Paradox Interactive AB

Paradox Interactive AB

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Oct 29Next Earn

Q4 FY2025 · Earnings Call TranscriptJanuary 29, 2026

Fred Wester

Hello, and welcome to the year-end report and quarter four report for Paradox Interactive. My name is Fred.

Alex Bricca

I'm Alex Bricca, I'm the CFO. Welcome, everyone.

Fred Wester

Welcome. We'll take you through the releases and the numbers for the quarter.

Alex Bricca

Yes. Let's.

Fred Wester

That's my name. As we had a very eventful last quarter.

It was intense for many reasons. We had a lot of releases, first and foremost, we released DLCs for all our major franchises.

We created a good cash flow and a strong top line, where the results were hampered by a big write-off in the quarter. We had a great release of Europa Universalis V, which took this franchise to the next level.

It also celebrates 25 years. It celebrated 25 years last year, it was a good time to release it as well.

We had some good results for a wide range of DLCs as well. Worth mentioning is the All Under Heaven DLC for Crusader Kings III that expanded the map all the way to Japan.

As I said, the profit line, or EBIT, is affected by a big write-down of the game Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2. We were also facing some foreign exchange headwinds with a stronger krona and a weaker dollar, among other things.

We'll move on. If you look at the year as a whole, We had a year-on-year improvement of cash flow, which is always a great sign.

We strengthened the balance sheet as well during the year and got a new balance on the balance sheet. We released, like I said, a new base game in Europa Universalis V and strengthened all the core of our IPs by having a constant flow of releases.

We established two new franchises as well, Victoria 3 and Age of Wonders 4 are now both part of our catalog with growing player numbers, and We hope to continue these games for a long time, typically 10 or more years. We also strengthened our foundation for building up the management games capabilities.

We acquired Haemimont Games in February, creators of, among other games, Surviving Mars and Tropico 3 and Tropico 4. We took the Cities: Skylines franchise in-house, and we can already see the positive effects in the community of Cities: Skylines II.

Those are all great news. If we want to look specifically at the releases this quarter, I mentioned Europa Universalis V, I mentioned All Under Heaven, we released Stellaris: Infernos, we released Age of Wonders: Thrones of Blood, Hearts of Iron IV: No Compromise, No Surrender, Victoria 3: Iberian—

Alex Bricca

Twilight.

Fred Wester

Twilight. Thank you very much.

A smaller DLC for Victoria 3 during the same chapter of the game. On the management segment, we did a relaunch of the game Surviving Mars.

It's been very popular in the community. We see great retentions.

We hope to keep developing this game for a long time as well. We released finally the first big DLC for Cities: Skylines II, Bridges & Ports, which had great results, great reviews, and also good sales.

At the same time, we released for Cities: Skylines II two Creator Packs and two audio packs, talk about a very busy quarter. Other releases, I touched briefly upon Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2, and we also for our deck builder, Across the Obelisk, we released Necropolis of the Damned, which has been quite well-received and also good sales for the franchise.

We'll see what happens if we can build that franchise over time together with Surviving Mars. They're a bit smaller at the moment.

Alex Bricca

All right.

Fred Wester

I'll leave to Alex for the numbers, a walk-through.

Alex Bricca

Let's do it. Revenues for the quarter came in at 1 875 million SEK.

Quite impressive. It can be compared to the 709 million SEK of Q4 2024, so that's an increase of 23%.

Let's look at the drivers of that difference. Mainly three things that make up the difference.

Foreign currencies: so dollar was down, I think, 12% if we look at quarter average; euro down, what was it, 5%, 6%. All in all, it impacts our top line quite significantly in the wrong direction.

Then the other two positives is the releases of Europa Universalis V and Bloodlines 2.

Fred Wester

It's also, on revenue, it's our second-best quarter ever. The record is still the quarter we released Cities: Skylines II.

Alex Bricca

Correct, 2 years ago.

Fred Wester

2 years ago.

Alex Bricca

These three explains the difference, I would say, between 709 and 875 million. Then we have released content on pretty much all our major franchises during Q4 '25.

That helped the revenue significantly. Q4 2024 was also a very huge release quarter in terms of live game.

