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If your account is banned, and they dont even have to tell you why..
Unless you live in Europe and invoke GDPR. I was banned on CSGO once and they refused to tell me why. I invoked GDPR and they had to, by law, give me my data (within 30 days). Including what in the world had me banned.

Turned out it was a mistake and they unbanned me. Despite telling me it was a final decision and they had definite proof of me cheating beforehand. Sometimes you just gotta invoke the law.

I believe the fine for not telling customers who ask for their data via invoking GDPR is a 20 million euro fine. And if tampering or deletion of the data is found they are criminally accountable or something along those lines.

So you're not wrong (for people who live outside the EU), but you're not right either (For people who live within the EU or the EEA.)

GDPR is an extremely useful tool in the toolbox of the consumer who is unjustly banned or gets in a situation where the company goes "You done bad. But we wont say why." which is all too common.
 
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Unfortunately, you really don't. If you read the fine print you are actually only buying a licence to play the game. Not the actual game. Silly but true.

Especially on say.. steam. If your account is banned, and they dont even have to tell you why.. good luck getting them back

Actually, you're wrong. This is biggest question no Consumer is ever going to challenge. You see, NO ONE knows if we actually own these games or not. By Logic, we do. By LAW we do. It's only by contraversal contract, the ToS, which isn't even legal binding, and no court in the world upholds or follows, that says we don't own the game.

The problem, is no one actually takes it to court to get a definitive, unquestionable answer to the question on rather or not we do not own the game and only renting them, which will change the entire gaming industry and how they can legally market and sell games online. Or if we actually own that game, and it's the exact same as having a Digital Backup of a physical copy of the game, and thus again, the entire industry changes and how they are legally allowed to market and sell games change.

No consumer is willing to bring it to court, and companies will do ANYTHING to NEVER bring it to court incase they lose and the Courts say we legally own those games.
 
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Logically, I see the idea of opening the gate to new players.

Yet, still feels like: "Paradox, you dirty dog, I feed you well so don't try hump my leg too."

Just please put some of the extra money to either invest in the AI team, or game design to meet what you can do with AI.
 
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My concern with subscription is then it won't matter as much to paradox if their quality of dlc decreases as they have the subscriptions. You could make the argument that if the dlc is bad time and time again then people will unsubscribe but no, then people won't have access to the good dlc. It's really important paradox feels when their dlc is bad so they have more drive to make the next one better.

The cost of dlc is too high for new players? Implement them into the base game after [x] years. This is a suggestion that has also been suggested countless times and has been pretty popular. Alternatively, reduce the price of old dlc, severely.
 
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My concern with subscription is then it won't matter as much to paradox if their quality of dlc decreases as they have the subscriptions. You could make the argument that if the dlc is bad time and time again then people will unsubscribe but no, then people won't have access to the good dlc. It's really important paradox feels when their dlc is bad so they have more drive to make the next one better.

The cost of dlc is too high for new players? Implement them into the base game after [x] years. This is a suggestion that has also been suggested countless times and has been pretty popular. Alternatively, reduce the price of old dlc, severely.
That is a good point, exactly how will people vote with their wallets on dlc and other aspects of the game development if they throw it all under a single subscription payment. The whole original argument made by paradox with implementation of their doc model was the dlc was supposed to be based on what people actually bought , and sales success would drive what was developed in the future. For example, I would love to see more period music dlc, but apparently metal was more popular so that's what we got (sigh). Take out that voting with a subscription, and what is left to give buyers a choice, without losing everything?
 
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It was stated that this whole subscription 'experiment' was specific for the EU bundle now that is has grown so large. It was not meant for long time players, so it would have relatively small impact on the one or two remaining future dlc.
 
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It was stated that this whole subscription 'experiment' was specific for the EU bundle now that is has grown so large. It was not meant for long time players, so it would have relatively small impact on the one or two remaining future dlc.

Try thinking long term. Obviously if then it is popular it would be standard for future games. This means that then when EU5 comes out this would be the way it is too.
 
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After 20 DLC maybe?

A new game is in a totally different situation.

How is it a totally different situation? I would like to play EU5 and don't want to pay a subscription for its dlc. It's being trialled on EU4. It's directly related. Hardly a different situation.

My gripe isn't how much dlc is left for EU4. I'm thinking of the bigger picture here...
 
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How is it a totally different situation? I would like to play EU5 and don't want to pay a subscription for its dlc. It's being trialled on EU4. It's directly related. Hardly a different situation.

My gripe isn't how much dlc is left for EU4. I'm thinking of the bigger picture here...

It is a different situation because in a new game there is not the problem of buying into a huge collection of 7 years DLC.

I don't think it is that complicated, to be honest.
 
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It is a different situation because in a new game there is not the problem of buying into a huge collection of 7 years DLC.

I don't think it is that complicated, to be honest.

