An honest, civilized opinion on pricing

[shandou]

So now that Holy Fury is looming close to be released I thought I'd share my opinion on the pricing of the game. I'll be very honest, so please appreciate that and stow away the flamethrowers. I'll endure the judgemental looks.

I think CK2 is a fantastic game and I am kinda sad that I am a latecomer to this game and didn't know it earlier. Since I pretty much always try games before I buy, I started CK2 with a pirated copy and got hooked very quickly. Partly because I wanted to play multiplayer with my friends and as a token of appreciation to the devs I purchased the base game. The "complete" game with all "essential" DLCs (so not counting the eye candy and music packs) have been on my Steam wishlist for a long time now, but the sales go by without me clicking on buy.

It is simply way too expensive. I appreciate that many people here paid this complete price over the years, pretty much like I did with Stellaris where I got in early and keep buying the extra content as they got released. There is a big difference. Why is it different? Here are some of the ideas why:

• You are taking part of the journey of the game's evolution. You get to learn a certain version of the game, then re-learn (parts of) that game after a major DLC is released. Jumping in at a later stage, you can't experience this evolution and feeling of novelty for the prior released content.
• You are keeping the lights on in Paradox. You purchase new DLCs at full price (actually at a fairly high price) so that the game keeps being developed years after its initial release, not just for paid content, but also for free patches. Purchasing everything backward is just an unplanned "lucky sale" for the company.
• Piecemeal purchasing. Yeah, right, in other words, microtransactions. Not so micro in this case, but people are naturally more willing to shell out money in small chunks especially for novelty.
• Even though you can argue that the base CK2 is a complete game in itself, it simply looks like a "demo" compared to the "full" game.

I'd be very willing to purchase CK2 Complete for, say, the full price of an AAA game (around €60) excluding maybe the 2 most recent DLCs, but even with Christmas sale it goes for around €120 (just for the DLCs). I think this is a financial decision that even people in more developed countries would consider twice, but is a very substantial money everywhere else, especially that you can play for free via the "torrent store". But even if you couldn't, chances are that people come to the conclusion "this much for a game? I think not. I rather play a few hours with the base game and move on." 4 of my friends do not have the complete game for this very reason. 4 of the above quit playing. 3 of them would be willing to pay full price for new content if they didn't have to pay so much for prior content.

I think Paradox misses a lot of potential latecoming customers due to this pricing policy and while it has a certain rationale of "fairness" - let's be honest, even with this high price, new customers still pay less than those following the game from the beginning did - I think it is the less optimal choice. Personally, I think the older DLCs of Stellaris should be cheaper as well, even though I paid full for most of the content.

Thanks for reading, there is no TL;DR

 

[_Perun_]

CK2 is for the nobility. The rest is free to play Total War games.

 

[afrodius]

It's true that buying all the expansions at one go is a significant investment for just one game. However, the base version is still a really great and fun game. Just do like I did and slowly purchase more dlc as you go and as it goes on sale.

 

[Rags17]

Your suggestion reminds me a lot of Kerbal Space Program. I have no idea where they are now but last I looked about two years ago they were up to around patch 23 or so - you could pick up something like patch 15 for free, but for the newest version you had to pay. Maybe PDX could apply the same scaled pricing structure - base game free, base game plus all DLCs except the last two or three for a fixed price, say $US 80-90, the most recent DLC's for the usual $15-18 each.

There is actually precedent for them doing this. Earlier this year PDX made the base game free for about a week and the player base shot through the roof, at least for a month or two. I obviously don't have the numbers but I guarantee you PDX does so they would know a) how much revenue they lost considering how many sales of the base game they WOULD have made for that week, and b) how much revenue they gained from the many extra DLCs they sold in the following weeks now that they had given all those new players a taste of the nectar. The same maths would apply here - revenue lost due to free game giveaways and "package" sales yielding far less then the current full package cost, but in return revenue gained from lowering the entry price point and all those new players getting hooked on the DLC drug, er becoming new regular customers.

+1 totally approve !

 

[FreakinUnoriginal]

I doubt we'd see extreme shifts in pricing until/unless CK3 comes around, but I could see the older DLC being consolidated into packs like how the portrait and shield packs got rolled up. Maybe three DLC at the price of two, vaguely themed. Something like:

• Sword of Islam + The Old Gods + Sons of Abraham
• Legacy of Rome + The Republic + Charlemagne
• Way of Life + Conclave + The Reaper's Due
• Sunset Invasion + Rajas of India + Horse Lords

Then only Monks and Mystics, Jade Dragon and Holy Fury (the latest 3) would be full price with no bundle option.

 

[Kumicho]

Personally I think that they should make DLC free after a certain period of time (2-3 years). I highly doubt they make much money on things like SoI or TR, and adding those things in to the base game would just make things easier all around. They've come out and said that including retinues in a paid DLC was a mistake, but at the same time they can't really make them an integral part of the game due to the fact that they're behind a pay wall.