All in all, the live games have performed similar over those two quarters if you remove FX impact. Some better in '25, and some better in '24.

You mentioned Crusader Kings III, they did a fantastic Q4 in 2025 and increased revenues. Hearts of Iron, on the other hand, they did a fantastic Q4 in 2024 when we released Götterdämmerung expansion, which was very, very popular, we couldn't really match that in Q4 of 2025.

Fred Wester

Right.

Alex Bricca

Victoria 3 did a little bit better '25, Stellaris a little bit better in '24. It varies with each expansion.

Is it a popular expansion? Do we get it right or less so?

That differs. All in all, live games performed very similar on the revenue level if you remove FX.

A

Fred Wester

solid performance from the core portfolio, you could say.

Alex Bricca

Correct. Top revenue contributors, we normally call them the usual five suspects: Cities, EU, Crusader Kings, Hearts of Iron, Stellaris.

Now we've added two to that list: Victoria and Age of Wonders.

Fred Wester

The usual seven. Then

Alex Bricca

it will be the usual seven. Good to see both Cities 1 and Cities 2 are on this list if you break out the franchises and separate them.

In Q4 '25, we also had an eighth, and that is Bloodlines. Even though it had a negative impact on profit, it had significant revenues.

Right. Let's move on.

Operating profit, -245 million compared to 395 million in the previous year's quarter. 395 million was a record profit.

It's a difference of 640 million. The ones of you that followed our press releases in November when we took the write-down of Bloodlines, you know that we had 701 million SEK in amortizations and write-downs of Bloodlines 2 in Q4 '25, which we had zero of, of course, in '24.

Those 701 explains more than the difference of the 640, you could say, if you want to do it super high-level.

Fred Wester

We chose to clean out the balance sheet, it looks completely different today starting in '26,

Alex Bricca

so. Correct.

If you would disregard Bloodlines 2, we would be at these record-breaking levels of EBIT despite the FX headwinds.

Fred Wester

That's great news, because the dollar is down significantly.

Alex Bricca

It is. Profit after financial items, 242 million compared to 404.

Profit after tax, 201 million compared to 311. Of course, profit margin is -28% and compared to 57%, which was record high Q4 of 2024.

Asset or equity-to-asset ratio, very solid, 79%. It has gone down a little bit from 82%.

It's mainly driven by we prolonged the lease contract for the office here in Stockholm, and then with the accounting rules, you put the whole contractual agreement, the value of it, on the balance sheet as a debt and as an asset.

Fred Wester

All the years into the future.

Alex Bricca

All the years, exactly. Employees: average number in Q4 of '25 was 663, so that's up almost 90, 89, from 574 year before.

Mhm. The main driver is, of course, adding Haemimont to the team.

Fred Wester

Yeah, 55 people there.

Alex Bricca

55 people at acquisition. Then we have increased a little bit in Haemimont.

Iceflake, we have increased in order to be ready to support Cities: Skylines. We have increased here in Stockholm studio as well.

Triumph has increased a bit as well. A solid number.

Let's move on. Right, this is a breakdown: revenue green and the three cost items in yellow, blue, and red.

Let's go through them and break them out a bit so we can all understand what has happened. Cost of goods sold, biggest item, 1 billion pretty much exactly in Q4 2025, up from 263 million the previous quarter.

A super quick explanation would be to say it's the 701 million SEK in amortization and write-down of Bloodlines that makes up the difference. Then there is something left, and that's of course amortizations on EU V.

That is very high level. Let's go down the differences.

Fred Wester

You see selling expenses in blue, right?

Alex Bricca

Selling expenses in blue, the same drivers.

Fred Wester

It goes up when we release a lot of content, as you can see on the line there as well.

Alex Bricca

Yeah. It was 59 million in Q4 of '24, and it goes up to 85, 84 million in Q4 of 2025.

The big explanation is releasing EU V and Bloodlines that drove more marketing cost. The rest was very stable.

But 59 million SEK is a decent number, and that's because we have had a lot of releases on the live games both in '24 and '25 years Q 4. Let's go back a little bit to COGS and break it down for you who are interested in that.

Amortizations is the biggest item, 510 million in Q4. Last year's or the previous year's Q4 was 91 million SEK, it's up 419 million.

