Paradox profits fell in 2023 despite record revenue

Cities: Skylines 2 sold over a million copies

Paradox Interactive, the Swedish game developer and publisher primarily known for its hardcore strategy games, has released its financial report for 2023. Though the company posted a record revenue of around $252 million USD over the year, an increase of 34% compared to the previous year, its operating profit fell by 26% to about $67.7 million USD.

Cities: Skylines 2 was a big item in the fourth quarter of 2023, selling over a million copies by the end of the time period. However, Paradox CEO Fredrik Wester acknowledged that the launch of the game was flawed and the company’s output quality in general needed to be improved.

Cities: Skylines 2 launched with large issues, but is performing well commercially :: Colossal Order / Paradox Interactive

“2023 has been a year during which we’ve reached many milestones. We set a new revenue record, in the full year and in the quarter, we have stably more than six million players and we end the year with a very strong financial position. At the same time, we’re unable to relax, he wrote. “EBIT is at a level we are not happy with after a large write-down, and the quarter's game releases have not held the quality we want. There is certainly potential to reach even higher.”

Paradox was quite happy with the DLC it put out for its various running titles, emphasizing that its core games and their updates continued to resonate with players.

“As for the release of new games, feelings are mixed,” the CEO admitted. He stated that the company was “upset that we didn't live up to players' performance expectations and couldn't release on all platforms at the same time.” Paradox still appeared to be happy with the sales numbers the city-builder brought in so far and vowed to work hard on further improvements.

The turn-based tactics game The Lamplighters League “missed the mark commercially and during the quarter we have, as previously known, written down the entire value of the game.”

Overall, Wester was optimistic about the position Paradox found itself in at the start of 2024 and pointed at the well-filled pipeline of upcoming projects the company had in store. Among these are Prison Architect 2, the sequel to the popular prison management sim, and Chapter 3 of the medieval politics sim Crusader Kings 3.

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