Paradox: PC still strong, hardcore market not dying

The PC market is hale, hearty and healthy according to Paradox Interactive's CEO, Fredrik Wester, who rubbished some of the claims made by the media and analysts against the PC platform today.

'In 2001 everyone said that the hardcore games market was dying,' Wester said at the Paradox Interactive Convention in New York. 'That same year though, we launched Europa Universalis - a hardcore grand strategy game and new franchise - and sold 250k.'

Wester said that he'd seen many such ideas spread across the industry in the last decade and that few had turned out to be true.

'In 2003 the rumour was that the PC games market was dying and that retailers didn't have any shelf space for us anymore. Our revenue has gone up more than 1000 per cent since then, however.'

'More recently, in 2006, the industry thought that there were too many publishers and that things were too crowded. That was the year we expanded to five new countries!'

Wester said that Paradox had learned not to pay much attention to such ideas and that the Swedish publisher was now expanding into MMOs and free to play games - despite the fact that many said that genre too was overcrowded.

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