Mhm. We have written in the report Bloodlines 346 million of that increase.

Mhm. The rest pretty much EU V.

Then we have movements up and down on all the other titles. Mainly, it's the releases of Bloodlines and EU V that has made up the difference.

Write-downs is another item in the 1 billion COGS. Write-downs was 355 million, 100% regards Bloodlines.

The previous year's Q4, zero write-down.

Fred Wester

Yeah.

Alex Bricca

Then we take in COGS 8 million SEK as cost for amortizations of the acquired businesses and assets. This is down from 14 million in the previous year's Q4.

The reason it's down is because in 2020, we acquired Playrion, and that was last summer, that was fully amortized from the books. Yeah.

We acquired Haemimont in the beginning of the year, and in Q2, we acquired Stranded. What we have done with the purchase price for those two assets is that we have fully allocated that to assets that we amortize.

Fred Wester

Stranded: Alien Dawn, the game, just to clarify for everyone.

Alex Bricca

Yes. That is being amortized I think over 5 years.

Haemimont, there we amortize it quicker. The fixed purchase price, it's amortized according to plan.

Then we have an earn-out for Haemimont as well that goes I think over 3 years roughly. That is being driven by certain milestones being achieved.

In 2025, we have taken 32 million SEK as earn-out. That is all included in the COGS.

Of course, we believe that the value of this studio is going to increase when we work together. In our books, we're taking this as a cost.

It's a kind of an aggressive way to do it. It pushes down our profits, but it's a very prudent way to handle it.

Perhaps overly cautious, but this is how we've always done things in Paradox, and we like to do it that way.

Fred Wester

We have, I think, around 20 million in goodwill.

Alex Bricca

Yes, SEK.

Fred Wester

Something like that, SEK. SEK,

Alex Bricca

yeah. Very little.

All right, what's else in COGS? Other depreciation, 7 million, that's pretty much how the rent is being accounted for.

We have royalties, that's mainly regarding Age of Wonders and Cities: Skylines. That has gone down from 45 million SEK in Q4 of 2024 to 35 million SEK, Q4 of 2025.

Then the remaining item, if you have memorized the numbers, then you will find out that we have 85 million left in Q4, which is for non-capitalized development— Mhm. —and tech cost in the publishing, kind of support functions for the game development.

So 85 million in Q4 compared to 105 million in Q4 the previous year. Here we have items that moves both ways.

The main reason why this is lower is that when we have a negative profit like we had in Q4, which is very rare, that has an opposite impact on the personnel cost because we share all the profits with the personnel. A quarter when it's negative, we release previous balance sheet items.

Right. That it works like a bit of a hedge.

Fred Wester

As a small positive.

Alex Bricca

Yes, as a small positive, correct. Selling expenses, we have already gone through.

Fred Wester

Mhm.

Alex Bricca

Admin is everything else. That tends to be quite fixed, it was 29 million SEK in Q4 of 2025 compared to 25 million the previous quarter.

It might vary from time to time. Here we have the reason why it's 4 million higher this period is one-off things.

We had a massive, popular staff conference in September.

Fred Wester

Right.

Alex Bricca

Part of those cost

Fred Wester

going into Q4

Alex Bricca

went into Q4. Then there were some other one-off items that made up 1 or 2 million SEK, it differs from quarter to quarter.

Fred Wester

Other income, I guess, is interest rate on money in the bank.

Alex Bricca

Other income is mostly currency movements on the working capital, it's the movements on the foreign currencies during the quarter.

Fred Wester

Last year we also sold back the game Mechabellum to the developer,

Alex Bricca

and

Fred Wester

that was 13 million, I think, something in there. That's one of the points of comparison to Q4 last year, or Q4 '24.

Yes, that's right.

Alex Bricca

Exactly. So 13 million or something, 12, 13 million Mechabellum.

Then we had some 20 million positive effect last year's Q4, or '24's year's Q4. We had a very strong dollar increase during that quarter.

The Q4 in 2025, we have seen the opposite, especially in December, I think the dollar has come down. There the net, if you add income and expenses together, you have -6 million, so that's the difference.

Interest, that's financial items.

Fred Wester

Oh, yeah. There it is.

