"The reason we had the fortitude for was because we had released Magicka," recalls Paradox's Chief Business Development Officer, Shams Jorjani.
While Paradox's in-house dev team, Paradox Development Studio, toiled on, the company's publishing arm found unprecedented success in 2011 with the quirky, sorcerous action game Magicka at a time when the purse strings were tight. That promise may never have been realized without a little help from some wizards. It released three days after Rome: Total War, but it still scored very well considering everything. Then our American distributor went bankrupt, delaying the release for half a year. "We made it in-house in 16 months with about four people. "Crusader Kings 1 was not a big hit for us," he recalls. Wester always hoped it would get a sequel. It was from this era that the original Crusader Kings emerged in 2004, and it was anything but a smooth launch. "I was responsible for the customer support account until mid-2011." When Crusader Kings 2 was made, Paradox was only about 45 people.
"People come in now and they never saw us when our theme song was "Livin' On A Prayer,"" Wester says, referencing the Bon Jovi anthem that is still in heavy rotation when the company gets together for karaoke. He now speaks to me over the phone from his home in sunny Catalonia, far from the chilly streets of Stockholm where it all started. As a Civilization addict from Colorado, I hadn't even heard of Paradox outside a magazine ad here and there before the buzz around Crusader Kings 2 started to rise.įredrik Wester, former CEO and current Chairman of the Board, recalls that in the old days he would personally package game discs for distribution with the rest of the team to save costs. But it wasn't globally renowned, even within strategy game circles.
And the game's legacy is writ large over what the company has become, with an annual fan convention featuring live music and hundreds of players hanging on its every word.īefore Crusader Kings 2, the studio had found modest success in its small niche with its core franchises: the Age of Discovery simulator Europa Universalis, early industrial social engineering game Victoria, and ultra-detailed World War II wargame Hearts of Iron. The success of the medieval grand strategy sandbox, renowned for generating player stories of high drama and intrigue, was a turning point for the team that I originally came to know as scrappy, indie underdogs. Fast forward to 2019, and it has swelled to nearly 500 employees and outgrown two office buildings, like a lowly count from rural Ireland who makes for himself a kingdom. In February of 2012, on the eve of the release of Crusader Kings 2, Paradox Interactive was a company of around 45 people.
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