The release of add—ons is the main driver of 120% of Paradox sales growth
The strategy genre is far from stagnating. The Swedish publisher and developer Paradox Interactive, who made a bet on this direction, is thriving today. In the first quarter alone, he earned $30.4 million dollars, which is 120% more than a year earlier.
The company managed to achieve this dynamic without a line of new titles. In three months, Paradox has released only one new game — a simulator of the Martian colony Surviving Mars. And it did not become the main commercial release of the company, although it entered the top five most profitable projects of the quarter.
The main money was brought to the Swedes by the launch of a line of updates and additional content to previously released strategies. The biggest sales were provided by Stellaris, which received the Apocalypse expansion in February, and the Cities: Skylines urban planning strategy developed by the Finnish studio Colossal Order, which released a new DLC on consoles with content made by fans of the game.
Paradox also called the winter sale on Steam, which ended on January 4, an important factor in sales growth.
Stellaris: Apocalypse
In addition to sales, Paradox Interactive’s operating profit also increased significantly during the quarter.
Despite the increase in direct costs, staff by 63 people, as well as such graphs as trading and administrative expenses, the company’s profit increased by 270%, amounting to $ 15.9 million.
The company did not share its expectations for the next quarter in the quarterly report. But we believe that its results will not be significantly worse. Cities: Skylines is scheduled to release a new large-scale update in May. Perhaps an update will appear at Stellaris. The publisher has not yet announced the release date of the DLC for it called Distant Stars.
In addition, in the current quarter, Paradox released Battletech, a tactical strategy from the Harebrained Schemes studio. At the moment, the game already has more owners on Steam than Surviving Mars. Its users have also taken much warmer.
Battletech
The market reacted positively to the report.
The cost of one share of the company after the publication of the results of the third quarter increased by almost 20% to €16.
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