Alex Bricca

The reason why it goes down from 9 to 3, 3.7, is lower interest rates. Good if you have financed the company with debt, less good if you have cash positions.

Fred Wester

If you have a house with a big mortgage, that's perfect.

Alex Bricca

Yes, but I rather take a company with a lot of cash than debt, even though.

Fred Wester

I agree.

Alex Bricca

What else? Yes.

Fred Wester

That's good.

Alex Bricca

Let's move on then, I think.

Fred Wester

No, I say it's good, it's not very good. The result is not very good, but it's good to clean out the balance sheet, as we will see in the next slide here.

Alex Bricca

Here we have rolling 12 months of revenue and profit. It shows how volatile it is, but it also shows, especially if you look at the revenue line, there is a steady up-growing trend, some accelerations and some falling downs, but over time, it's a very strong growth.

Profit-wise, it's more difficult to see it because when you have such a massive write-down and amortization like we had in Q4, it distorts the picture a bit.

Fred Wester

It impacts a lot. As you can see in Q4 '23 there, where we released Cities: Skylines II, we had a peak on revenue on rolling 12.

It's sliding down a bit, and now we're turning back up.

Alex Bricca

Yeah. Let's see.

Now cash flow.

Fred Wester

This is it, yeah.

Alex Bricca

The result EBIT was -245 million, but the cash flow is super strong in Q4. Cash flow from operating activities, 513 million SEK.

It's not quite a record, but very close to the record we had 2 years ago when we released Cities 2. So 513 million SEK, very strong.

Cash flow from investing activities, that was -145 million SEK. That is what we have invested in game development.

It's down from -159 million SEK Q4 of the previous year. If you look a bit further or if you remember our reports from 2, 3 years ago when we had Lamplighters League in production, Bloodlines in production, Life by You in production, then we have come down significantly in cost for development.

Now we are at -145 million SEK. I think that's a good representation of the new level that we are with.

It fluctuates a bit between the quarter, but I would say 145 million is a good representation of the new normal.

Fred Wester

Unless something extraordinary happens, a big investment or acquisition.

Alex Bricca

Sure. Sure, like you see it in Q1, the yellow bar is a bit bigger, and that's when we acquired Haemimont.

The upfront acquisition price went in there as an investment.

Fred Wester

Did we have any more?

Alex Bricca

No, I think that is it. No, that's it.

Fred Wester

We open up for questions. We've got a lot of questions, I hope you have time to listen to our answers.

Alex Bricca

The first one is for you, Fred.

Fred Wester

Let's do it.

Alex Bricca

Could you share how Paradox is thinking about growth opportunities in Asia, and whether there is a clear marketing or market entry strategy for that region?

Fred Wester

Yeah. We've seen a very good growth in, especially in China, but all over East Asia, actually.

That's also one of the reasons we expanded the map in Crusader Kings III to actually get more of the Asian users as well, not only make the gameplay more interesting. We do have specific strategies to get into the Chinese market and the Asian market in general.

We have all localized content, for example. We work with specialized PR agencies locally.

We work with the influencer networks locally. We're really putting an effort into growing in these markets, and it has paid off for the past 7, 8 years.

We continue to see strong growth. I think China is our second-biggest market when it comes to number of gamers.

I don't know on revenue, but it's up there as well, at least top five. We're seeing a lot of positive movements on the Asian market.

Alex, how does Paradox view currency fluctuations, such as recent dollar depreciation, and what's your general approach to managing currency risk?

Alex Bricca

Yes, it's a big impact for us, as we could see this quarter. It's a big part of our business and kind of a risk factor for us.

We have roughly 97%, 98% of the revenues in foreign currencies. There, it's a little more than 1/3 that is in US dollars.

Roughly 1/3, a little bit more, is in euros. The rest is in Chinese yuan, British pounds, Canadian dollar, Aussie dollar, SEK, and everything else.

That's the revenue split. Cost-wise, it's a bit different.

There we have roughly 50% in Swedish krona. We have maybe 1/4, maybe 25% in euros.

That's mainly our foreign studios in Finland, Netherlands, Bulgaria, Spain, France. Roughly 25% of the costs in euros.