I think it would go a long way to feeding the addiction of people on here, and would ultimately pay for itself through higher orders for things like HF (which will be higher priced than the other DLCs).

I do understand how imposing it looks when faced with buying the game and the DLC outright (and at full price). Anyone who's looking at getting in to it now would probably just end up not even trying it due to the prospect of spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars on it.

 

[junassa]

I pretty much just played the base game for years and had fun doing it. I recently bought a few dlcs while they were on sale. While I would loved to have gotten them cheaper (along with the rest of the dlcs) I feel like I got my money's worth.

 

[Arsonik]

I'd be very willing to purchase CK2 Complete for, say, the full price of an AAA game (around €60) excluding maybe the 2 most recent DLCs, but even with Christmas sale it goes for around €120 (just for the DLCs).

I share your sentiment mostly. I have this problem with EU4. I bought the game over 2 years ago. I can certainly afford to buy all the DLCs, but I just can't bring myself to splurging that much on one game. I know I eventually will, and the real biggest holdout for me is that I enjoy CK2 so much still all these years later I just won't find time to play EU4. I wish games would move to a more subscription-based style of ownership, or at least have a parallel path.

Say for example you pay $20/mo for access to all of a developers titles. It's clearly possible on steam already, they grant temporary access to games all the time for free weekends. Static digital entertainment of every kind already has this. Cable television, spotify, audible, netflix, etc. It's been done with games before, I don't remember who was doing it. Game<somecrap>.com, I had an account there briefly. It wasn't exactly what I am pitching but in the same vein with subscription access to games.

 

[Orphalesion]

It's not a perfect solution and depends on luck, but with Steam and Paradox sales you can safe a lot of money on getting the whole CK2 package.

But yeah until then the price was, for quite some time an issue for me, not because I couldn't afford it, but, as others have said that I couldn't justify spending quite that much money on a game to myself.

 

[Daffius]

Say for example you pay $20/mo for access to all of a developers titles. It's clearly possible on steam already, they grant temporary access to games all the time for free weekends. Static digital entertainment of every kind already has this. Cable television, spotify, audible, netflix, etc. It's been done with games before, I don't remember who was doing it.

Please no. Considering the number of games (from different developers) I have on steam, the monthly rolling cost would be immense. Alternatively, sticking with only a handful would mean I can't pick up just any game in my library that I fancy at the moment in time.

A more akin model to spotify/netflix that you are suggesting would a monthly subscription to steam, where all steam content is available for a monthly fix price (perhaps tiered). So subscription to the platform NOT the content producer.

Steam could then allocate money to developers based on overall playing time of their respective games. Fair model that would force good content and less rip off from devs as well.

 

[Orphalesion]

A more akin model to spotify/netflix that you are suggesting would a monthly subscription to steam, where all steam content is available for a monthly fix price (perhaps tiered). So subscription to the platform NOT the content producer.

But that would still be terrible. Games aren't movies or TV shows that you stream. You instlal those files on your computer and I don't want to pay a monthly fee so I can use files that are already on my computer and take up space.
Besides I wouldn't want to have to pay a subscription for the whole mass of content that's on seam, when I'm only interested in a handful of titles.

 

[Rognvaldr19]

I wouldn't be happy with Paradox if they downpriced all of their DLC permanently to accommodate people who freely admit to pirating content they don't feel like paying for, as I'd feel it was a slap in the face to players like me who have spent quite a bit of money getting all of the expansions.

I know it's intimidating for alot of players when they see thirty expansions that all together can be a weeks paycheck, and I totally understand it's probably not the best model for a game, but saying that, I feel the deals they offer on the older expansions are often extremely generous and that the patches give you alot of free content anyway.

 

[Kayden_II]

It would be interesting to know, how many features of a game like CK-II and its DLCs were "just" tweaked, reworked, replaced or simply erased since at the end of a day, we're just playing its latest version ...

This problem doesn't occur in the case, that a customer has purchased the base-game and each of its DLCs at release-day one, but with this current price-policy in place, players, especially the new ones, are basically forced to pay for past trials and errors aka for all of these already tweaked, reworked, replaced or simply erased features ...

These things simply don't count anymore.

 

[thevmag]

I wish games would move to a more subscription-based style of ownership, or at least have a parallel path.

Say for example you pay $20/mo for access to all of a developers titles.

$240 per year when I'm only playing one game of theirs. Playing since 2013, that'd be at least $1200 out of pocket by now. Compared to whatever hundred or so I must've spent overall in DLC/Expansions.

I like the Paradox model: free patch that enhances the base game for everyone, but special things locked into paid DLC. Like, the free addition of the treasury and artifacts are nice, but societies don't sway me enough to purchase Monks and Mystics. But even by choosing not to buy into the DLC, I don't have to feel like I'm missing out on an essential part of Crusader Kings. Buy in if you want to, enjoy the game anyway if you don't/can't.

