Despite being bought by Paradox
People got cautiously excited when Paradox bought the popular tabletop World of Darkness IP and its creator White Wolf last month. The publisher is known mainly for grand strategy games (developed in-house) as well as their smaller titles by external developers like The Showdown Effect or Magicka.
World of Darkness hasn’t really had much of a presence in videogames bar the late Troika’s fantastic Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines and CCP’s cancelled MMO, so trying to figure out what Paradox have planned for White Wolf has been tricky.
Thanks to an interview for Rock, Paper, Shotgun with White Wolf CEO Tobias Sjögren, we now know that maybe White Wolf and Paradox’s relationship is a bit more fluid that we may have expected it to have been. When asked about whether White Wolf could license their IP to other developers and publishers, he said:
Like most publishers out there Paradox is specialised and does certain types of games better than anyone else.
But if there is a publisher that is a better fit than Paradox for a product that White Wolf would like to license, we are definitely set to do the deal with that publisher. White Wolf is here to do what is best for Exalted and World of Darkness and the fans who love these properties.
It’s interesting that Paradox would buy an already established studio and their popular IPs, and then allow them to license the games on to third parties instead of go through their now established channels.
However, it’s also a good, low-risk move: Paradox might not want to take the risk on more ambitious titles like Bloodlines was when it came out, and so they can still make a tidy sum just by licensing the IP out to others. Plus it allows them to build up some more awareness for the IP in a way that doesn’t require the company to throw their own development studio at it all the time.
This statement doesn’t necessarily mean anything is currently ready to be announced though, so don’t go getting your hopes up. When asked about whether anything like CCP’s canned MMO would happen again, Sjögren said:
It is too early in the process and we currently don’t comment on any product strategies.
Bummer.
Still, it’s nice to know that White Wolf have relative autonomy following the acquisition. As awesome as a Paradox developed Crusader Kings-style Vampire: The Masquerade would be, there are still lots of people eager for some sort of a continuation to Bloodlines.
White Wolf Interview: “There Have Not Been Enough Video Games Set In The World Of Darkness” [Rock, Paper, Shotgun]