Roughly 20% has been in dollars over last years. That is

Fred Wester

marketing, partnerships,

Alex Bricca

all the tech tools we buy is in dollars, a lot of external costs are in dollars. Then it's a mix, but the pound has been a big cost the last years because mainly The Chinese Room that has been developed Bloodlines.

If you add that all together, we depend on the dollar's movements has the biggest impact on us. We have decided to not hedge this.

We have a strong cash flow, strong profit margins, we have taken the decision that we rather live with the direct impact of the

Fred Wester

We've been doing this for the past 15 years.

Alex Bricca

Yes, and if you look at over a 10-year period, this has gone in our favor.

Fred Wester

Yeah.

Alex Bricca

One more for you, Fred. How is Paradox currently thinking about reinvesting its revenues into existing games and future projects?

Fred Wester

Obviously, there is a mix in between these things. We've cut down a bit on third-party investments, for example, focusing more on the internal studios.

We have more internal studios now, we have more games that we want to make. Obviously, we reinvest in four different areas.

One is more content for the current games, the live games that we have. One is new titles and sequels within the core segments of grand strategy games and management games.

The lion's share there goes, as I said, to internally developed projects. A minor part is allocated to experimental projects and smaller projects in adjacent sectors, games that could be similar to Paradox games, but not necessarily GSGs or management games.

Last, and less frequently occurring, are that we buy things, IP or studios, like Haemimont last year. However, the core should come from the investments that we make and not from the acquisitions that we do, is probably generally the ground rule.

Alex, are share buybacks something Paradox considers as part of its capital allocation strategy?

Alex Bricca

No, it's not now because our shares are listed on Nasdaq First North, and there you can't do buybacks, at least not in a good way. As long as we are on that list, we can't do buybacks.

Fred Wester

No, it's limited to

Alex Bricca

We are using dividends instead. In a situation where we would change list, then, of course, that is a tool that would open up.

Fred Wester

Theoretically, in the future.

Alex Bricca

Yeah. More questions for you.

Fred Wester

All right.

Alex Bricca

The size of your catalogs can create a high entry barrier for new players. Are you exploring alternative long-term approaches to improve accessibility to legacy content, such as price restructuring or bundling strategies?

Fred Wester

Yeah. We're well aware that if you go in and see a barrage of DLCs, it might be a bit off-putting to buy the game directly if you're a new gamer.

Like mentioned, we do bundlings to get different types of starter packs to make it easier to get on board. We also work with pricing in different territories, but also deep discounting and publisher weekends and whatnot.

We also have DLC subscriptions. Is it a majority of our games, or at least maybe half of our games?

That's an option as well. You pay a smaller sum to try everything out, and you can do it on a monthly basis.

Those are the strategies we've tried so far, and they're working really well. We continue to try to make our offerings more appealing to more gamers.

That's for sure. Right.

Alex, do you see a capital markets day as something that could be relevant for Paradox in the future?

Alex Bricca

I think so. I think it's about time that we do one.

You see, 3 years ago,

Fred Wester

I think it was in

Alex Bricca

May '23, we had one. I think now makes good sense.

We have cleaned up the balance sheet. We're finally at the position strategically that we have been talking about for a few years, where we want to take the company to, where we have a solid balance sheet and

Fred Wester

Strong cash flow.

Alex Bricca

Strong cash flow and razor focus on what we're doing. It's a good idea.

I think we should plan for one, yeah.

Fred Wester

I agree. Let's do it.

Alex Bricca

Let's do it. Fred, I feel like I've heard this sentence from Paradox before.

There's a quote, "strengthening our strategic focus," I think it's from the CEO word. What's different this time?

Fred Wester

It is not different this time. That's the thing.

This is what we've been working for the past 3, 4 years, at least, focus on what we do best, continue to do that, and also release the projects that we still had in pipeline. Then we have sort of a new slate to start with.

We start with almost not a blank paper today because we have a great pipeline of games coming out, but it's a different balance sheet, and it's a different new year. Still, proof is in the pudding.

We have to continue to deliver great stuff, both for our live games and for the games coming out. I think we have Prison Architect 2 is the one that we announced, and we're going to be happy to show more of, hopefully, this spring, but we'll see exactly the timeline for that.

