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https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/319346/Paradox_Interactive_to_acquire_Battletech_dev_Harebrained_Schemes.php


Paradox Interactive has entered into a $7.5 million deal that will ultimately see the company acquire Harebrained Schemes parent company Harebrained Holdings.

The deal is set to close for good on June 7, netting Paradox Interactive 100 percent of the shares in Harebrained Holdings. Following that, the development studio itself is free to continue operating as it has been, but under Paradox's wing.

In a press release, Paradox Interactive notes that it has no plans to take over the studio’s internal management or creative teams. Instead, the larger company will be supporting Harebrained Schemes with business and distribution expertise, financial support, and Paradox’s network of “strategy enthusiasts”. The duo had previously worked together in the past, with Paradox having published Harebrained Schemes' latest game, Battletech.

Though the purchase comes with the day-one price of $7.5 million, Paradox will also pay an additional sum equal to 25 percent of Harebrained Holdings' earnings (before publishing costs) over the next five years.

“Mitch and I started Harebrained to create the kind of story-rich tactical games we loved,” said Harebrained Schemes CEO Jordan Weisman in a statement. “And for the last seven years, our studio has been fueled by our team’s passion and by the generous support of our fans. As the scale of our games has grown and the marketplace has gotten extremely noisy we felt that [Harebrained Schemes] needed to team up with a company that could provide us the financial stability and marketing expertise that would allow us focus on what we love doing – making great games and stories.”
DLCs ?
Good riddance, if they join Paradox then i'm fucking done with their games, Battletech was a big enough mess for me and their DLC policy is not something i'm going to spend hundreds of dollars on because i can find better ways to spend my money than that.

Let's see if all their future releases will be Steam Exclusive now too, i hope not but the chance is there even if they deny it.

I hate Paradox.
Post edited June 06, 2018 by ChrisGamer300
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ChrisGamer300: Good riddance, if they join Paradox then i'm fucking done with their games, Battletech was a big enough mess for me and their DLC policy is not something i'm going to spend hundreds of dollars on because i can find better ways to spend my money than that.

Let's see if all their future releases will be Steam Exclusive now too, i hope not but the chance is there even if they deny it.

I hate Paradox.
Paradox still makes good games though, they're pretty much the only "big" company out there who make complex map-painters. But yes their DLC policy sucks.
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ChrisGamer300: Good riddance, if they join Paradox then i'm fucking done with their games, Battletech was a big enough mess for me and their DLC policy is not something i'm going to spend hundreds of dollars on because i can find better ways to spend my money than that.

Let's see if all their future releases will be Steam Exclusive now too, i hope not but the chance is there even if they deny it.

I hate Paradox.
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Crosmando: Paradox still makes good games though, they're pretty much the only "big" company out there who make complex map-painters. But yes their DLC policy sucks.
I can agree with that and the DLC policy is the reason i haven't bought anything from them after Crusader Kings 2 and Europa Universalis IV which are great games but i don't want to shell out that kind of money per game to feel like it's the "complete edition" it's annoying.
Post edited June 06, 2018 by ChrisGamer300
This probably means dozens of DLCs for the next Shadowrun or Battletech game (if there will be more games of these franchises).

Have to say that I'm a little surprised that the company isn't worth more than $7.5 millions.
inb4 the shadowrun games get a million dlcs
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liquidsnakehpks: inb4 the shadowrun games get a million dlcs
... exclusively on steam.
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PaterAlf: Have to say that I'm a little surprised that the company isn't worth more than $7.5 millions.
They spread the cost. The deal was for 7.5M up front, plus 25% of their sales over the next five years. I don't care enough to go look up their filings but that 7.5M is probably representative of less than half (maybe much less) of the total value of the deal.
I don't know how I fell about this. If Paradox keeps away from Harebrained's development system, then I'm glad they can keep the doors open. However if some major developers start jumping ship, I guess it's just another gaming company getting sent to the graveyard.

Like everybody else who have already expressed their feelings, I hate the DLC torrent Paradox is maintaining.
As far as whether they end up doing a ton of DLCs or not, I really don't care either way. If the DLCs are good and look to be worth their price, then I'll buy it, otherwise I won't. From people I know that have been buying Paradox strategy games that have a ton of DLCs, all of them have said that the base game feels like a complete game and that none of the DLC feel like it was cut content that should have been in the base game. So all that matters to me is whether any future base game feels like a complete game, and apparently that is what Paradox does, release a complete game and then continue supporting it with new content for years to come.
Paradox is dead to me since they opened the DLC floodgates. I still hope someday they'll release their newer games in a complete bundle here, but that hope dwindles each month when they release a new DLC for Crusader Kings 2.
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blotunga: Paradox is dead to me since they opened the DLC floodgates. I still hope someday they'll release their newer games in a complete bundle here, but that hope dwindles each month when they release a new DLC for Crusader Kings 2.
I agree their DLC policy is insane (all Crusader Kings 2 costs around 300 € now, and they're not done yet). But I like to browse developers' forums (and fan sites) from time to time... and I've seen that the community there overwhelmingly supports more and more DLCs. So they do have their audience.
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blotunga: Paradox is dead to me since they opened the DLC floodgates. I still hope someday they'll release their newer games in a complete bundle here, but that hope dwindles each month when they release a new DLC for Crusader Kings 2.
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Caesar.: I agree their DLC policy is insane (all Crusader Kings 2 costs around 300 € now, and they're not done yet). But I like to browse developers' forums (and fan sites) from time to time... and I've seen that the community there overwhelmingly supports more and more DLCs. So they do have their audience.
It sound very strange to me - same thing for the train, truck, sometimes plane sim crowd, but the only way I can explain it is by considering that this public is not 'general gamers' (people who play videogames), but really one game players. Like flight sim fanatics, who spend all their money with new airports or plane DLCs, and thruttl/pedal hardware, they see little interest in RPGs, shooters, adventure games, etc. One computer, one game.

So in that perspective, seeing a new DLC is, to them, what seeing a new videogame is to us. Whereas the flow of DLCs is insane to us who see their game as just one game amongst a million others. And like, on a third side, the flow of videogames (our backlog) is itself insane to those who see computer gaming as just one pastime amongst others ("bought another videogame? i thought you already had a computer game? what about this new bike model and tabletop game and fishing rod and jigsaw puzzle and garden rack and electric drill ?").

Different worlds (with an overlapping continuum between them), but we probably approach the DLC policy from the irrelevant perspective of multiple-games-players.
Great, more games Paradox can pollute with their Paradox account authentication bullshit.
Not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. On one hand, Harebrained never made enough money, outside the KS campaigns, so having a decent budget and the certainty of tomorrow can be a good thing for them. On the other hand, Paradox DLC gallore...

But to be honest, Paradox rarely imposed the DLC policy for the devs that published with them (i think that the exception is Cities Skylines and nothing else). But there is also the pricing. On the other hand, their games don't have a general audience. They are targeted to a specific audience. So the pricing, kind of make sense.