I get that its real internet cool to "stick it to the man", but really? It is more "predatory" to be able to jump in for $10 for a month with access to all the DLC, than to pay 10-20 times that amount to even be able to try out the game? The model that Paradox is suggesting is specifically to help new players, not make it more expensive. As they have shouted from the mountaintops (for deaf ears apparently), you can still buy the game and DLC if you figure you will spend enough time with the game for it to be worth it. You are basically getting more choice in how you pay for the game - how exactly is that worse than now?
You're thinking in Terms of an MMO. Something you're meant to spend multiple months on, play with friends, and enjoy the grind that pads out the time, with the 'DLC/Expansions' being very massive with weeks of content for a more casual player. But a Single Player game is NOT like that. There are games I play reinstall and play for a day once or twice every few months for years. If it was a Subscription based, I'd have to fork over $10 or $15 every few months, just to play the game for a few days, then I stop playing and the rest of the days are wasted. After 4-6 times of that happening, it would have been more profitable to just buy the game full price. And that's just a semi casual gamer for older games. What about a gaming addict that plays for a full year straight? giving $120 to $180 a year, for a single player game. Why waste that money on a single game playing with themselves when they can get a MMO Sub for that and play with their friends?
As for the Arguement of it being to get new players, you get that by making the DLCs cheaper, AND worth buying as well. It's the Number 1 turn off from most of the Paradox games like Stallaris, CK2, and EU4. It's too expencive! So make it LESS expensive, not more expensive over a longer period of time! It's common sense to not screwing over the consumer.
They sell the DLC for the price they need to charge to fund its development, plus bank enough money to fund a sequel or other projects the company works on. If they thought that cutting the price to 10% of what it is now would get them 10 times the playerbase, they probably would. However, for relatively niche games such as CK2, EU4 etc., the price is high because the audience is limited. Go take a look at Slitherine to see how much you have to fork out for modernized versions of wargames from the age of DOS. If you go look at the FTP mega-games such as Fortnite and Apex, they can monetize their players very little because there is a ton of them - the audience for FPS games is enormous.
I can only assume you don't play many video games, don't go outside very often, and don't interact with many people online when you come up with these kinda logistics and can't understand the issues. What in my older post about there being FREE Mods, that do what the DLC does but BETTER do you not understand about that the Development of these 'Official' DLC must be messed up! Either they are doing very little work, and thus it isn't worth what they are asking. Or they are spending so much money and doing so much hard work on such basic concepts, that the company should fire them for wasting money and time and hire actual Devs that know how to code and can code faster, better, and cheaper! There are free games that update with much more content than what a DLC from Paradox is likely to have.
Have to actually PLAYED some of the other Paradox Games and SEEN what their DLC's have to offer? One of the EU4 DLCs had a great negative review, pointing out that the $20 DLC just offered 5 buttons, 3 for non Indians and 2 for Indians. And that was ALL it offered. Another DLC just made you click a new button every 6+ months in game for a free passive buff, in another $20 DLC. Those are thing you expect in a early access game that's in Beta and still adding a feature or two to reach a completed state. And you only have to buy the base game for $20-$40 for ALL those updates, and not a $20 DLCs for each new button!
I'm not just talking shit, you can GO TO STEAM and actually LOOK at Paradox Games and their DLCs! Or did you not actually research the games you were buying, and just bought them full price without actually knowing what you were buying? Did you just blindly go "Oh, a brand new DLC" and bought it instantly without actually reading what it actually had in it? I'm not talking 10 or 15 angry people, most of the Major DLCs for the games have 250-500 Reviews, and 90% of the DLCs for ALL of Paradox Strategy Games are Mixed or Mostly Negative! This isn't 'Sticking it to the Man', this is actually having common sense of not wasting hard earn money on something not worth it, and many people agreeing!
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As for 'Looking at F2P games', all those games you listed are Multiplayer Only, don't have DLC/Expansions, and you can't buy the games. They are 100% FREE to do EVERYTHING without a Subscription at all! The only thing you 'Pay' for, are useless Cosmetic stuff that has no barings on the game itself! It's a much better system than a Subscription! Why do you think the only 2 games you see with a Subscription now is Black Desert, which is heavily Pay to Win, all about massive grinding or spending hundreds and thousands of dollars to skip some of it, and WoW, which also lets you play the first 20 levels free in it's own Sudo F2P model.
If every EU4 player decided that they would only pay $2 for the DLC they make now, they would not make better DLC - they would stop making it entirely. It would simply not make economical sense. All the rage and indignity in this thread will not change that basic fact.
Hmm. You are correct... But that wouldn't be Worse. It wouldn't be better either as we wouldn't get a much official content. But as I pointed out, there are free mods that do BETTER than the actual DLCs. So we wouldn't actually LOSING anything, other than more ways to lose money. It would actually be a Win for us, as then we could spend the $150 to $300 on buying other games, or maybe on food, or on other Paradox games. It would be much better than Paradox having us Sub for EACH new game, draining $10+ PER game of theirs, which we might even be playing at the same time.
No, the only way I can see a Subscription working, is if it was a $15 'Paradox' Subscription, that allowed access to ALL their Games and DLCs. Not just a $10 sub for EU4, then another $10 Sub for CK2 and so on. And even THEN, it should be a system where it 'Saves' the Money you spend per month on the Sub, and can buy their games with that. So if you Sub $15 for 4 months, that's $60 you should be able to spend to actually BUY and OWN a $60 game. So if the Sub runs out, you can still access and own that game at least.
THAT would be a much better Sub system, and more fair.