Paradox Interactive revealed why it passed on publishing a number of high profile games in recent years, including World of Tanks and The Banner Saga.

Speaking at its annual Paradox Convention, vice president of acquisition Shams Jorjani revealed the core principles that "define the soul or character of a Paradox game", which include replayability, deep and demanding gameplay, allowing players to tell their own stories through their actions and offering modularity so the base game can be updated in future.

Stoic



Jorjani pointed to its line of grand strategy games such as Crusader Kings 2 as examples that "perfectly embody" these elements, and said why games such as The Banner Saga, Xenonauts and Pid didn't make the cut.

"These games were essentially filtered out, in part, due to them not matching our pillars," he told attendees including Digital Spy.

"The Banner Saga is a wonderful game, I love it, it's one of the most gorgeous games I've ever seen, but it's not a Paradox game.

"It doesn't have the depth that we were looking for at the time. There's a lot of money to be made in a lot of games, but it's not always our money to make."

Might and Delight



Pid was also described as a "great game" but "not something we could make [work]" with its short length and little replay value.

In a follow-up roundtable interview with CEO Fredrick Wester, it was revealed the decision to pass on World of Tanks at an early stage was "mostly a budget issue".

"I didn't have the money to pay up," he explained. "I was really thrilled by the idea, but we weren't sure about the business model, either, because we haven't tried that before."

Jorjani also discussed games it funded and published that didn't perform so well critically or commercially, but were "good ideas" often ahead of their time.



Examples mentioned include open-world sandbox survival game Salam - "I think if Salam was released today it would have been hugely different traction... You don't need to explain the concept," Jorjani said - and Dungeonland, a four-versus-one multiplayer game released in early 2013 that is similar in concept to Evolve and Fable Legends.

There was also Gettysburg: Armored Warfare, a real-time strategy, third-person shooter hybrid created by a single developer in 2012, and was critically panned on release with a Metacritic average of 22.

"We [gave it a chance] and it doesn't always work out. But there are other examples of one-man armies making games with weird ideas that actually pan out and end up costing Microsoft a lot of money!" Jorjani said.

"But I'm glad we made that chance. I'm not saying that it had the potential to become a Minecraft; perhaps if we had done it quite differently and started smaller and not with multiplayer, it would have been a good idea."

Paradox Interactive



Despite this, Jorjani said that the publisher would be happy signing such games in future, but would approach them in a "smarter way".

"These are all games that I'd say haven't done tremendously well for us, but I'm really proud that we signed them, and I would sign them again," he explained.

"The problem is not that we signed these games, it was we did a lot of things at the same time.

"Doing a new genre, with a new team, with a new technology, on a new platform, on a new IP at the same time as a growing organisation - probably not the best thing. Maybe just do two of these. A lot of these ideas inherently were sound at the time."

For the first time, Paradox Interactive didn't announce any new games at its conference, instead focusing on showcasing its line-up of games releasing in 2015, including Cities: Skylines and Pillars of Eternity, both out in March.

It will also release its first PS4 games, Magicka 2 and Hollowpoint, by the end of the year.

Update (February 19): After posting this story, this exchange occurred between Paradox and The Banner Saga developer Stoic Games on Twitter:

@digitalspygames We're certainly happy how things turned out :) Wishing @PdxInteractive the best! #BannerSaga — The Banner Saga (@StoicStudio) February 18, 2015