Nothing changes, everything is new, is that how they say? I think that summarizes it.

Alex, with a more focused release pipeline compared to previous years, how is Paradox thinking about capital expenditure and the use of increased free cash flow going forward?

Alex Bricca

I think you touched a bit upon it already, Fred. What we spend most our cash to is development of new games and new content for the live games.

That's how we have been doing it last years, and that's how we're going to continue to do it. The second-best part we can do, I think, is if we find attractive assets that we can acquire, studios or IPs.

We have high requirements on both. If we're going to acquire something, we have high requirements on the risk-reward offering.

When we invest in new projects, we have now very strict requirements on the risk-reward offering as well. We have a very strong cash flow from our operating activities.

That means that we are generating more cash than we like to spend. That excess cash, it should go out to the shareholders.

Fred Wester

There

Alex Bricca

we set out in the report 5 SEK as proposed dividend to the annual shareholders meeting in May.

Fred Wester

Yeah. Great.

Alex Bricca

More questions. Yes, Fred, this is for you.

Many companies are expanding their IPs beyond games into other products and media. How does Paradox think about brand extension and additional revenue streams outside of traditional game development?

Fred Wester

Yeah. We've been experimenting a bit with this.

We do merchandising. We do board games.

We do licenses to other video games companies for some of our IP, most notably White Wolf IP. It's a great way to strengthen IP recognition.

It hasn't had any significant impact on revenue or profit, but it's still a good way to keep the IP alive and to reach new target audiences. This is something we're going to continue.

I think what they're after here is like a TV deal or equivalent. There's nothing like that on the table at the moment, but who knows in the future?

I think we need to work more on deepening and strengthening our IP as they are. We work a lot with history in our grand strategy games.

We work with the fantasy IP in Age of Wonders. We work with Stellaris, for example, that are very strong.

Or Stellaris and Age of Wonders are their own IP, where we own everything. When you use history as your background, it's harder to sort of work with the IP, if you like.

Also the White Wolf catalog offers a wide range of really interesting ways to expand into new universes of opportunities.

Alex Bricca

Exciting.

Fred Wester

Yeah. Alex, last year, Victoria 3 had many very well-received DLCs and updates.

The team behind the game is doing great work. Maybe this is from the Victoria 3 team.

Alex Bricca

It sounds like one of our

Fred Wester

calls. Sounds like, yeah, especially with communications later in my opinion.

Do you see a positive effect of the well-received DLCs and updates financially, and is the game generally on a positive trajectory?

Alex Bricca

From someone that works in communications with

Fred Wester

Victoria 3,

Alex Bricca

yeah, exactly. It's a great question regardless who it's from.

Yes, we have seen a strong positive effect since Q2 when we released, I forgot the name of it, but

Fred Wester

The trade expansion—

Alex Bricca

Chambers

Fred Wester

of Commerce. Chambers of Commerce.

Thank you very much, our cameraman. He knows his games.

Alex Bricca

With that release especially, there were signs

Fred Wester

Charters of Commerce. Charters of Commerce.

Sorry to interrupt.

Alex Bricca

Yeah. With that release, something happened with the monthly active users.

We got up to healthy level. Also, the studio has made good work, efficiency-wise.

Now that game has reached a level of healthy profit margins.

Fred Wester

Good retention.

Alex Bricca

Good retention, and with that comes a very stable, strong revenue level as well. We foresee that it's going to continue like that, we very much look forward to treat this as a staple in our portfolio for '26 and for the following years.

Fred Wester

That's right. It's a great game.

Go play it.

Alex Bricca

Fred, will the Tinto Talks method used in the development and lead-up to EU V become the standard for future Paradox releases, as it seems to have worked with great success with EU V? Or will it be up to the individual studio lead's discretion as to how to handle community outreach and feedback?

Fred Wester

As a ground rule, we prefer that the studio handle their own way of communicating the way they feel is the most comfortable and best way to explain and talk about their game. We always encourage direct talks to the community because it's a great way to receive feedback and to change things in the game that might need some feedback from people who love our games and spend a lot of time with our games.

I think Tinto Talks is a great framework on how to operate, but we will continue to encourage the studios to find their own way to connect to the community. It's great.

