gates, and Battle Worlds: Kronos come to mind, and that's completely ignoring the tabletop space which has also been very successful). I understand that kickstarter probably isn't the right route for them to follow, but between that and a few other comments it did sound like kind of sour grapes.

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Another good podcast.  Oddly, knowing Leviathan Warships was known as "Floaty Boats" internally makes me slightly more tempted to buy it.  Especially after that ad campaign.

It's kind of fun, but I personally gave up on it pretty quickly because I found the campaign didn't capture my interest and I didn't have the patience to wait for other people to make their moves. Maybe I'll buy some friends copies once a sale hits and try to do some coop.

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I thought it was unfortunate how down these guys seemed to be on kickstarter. The accusation that it's just a nostalgia machine comes up a lot, and I think that is true to a degree, especially if you look at the RPG space, where I think there is a serious argument to be made that they don't make 'em like they used to... but I've been impressed with the new games getting funded in the strategy space (Massive Chalice, At the Gates, and Battle Worlds: Kronos come to mind, and that's completely ignoring the tabletop space which has also been very successful). I understand that kickstarter probably isn't the right route for them to follow, but between that and a few other comments it did sound like kind of sour grapes.

I thought that. Considering the niche Paradox has carved for itself I thought they would have realised kickstarter is as much a response to the major publishers not touching niche games as it is a nostalgia engine. There are lots of people out there who want to play RPGs in the mould of the old Bioware/Black Isle system, or a new Space Combat Sim (how did that genre ever die out?!?)

I've been playing the steam early access build of Xenonauts all week, and it's actually really good. The best implementation of an X-COM clone I've ever come across. Don't get me wrong, I love the Firaxis reboot but there is more than enough room on my hard drive to be playing both.

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  Such a great show Rob.  An amazing interview. 

  Even if you know nothing of what these guys do besides 'make video games', just as an interview in business philosophy, it was so entertaining.  The show gets better and better and that comes from a longtime fan. 

  Thank you, Rob and Co. and Idle Thumbs!

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Fascinating interview. Rare blunt talk in public on that high level of publishing & business. Kudos to Rob for not backing from the unpleasent questions and kudos to Fred & Shams for answering and not hiding from them.

 

Releasing buggy games ... and making money off them ... "Paradox", indeed? They have an unique position in this industry? I hope they continue to have success and I hope they continue to release games, nobody would touch or think of. Maybe more polished, in the future? Maybe more accessible outside their core audience, which is their bread and butter?

 

To this day, I don't really know how to play Crusader Kings 2, but bought all the DLC anyway. I appreciate what the game CAN do, even if I cannot. I appreciate them taking the (financial!) "risks", as they say in the interview.

 

And don't ask me how I do in Europa Universalis, Victoria or HoI. Maybe, I am just bad and that's all.

 

***Releasing buggy games ... and making money off them ... "Paradox", indeed?***  That's what I thought too!

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Hearing Paradox's CEO being like "If my boy wasn't holding me back, I'd make a Cargo MMO!" was really entertaining. Dude sounds hardcore.

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