Responsible, but fair on sales forecasts
It is definitely not time for celebration at Paradox and The Chinese Room, who must now acknowledge the fact that Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 did not achieve its sales targets. We don’t know how many copies the game has sold since its release last month, but obviously not enough to satisfy the publisher.
In a note to investors, Paradox CEO Fredrik Wester wants to send the message that the publisher is responsible for this commercial failureeven if he is careful not to cite a lack of time or budget allocated to the teams, focusing only on the expected forecasts for the game, far from realistic:
“ We had high expectations for a long time, as we saw that it was a good game, leveraging a solid license in a genre with a wide audience. One month after its release, we unfortunately noticed that sales were not up to our expectations, which forced us to carry out an asset depreciation. The responsibility lies entirely with us as the publisher. Gaming is outside of our core business and, looking back, it’s clear that this made it difficult to assess sales. Going forward, we will focus our investments on our key segments and, at the same time, evaluate how best to grow the World of Darkness brand catalog. »
Usually more specialized in strategy and management games, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is indeed a small anomaly within the Paradox catalog. Even before this failure, the publisher had indicated that it would no longer risk such deviations. He nevertheless affirms that the updates and DLC planned for the game are still current and will be released on time.