I really like that. I really enjoyed it personally to watch.

Alex, how has Paradox monthly active users developed?

Alex Bricca

It's 6 million. It varies from time to time.

We have sometimes been up well above 6 million, but we only talk about full millions, we want to be stable at 7 million before we start to say 7 million.

Fred Wester

Can we say that we've been above 7 million as well? I think we have.

I think

Alex Bricca

you just said it, Fred:

Fred Wester

I just said it. Not until it's a stable level, we want to communicate it.

Alex Bricca

Yes. Because the number we communicate is where we are stably.

Fred Wester

We don't count spikes as something that we want to communicate. Exactly.

Alex Bricca

Correct.

Fred Wester

I said it.

Alex Bricca

Good. Okay.

More questions. Fred, where do you think growth will come from versus last year?

Will it be higher DLC velocity, new game releases, pricing, player base increasing?

Fred Wester

If the answer can be all of the above, I choose to answer all of the above. I think we have a couple of examples here that will grow over the couple of years coming.

As we mentioned, Victoria 3 and Age of Wonders 4 are now more stable, have better retention, they have stable release schedules, our view is that they're going to continue to grow. You can see that the Europa Universalis franchise has been declining over a couple of years because we made less DLCs and material for Europa Universalis IV because we were working on V.

We're looking for V to grow over the next couple of years sort of not automatically, because we can't just sit on our asses and wait for it to happen, we actually have to work actively with it, but that's something that we see as one of the core growth things with the live games. We will also continue to grow our live games both on number of releases, hopefully, and the number of gamers by attracting people more often to come back and play the game.

Of course, the larger jumps in revenue can come from a new release if we get more games out this year, spiking in revenue as well. We want to have it from actually several different sources, the revenue growth, it all adds up.

Alex, how should we view a risk for a write-down in Europa Universalis V?

Alex Bricca

That's a low risk. When we look at the write-downs we have made over the last years, it has been on projects where we are kind of far outside of our core.

Europa Universalis V is as in the middle as you can get in our core. Now we don't break up normally and share revenues and profit by game, but Europa Universalis was highly profitable already in its release quarter, in Q4.

We expect that it's going to continue to be highly profitable for many, many years, so.

Fred Wester

As you can see, initially, you get a huge spike of gamers. It slows down a bit, which is natural.

Then we continue to grow from the sort of slope there. That's true for all our games.

If you take Hearts of Iron is going into its 10th year in June, it's going to turn 10, and we have more gamers than ever on a monthly basis for Hearts of Iron, Hearts of Iron IV. That's basically how we operate.

We focus on the retention, and the retention brings revenue with it. That's it.

Alex, again, could you maybe quantify the FX hit on the P&L? Would you break out the sales from the new releases in the quarter in order to get a feel for the performance in the back book?

Alex Bricca

The short answer is no. There

Fred Wester

you go. Do some math in your head.

That's all.

Alex Bricca

Yes, we got another question to what extent we're impacted by FX, and I gave you the rough split of the revenues and the costs in currency. You can do your own math.

Fred Wester

You do your own math,

Alex Bricca

exactly. Exactly.

Of course, as any exporting company, we are doing great when the Swedish krona is doing less great.

Fred Wester

So 3% is krona, and the rest is foreign currency.

Alex Bricca

In the revenue, yeah.

Fred Wester

Exactly. Something like that.

Alex Bricca

Exactly. There was a sub-question, would you break out the sales from the new releases in the quarter?

No, we don't go into that level of detail.

Fred Wester

No. That was the final question.

Thank you for watching. It was, like we said, a very intense quarter with not a great outcome due to different reasons that we have explained now.

Alex Bricca

Profit-wise, but

Fred Wester

Profit-wise, but cash flow-wise, exceptional, actually, even by our standards. I think just to summarize, I think we're in a great place to do great things in the coming years, I hope you continue to follow us.

Thanks a lot.

Alex Bricca

Thanks for watching, and see you in When is it? End of April?

April.

Fred Wester

End of April.

Alex Bricca

For the Q1 report.

Fred Wester

See you then. Take care.

Alex Bricca

Bye.

Fred Wester

Bye.