Paradox records $37 million value reduction of Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2

Paradox Interactive has chosen to reduce the value of its new Vampire: The Masquerade game by some $37 million as the project fails to meet expectations.

Paradox records $37 million value reduction of Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2
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Senior Gaming Editor
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TL;DR: Paradox Interactive has taken a $37.4 million write-down on Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 due to poor sales performance, significantly below expectations. The publisher will still release planned expansions but will refocus on core segments and reassess the World of Darkness brand strategy moving forward.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 is selling so poorly that Paradox has been forced to make a write-down and reduce the game's value on its accounts.

Paradox records $37 million value reduction of Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2 2
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The latest game in the Vampire: The Masquerade franchise has significantly failed to meet sales expectations, and has triggered a value adjustment from Paradox. The publisher warned investors that it will take a 355 million SEK write-down on the project's capitalized development costs, which amounts to a roughly $37.4 million decrease in overall sales value.

"We've had high expectations for a long time, since we saw that it was a good game with a strong IP. A month after release, we can sadly see that sales do not match our projections, which necessitates the write-down," CEO of Paradox Interactive Fredrik Wester said.

"The responsibility lies fully with us as the publisher. The game is outside of our core areas, in hindsight it is clear that this has made it difficult for us to gauge sales. Going forward, we focus our capital to our core segments and, at the same time, we'll evaluate how we best develop World of Darkness' strong brand catalogue in the future."

The company says it will still deliver the two planned expansions for Bloodlines 2 as well as the promised updates.

Paradox notes that 40 million SEK, or roughly $4.2 million, of the game's capitalized development costs will stay on the books, which means it will be an asset on the company's balance sheet.

Paradox Interactive has today decided to make a non-cash write-down of MSEK 355 of capitalised development costs for the game Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 in the fourth quarter. The write-down is made in addition to the quarter's scheduled degressive amortisation of MSEK 346. At the end of the year, MSEK 40 of the capitalised development costs will remain on the balance sheet. The write-down is based on an updated sales forecast made 30 days after the game's release.