 

[Kumicho]

I wouldn't be happy with Paradox if they downpriced all of their DLC permanently to accommodate people who freely admit to pirating content they don't feel like paying for, as I'd feel it was a slap in the face to players like me who have spent quite a bit of money getting all of the expansions.

Why? I mean, I understand not wanting PDX to bow to the cheaters, but if you bought a DLC years ago (say, The Old Gods 5 years ago for $15), why would you be upset if they started offering it for free? You've been playing it for 5 years, and have certainly gotten your money's worth. Or The Republic, or Sword of Islam, etc. Sure, I bought those with real money, and some of them I've paid full price for. That doesn't mean that I'd be upset that now people would get them for free. Hell, I'd be happy, since it would mean that PDX could spend more time fixing Decadence since everyone would have access to any as Muslims.

I just don't get this "I paid money for it so I'd be upset if PDX started offering it for free" mentality. OK, I mean maybe if I bought it 3 days before they started offering it for free, but otherwise? Including more things in the base game and getting more people addicted to the game is a *good* thing!

 

[Kumicho]

I share your sentiment mostly. I have this problem with EU4. I bought the game over 2 years ago. I can certainly afford to buy all the DLCs, but I just can't bring myself to splurging that much on one game.

Totally agree.

I wish games would move to a more subscription-based style of ownership, or at least have a parallel path.

Say for example you pay $20/mo for access to all of a developers titles. It's clearly possible on steam already, they grant temporary access to games all the time for free weekends. Static digital entertainment of every kind already has this. Cable television, spotify, audible, netflix, etc. It's been done with games before, I don't remember who was doing it. Game<somecrap>.com, I had an account there briefly. It wasn't exactly what I am pitching but in the same vein with subscription access to games.

Oh HELL NO! This is a terrible, terrible idea, and if PDX ever went to it I'd stop playing immediately. I absolutely despise subscription models because I always think "did I get my $20 worth this month?"

 

[Rockphed]

I wouldn't be happy with Paradox if they downpriced all of their DLC permanently to accommodate people who freely admit to pirating content they don't feel like paying for, as I'd feel it was a slap in the face to players like me who have spent quite a bit of money getting all of the expansions.

I know it's intimidating for alot of players when they see thirty expansions that all together can be a weeks paycheck, and I totally understand it's probably not the best model for a game, but saying that, I feel the deals they offer on the older expansions are often extremely generous and that the patches give you alot of free content anyway.

I bought the game on sale about 2 years ago on sale for $10. I bought the first 3 or 4 years worth of expansions 6 months later on sale for $30. If they changed the base price of the game to $10 and the base price of a bundle containing all sorts of DLCs except the last few to $30 and never put those two things on sale again, I suspect they would do a brisk business in both. I think that changing the price of old DLCs to "Free" is, in most cases, not a good move. Putting old DLC in a bundle with a set price, however, allows people to get their game most of the way up to date without having to figure out which DLCs they actually want. Do you also get offended when Paradox puts DLC on sale that you bought at full price? Of all the DLC I have paid any attention to, the only one I have ever wanted to have at launch is Holy Fury.

For instance, I have Rajas of India and Sunset Invasion, despite having no desire to play in India and generally disliking the themes of Sunset because they came bundled with the 3 or 4 expansions I actually wanted (The Old Gods, The Republic, Sons of Abraham, and Legacy of Rome) at a price where it was a better deal to get the bundle (which included a bunch of content packs) rather than grabbing what I wanted piecemeal.

 

[Panzergruppe]

The Expansion Pass for HoI 4 came to mind, but it seems it's gone by now?

 

[alextarg]

An honest opinion on pricing. Put it this way, I have all dlcs and put maybe 300$ on this game, but with 2000 hours of play, it's only 0.15$/hour or play. I say it's resonable, pretty damn resonable. Ck2 is the best game ever.. after skyrim of course

 

[Federalist girl]

I rarely post in threads about pricing because it's almost often complaints about people wanting to enjoy things without paying for them but I'll say two things.

I. Even though I have paid full price on everything in CK since preordering the game in 2012, I can understand the "it's too intimidating for new players" idea -- because that's where I am with EU4. I preordered that one too, but I didn't like it and even though I'm assured it's much better now, I just cannot get through the mountain of DLCs. So I get it -- I'd just as soon not play the game.

II. But whatever the answer to the problem is, whether it's free weekends or discounted DLCs, a subscription model is the WORST idea imaginable. No subscriptions and no loot box microtransactions please -- the Paradox model is at least a reasonably fair model to own content and to pay for continued development, but subscriptions and microtransactions are exploitative. There's no indication that Paradox is even considering it, but it took my breath away to see a fan suggest the concept of subscriptions.