Paradox Interactive, the studio behind Crusader Kings II and Stellaris, has announced that they will be buying Seattle-based Harebrained Schemes, the studio behind the Shadowrun and the recently released BATTLETECH, which was a collaboration effort with Paradox Interactive. This purchase will help Harebrained Schemes find stronger financial stability while still maintaining some creative freedom.
In an official statement released by Paradox Interactive, they announced that they entered into an agreement to acquire Harebrained Schemes that will close by tomorrow. Part of the statement talks about the history of Harebrained Schemes, including information on the founders Mitch Gitelman and Jordan Weisman, who helped create the original tabletop versions of games such as Shadowrun, Crimson Skies, and BattleTech/MechWarrior.
Both studios appear to see this acquisition as a highly positive event. Fredrik Wester, CEO of Paradox Interactive, spoke about Harebrained Schemes:
Harebrained Schemes have proven themselves as a world-class studio with a very talented team within a genre where Paradox wants to be present. In addition, we really like the studio, the people who run it, and their games; these are all absolute hard criteria for us in any acquisition. Our recent successful launch of BATTLETECH, our first project together, has been a fantastic collaboration, but the possibilities of what we can do together in the long term now that we’ve joined forces — that’s what has us truly excited.
Jordan Weisman commented on one of the reasons they joined up with Paradox Interactive:
Mitch and I started Harebrained to create the kind of story-rich tactical games we loved, and for the last seven years, our studio has been fueled by our team’s passion and by the generous support of our fans. As the scale of our games has grown and the marketplace has gotten extremely noisy we felt that HBS needed to team up with a company that could provide us the financial stability and marketing expertise that would allow us focus on what we love doing – making great games and stories.
As part of the acquisition, Harebrained Schemes will maintain its internal management and creative teams, and “…will gain access to business and distribution expertise, financial support, and an extended colleague network of strategy enthusiasts.” A live-streamed Q&A session with both Wester and Weisman is planned for the near future on Paradox Interactive’s official Twitch channel.