Did you read my post? I said I worry that the quality of DLC will drop with a subscription based service. If they release bad dlc you can't vote with your wallet because then you'll miss out on the good dlc.
 
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Did you read my post? I said I worry that the quality of DLC will drop with a subscription based service. If they release bad dlc you can't vote with your wallet because then you'll miss out on the good dlc.

The amount of players added through a conscription will be small compared to the old player base, so for marketing purposes the subscription crowd will not be significant. So I think there is little reason for your worries.

And if the added player base through subscription woudl be significant, there would be a luxury problem, don't you think?
 
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The amount of players added through a conscription will be small compared to the old player base, so for marketing purposes the subscription crowd will not be significant. So I think there is little reason for your worries.

And if the added player base through subscription woudl be significant, there would be a luxury problem, don't you think?

Long term.
Future games/dlc.
Like I've already said my concern is about...

When I spoke about EU5 it wasn't a typo. I deliberately typed E U Five.

Once more, I am talking long term. It would likely impact all future Paradox games if they are happy with the result on EU4.
 
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The amount of players added through a conscription will be small compared to the old player base, so for marketing purposes the subscription crowd will not be significant. So I think there is little reason for your worries.

And if the added player base through subscription woudl be significant, there would be a luxury problem, don't you think?

Paradox wouldn't spend the effort in making and testing this program if they didn't think that they both could make a significant sum of money from it and could continuing using it for long enough to justify the time spent. I don't think its reasonable to assume that EU4 alone will be able to make the money and effort back. There's very likely at least some plans for this system in the future. If the system proves successful, I don't see a company of this caliber of money decision-making not attempting to maximize their profits at the expense of their traditional consumers, as they've been doing for several years now.
 
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Paradox wouldn't spend the effort in making and testing this program if they didn't think that they both could make a significant sum of money from it and could continuing using it for long enough to justify the time spent. I don't think its reasonable to assume that EU4 alone will be able to make the money and effort back. There's very likely at least some plans for this system in the future. If the system proves successful, I don't see a company of this caliber of money decision-making not attempting to maximize their profits at the expense of their traditional consumers, as they've been doing for several years now.

Just your speculation.

Adding some more players to EU4 through a subscription will increase the potential client base for EU5. That means each subscription is a potential client for the whole new EU5 merchandise, however that is sold.

I find that much a much more probable scenario than your 'big bad company is going to fuck us all over' in the future.

And if they are still going to change over to an exclusive subscription model, you can just refuse to buy?
 
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It was stated that this whole subscription 'experiment' was specific for the EU bundle now that is has grown so large. It was not meant for long time players, so it would have relatively small impact on the one or two remaining future dlc.
I'm sorry, but I don't believe that companies create a whole new parallel payment infrastructure just for one game with a life of two more dlcs. They are thinking a long game.
 
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Just your speculation.

Adding some more players to EU4 through a subscription will increase the potential client base for EU5. That means each subscription is a potential client for the whole new EU5 merchandise, however that is sold.

I find that much a much more probable scenario than your 'big bad company is going to fuck us all over' in the future.

And if they are still going to change over to an exclusive subscription model, you can just refuse to buy?
So, that is how it is for all of us who believe in paying for actual products or at least the license that entitles us to that product as long as we own that...Just give up and don't buy any future paradox games, because we are wrong for wanting to not have to pay a constant stream of money to play the game at all? Well, obviously if that is where this company sinks to, then yes. And I hope that if that is the case, a whole lot of others join me, so it sends a message that we deserve a bit of respect as supporters of their games .
 
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Just your speculation.

Adding some more players to EU4 through a subscription will increase the potential client base for EU5. That means each subscription is a potential client for the whole new EU5 merchandise, however that is sold.

I find that much a much more probable scenario than your 'big bad company is going to fuck us all over' in the future.

This entire thread is just educated guessing because PDS is as transparent as a rock. There's much less involved ways to increase the client base for EU4 in preparation for EU5 (like they did with CK2 or any of at least 50 different ideas that've been floated around this thread). Setting up a subscription service requires infrastructure (since Steam doesn't really have the ability to monitor them right now) that they didn't have beforehand. They're not going to go through all of that effort just for a dying game.

They've already shown they have no qualms with milking a game for money and they've made a series of anti-consumer moves (Stellaris mobile game, price gouging the DLC around Third Rome, refusal to lower prices over time, games being released half baked and full of issues for the last few years, secrecy involving a new monitization scheme, the entire glassdoor review scandal). I see no reason that they'd change their trajectory going forward without major higher-up shedding. There's a big difference between following the data points to make educated guesses at the future and simply assuming the worst.

And if they are still going to change over to an exclusive subscription model, you can just refuse to buy?

Yeah, I can refuse to buy. How is this at all a defense? I can refuse to buy lootboxes for gambling simulators, but it doesn't mean I don't have the ability or right to tell the publishers my opinion on them.
 
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