Paradox CEO Talks Innovation in Industry, “More Goat Simulator and Less Call of Duty”

Paradox Interactive may not be the first name to come to your mind when considering AAA studios but it’s built a reputation for publishing strong strategy tiles and RPGs (such as Obsidian Entertainment’s upcoming Pillars of Eternity). CEO Fredrik Wester and COO Susana Meza Graham talked about the state of the industry during a media round table last week and as noted by PC Gamer, fresh ideas are the name of the game.

“Competition is really fierce. You have to have an edge in there, and that’s why I say ‘more Goat Simulator and less Call of Duty’ for Paradox, because we need the edge. It’s easier to get out and market, it’s easier to show what you’re doing. People are tired of explosions and dubstep music. We’ve seen it a million times now, like, stop doing it. No more.”

COO Susana Meza Graham also talked about scaling back on one’s budget in development. “I think we’re going to see a little bit of a scaling back as well.

“As an industry we’ve just tried to top each other every single time we release something, it’s going to be bigger, better, bigger productions, bigger marketing budgets, whatever, whatever. Then all of a sudden it’s released and we still can’t meet consumers’ expectations because some things don’t work maybe as planned, the plans were too ambitious.”

Do you agree? Let us know in the comments.