Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 Publisher Paradox Interactive wrote down 355 million Swedish kronor ($37.4 million) in capitalized development costs after its long-awaited sequel underperformed.
The Swedish publisher said the write-down was based on an updated sales forecast made 30 days after the game's launch.
Paradox said they were satisfied with the work Pedigrees 2 developer Sumo Digital—which took over the project in 2023 after several studios were relieved of development duties.– but confirmed that the title did not live up to expectations.
“We had high expectations for a long time as we saw that this was a good game with a strong IP in a genre that had wide popularity. A month after the release, we are sad to see that sales do not meet our forecasts, which requires a write-off.” said Paradox CEO Fredrik Wester in a note to investors.
“The responsibility lies entirely with us as the publisher. The game is outside of our core business. In retrospect, it is clear that this made it difficult for us to estimate sales. Going forward, we will focus our capital on our core segments and, at the same time, we will evaluate how we can best develop the strong catalog of World of Darkness brands going forward.”
Paradox still intends to release two expansion packs for Pedigrees 2 in the coming year. “Our post-launch plan remains solid,” Wester added.
The past few years have been chastening for Paradox, which said last year: 'overconfidence' led to 'undisciplined' decision making which ultimately led to costly cancellation Life is you And restless start City Skylines II– the last of which was recently transferred to a new developer after Longtime custodian Colossal Order has abandoned the franchise.
