Paradox staff criticise “culture of silence” which let man with reputation for harassment hold senior role for years • Eurogamer.net

A new report released by Swedish everyday newspaper Svenska Dagbladet (paywall) has detailed a “lifestyle of silence” at Paradox Interactive, the developer at the rear of technique recreation hits these as Crusader Kings, Hearts of Iron and Europa Universalis.

Articles warning: this short article involves descriptions of assault.

One particular individual incident included the employing of a senior supervisor formerly identified for “unwelcome methods and harassment” at a different online games firm. Svenska Dagbladet sources said the man’s status was ignored – letting him to be used at Paradox regardless.

“He experienced also a lot physical call with us woman staff. A hand on the groin or quite close hugs, in which he drilled his facial area into one’s throat. We were being several women who talked about it,” mentioned one particular girl who was harassed by the man just before he was employed at Paradox.

The woman took the man’s previous employer to court docket and received a settlement of almost 270k Swedish kroner (£22.6k) in late 2016, just months ahead of the man’s using the services of at Paradox. He then served as a senior supervisor in “a main part at the company” till August 2024.

Eurogamer has separately spoken with various girls – workforce at Paradox past and existing – in excess of the earlier thirty day period about their ordeals at the business, next the leak of a damning internal study which accused Paradox of “bullying and gender discrimination” and claimed the studio’s culture was “worst for females”. Anyone I spoke to wished to continue to be nameless for worry of reprisal, and to stay clear of endangering their career.

“If you happen to be a female in a team and you have a potent view…” a single female explained to me, “like, I have been to meetings where I’m the only girl in the place, and I say ‘Hey, I truly consider we really should go this course, primarily based on my experience’, and another person appears to be like at me, and they say, ‘You know what, you are just listed here as a token hire. So I assume you need to be quiet about this.’

“It is hard to be a lady in this corporation. People today are like, ‘You’re just whining? Why is it more challenging for gals?’ But if a man would have introduced the exact same issues up it would have been a legitimate feeling.”

Several gals instructed Svenska Dagbladet that Paradox was “plainly male-dominated”, with harassment ordinarily involving males in senior positions “who did a little something to a person underneath them in the hierarchy”.

Gentlemen were being generally the loudest in conferences and the kinds who obtained the final phrase, a person Svenska Dagbladet source mentioned, even though yet another girl who had labored at Paradox for a 10 years recalled an incident where by she was eliminated from a assembly and created to get rid of criticism of the firm from Paradox’s inner Slack even though he viewed.

“That is as considerably tradition of silence as you can have,” the personnel stated. A Paradox spokesperson said it did not recognise this incident and could not remark.

Speaking to Eurogamer, a person female criticised Paradox’s administration construction as getting ineffective in dealing with harassment of junior staff. This was owing to center administration remaining concentrated on satisfying senior staff, they said, and hence not seeking to increase concerns further more.

“If I carry some thing to my center administration manager he is not likely to address all those items to senior management due to the fact then he could possibly be disliked,” the woman explained, contacting it a “harmful tradition” where “if you have crafted your full leadership on staying liked by senior administration you come to be fairly useless for persons that you’re performing with.”

Eurogamer has listened to of vulgar, misogynistic jokes not staying noted due to the fact it is thought individuals accountable will not be reprimanded, and several accounts of conferences where by people today are screamed at staying approved as standard.

Previous month, next the survey’s leak, recently-reinstated Paradox manager Fredrik Wester abruptly apologised on Twitter for an incident of “inappropriate behaviour” towards yet another employee for the duration of a firm meeting in 2018. Wester does not depth the correct character of the incident he is admitting to, even though claims he needed to accept it now “in the title of transparency and clarity”. When questioned for a lot more information and facts by Eurogamer, a Paradox spokesperson previously declined to comment “out of regard for the privateness of the individual included”.

Svenska Dagbladet’s report notes that the Swedish video games sector is small, and that this has influenced Paradox employees’ means to converse out even immediately after leaving the business. It really is some thing Eurogamer has also been advised, by a number of women of all ages who explained detailing their very own ordeals of harassment would recognize them to other individuals in the organization. “This is this kind of a smaller sector and absolutely everyone is aware everybody,” just one woman instructed me.

Paradox, it looks, holds real affect within the Swedish game titles marketplace – not surprising, probably, when you look at its size and the international subsequent for its game titles.

In the most recent figures obtainable from 2019, 1226 women are shown as doing work in the Swedish games marketplace, which equates to 21 p.c of all Swedish online games sector personnel. That ratio is also around mirrored at Paradox far too, which employed 662 staff members in 2024.

Even in just the studio, Eurogamer has heard the firm’s standard internal surveys are taken care of with caution by some personnel, who are uncertain no matter if their comments are truly nameless. “No 1 dared to truly write what they desired in that kind of survey,” one lady who made use of to do the job at Paradox explained to me.

Responding to Svenska Dagbladet’s report, Paradox spokesperson Marcus Hallberg stated the corporation treated this summer’s leaked employee study incredibly significantly, but that it was an “informal” research with a “minimal sample of respondents (a lot less than 20 p.c of our personnel globally)” which built it “challenging to act quickly right before we have built a key screening”.

Paradox claimed it experienced now employed an exterior and independent auditor to look into its enterprise tradition, starting with its staff based in Sweden.

Could Paradox modify? “Yes, if senior administration are keen to aid, if they are inclined to transform their perception of what harassment is,” 1 lady told me. “There is actual harassment at Paradox that men and women are denying, mainly because they don’t think it really is harassment. We believe that it is regular, for the reason that wherever they occur from, this tradition has been ongoing for years and several years and decades. And some people have in no way noticed nearly anything different.”

Eurogamer contacted Paradox for much more information today but the studio declined to comment even further, pending the effects of its exterior audit which a spokesperson mentioned was now underway.