Paradox CEO Says Staying Close to Gamers is Secret to Success

The Chief Executive Officer of middle level publisher Paradox Interactive has said that the company will see an increase in revenue of 65 to 70 percent over 2010, which had already seen a 50% rise over the previous year.

Speaking to Gamasutra as part of a bigger interview, Fredrik Wester said, “We got a flying start with Magicka this year. That was really great, and kind of elevated us into the next level.”

Magicka was quite the surprise earlier in the year when it managed to top the Steam sales chart for a few weeks, helped by the small price point and by the mechanics which allowed players to combine simple elements in order to create a very big array of powerful spells.

The game had quite a few issues at launch, but the team behind it delivered patches on an almost daily basis and is now ready to launch an expansion which moves the wizards to Vietnam.

The close to the player approach seen with Magicka is not a quirk of that team put a publisher wide policy, which encourages the developers to read the official forums as much as possible in order to see what gamers believe about their product and how it can be improved.

The roots from which Paradox developed are linked to the PC and to the grand strategy genre, with titles like Europa Universals, Hearts of Iron and Crusader Kings.

The audience was very demanding, which encouraged the company to be responsive and to keep contact with the player base.

The CEO also commented on the digital distribution on which Paradox puts a heavy emphasis, saying, “We're not heavy on administration and sales. We're heavier on the product quality. It's a totally different focus.”

This year Paradox Interactive is set to publish Crusader Kings 2, Sengoku and Sword of the Starts II.