90% of Paradox Interactive’s Sales are Digital

PC Gamer recently chatted with the CEO of Paradox Interactive Fredrik Wester. The publisher is known for titles like Magicka, Mount and Blade and King Arthur, so mostly operates in niche PC fields and not AAA titles, but it’s interesting to see how important digital sales are for them.

Wester told us that (this year we’re close to ninety percent of our revenue being digital. Retail sales are like a bonus for us now. We don’t really need retailers any more and that is a release because retailers have not been good for the industry. They’ve not been good for the creative part of the industry, for finding new cool games.)

(People complain to publishers that there are only sequels on the market, but that’s because retailers want to see sequels, because they can do their chart diagrams for how things sell and things like that. So one of the things preventing more creative gaming has been the retail challenge.)

(I can only say this now because we’re not depending on them, so it’s really relieving to be able to say that.)