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Paradox Interactive now owns 100% of developer Harebrained Schemes

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Paradox Interactive are continuing their quest for world domination as they've taken a 100% share of developer Harebrained Schemes.

From the press release:

STOCKHOLM and SEATTLE – June 5, 2018 – Paradox Interactive, a global publisher and developer of interactive entertainment, today announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire 100% of the shares in Harebrained Holdings Inc, sole owner of Harebrained Schemes, LLC, from Harebrained Bag of Holding Inc. Paradox pays a fixed purchase price of US$7,500,000 at the time of acquisition plus an additional purchase price corresponding to 25% of the acquired business’ earnings before publishing costs over the next 5 years to the extent such earnings exceed the fixed purchase price. The deal is expected to close by Thursday, June 7, 2018.

Hopefully this will be good news for us, since typically Harebrained Schemes has supported Linux quite well. While Paradox Interactive seem like a pretty good publisher, not all their published titles are on Linux of course, but it seems like a good match.

Hopefully soon Harebrained Schemes will deliver on the BATTLETECH Linux port, which has been promised as a high priority on their post-launch roadmap.

So now Paradox Interactive own White Wolf Publishing (World of Darkness, Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse), Triumph Studios (Age of Wonders series, Overlord series) and Harebrained Schemes (Shadowrun series, BATTLETECH) while having their own development studio as well for their grand strategy games. Perhaps Haemimont Games will be next, given they're already partnered for Surviving Mars.

It feels like they're building up towards something, given they have their own Paradox Launcher now too which is "Coming soon for Linux" according to the download page.

What are your thoughts?

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Misc
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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18 comments
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Keyrock Jun 6, 2018
Paradox has been relatively Linux friendly, so I don't expect this acquisition to negatively impact our chances of getting future HBS games on The Penguin. Paradox seem like one of the better publishers out there, certainly not nearly as evil as Electronic Arts, Activision, or Warner Bros. Hopefully the'll give HBS a good bit of creative freedom. Of course, Paradox is most well known for their grand strategy games, and while they've broadened their horizons recently, the idea of a grand strategy set in the Battletech universe sounds pretty appealing... ;)
14 Jun 6, 2018
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Sounds good to me. Paradox sells their games on GOG which makes me think they won't pull their games off distribution platforms like Steam and force consumers to buy from their own.
Schattenspiegel Jun 6, 2018
Not a huge fan of this move.
Sure Paradox have some great games in their portfolio and quite a few Linux versions, but they also deeply into this telemetry and required user accounts crap + have a tendency to butcher their games for a lot of dlcs.
In short I always have a sour taste in my mouth when dealing with the publisher side of their games (of which I unfortunately tend to like quite a lot). If they continue further down this road I might need to consider putting them on my blacklist.

On the other hand best wishes to the HBS team! You won me over with the Shadowrun titles and I can not wait to get my hands on Battletech. Hope you guys will continue to make such great games in the future.
Dunc Jun 6, 2018
My thoughts? “Harebrained Bag of Holding Inc.” is the best name for a holding company ever. Paradox must be doing pretty well for themselves, which isn't surprising. And yes, both of them have been pretty Linux-friendly recently, so I don't see much of a downside.
Shmerl Jun 7, 2018
I'm more concerned about Paradox's ambiguous stance on DRM.


Last edited by Shmerl on 7 June 2018 at 2:18 am UTC
Kimyrielle Jun 7, 2018
Next step: Go buy Facebook and Microsoft!
Colombo Jun 7, 2018
not happy
marcus Jun 7, 2018
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Quoting: Schattenspiegelbut they also deeply into this telemetry and required user accounts crap

Can you qualify that? IMHO the "required user accounts crap" is wrong. I own CK2, EU4, Tyranny, PoE and none of these games forces me to have an account. If I have one I can sign in, but I was never forced. IIRC one of the games asked me if I wanted to provide telemetry data, and I assume that when I rejected this rejection was honored. So is this statement of yours based on facts or just hearsay?
razing32 Jun 7, 2018
I'm a bit worried given some noises Paradox made that Linux was not profitable a little while back.
Hope they still offer Linux support and hope they don't affect Hairbrainded's stance on it.
Stupendous Man Jun 7, 2018
Big publishers buying small studios is never a good thing for the customer. Do we really want a few large publishers only and not small independent studios with creative freedom?
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