Maybe not then, I haven't done my homework on this subject to be honest.
I mostly said that because of a gut feeling that CS is their main cash cow, while their others series are solid but with a more niche player base.
I mostly said that because of a gut feeling that CS is their main cash cow, while their others series are solid but with a more niche player base.
Might have been so in the past, but Paradox games are relatively mainstream, although they seem a bit niche.
Hearts of Iron IV is the 32th most played game at Steam right now (https://steamdb.info/charts/), while Cities: Skylines is on spot 56. Might have something to do with recent news or released addons, but still, other Paradox games are wildly popular and Paradox would surely do just fine even without Cities: Skylines.
More interesting stats comparing Hearts of Iron with Cities: Skylines
> Cities: Skylines - 18,280 players right now | 24,541 24-hour peak | 60,386 all-time peak 8 years ago
> Hearts of Iron IV - 32,652 players right now | 44,193 24-hour peak | 70,997 all-time peak 5 months ago
The games Paradox itself develops are the grand strategy games in the Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron, Stellaris, Victoria, and Imperator: Rome lines. The flagship games here are the strongest games in the genre, and even among the broader category of strategy games, they're definitely in the most-played games, with the main competitors being the Civilization, Age of Empires, Total War, and Mount & Blade series.
Really night and day in term of bugs. Idk what they did, better hire, better process or more people on it (or all 3), but it made multi-player bearable on EU4, and great on Hoi4/stellaris (I do not like the game that much, but it's a better MP game than EU4, let's be honest.)
Anyway, Hoi4 isn't niche anymore. It's like top5 MP strategy game.