A Comment from Fred (CEO) R.E. Pricing - ***UPDATE*** Read Post #68

[Baltasar]

As a long term customer (some 10 or so years), your decisions are appaling. Not only do you increase the prices of games which are several years old, you also justify that with a harmonization which in layman terms means nothing other than: "we think we can get away with higher prices FOR OUR OLD GAMES". There is really no other reasonable explanaition for it.

While it is obviously true that other companies review their prices regularily, too, other companies review them to figure out how much they might want to LOWER the prices on their base products. Which btw is actually a sensible thing to do for various reasons. Do you people really think a price more than 150 - 200 € for EU IV / CK2 with the non flavour DLCs is an attractive price?

At this point I am glad I passed on HoI 4, it might very well not the last Paradox title I'll not buy.

Well, you do certainly get exposure with your very, very weird decisions. Who knows, may be Jim Sterling will chime in, too?

 

[CookieMonk]

If somehow a drop in sale in this steam sale forces Paradox to revise its policy regarding dlcs and this arbitrary price changes, I don't think they will regain the lost respect even after that because it will basically mean that the only thing this company listens to is "Money", this community her consumer base you know the actual people mean nothing at all to this company.

Fully agree, it shows in the CEOs very late statement, and the time it took to get it and its content.

 

[Everstill]

Not really a surprise at all that there was such a huge spike in negative reviews. The moment you screw over your customers they will retaliate.

As it should be. I literally noticed this price increase TODAY. I am baffled. The price increase in my region is literally 50%! Holy Shit! Stellaris got from ~$70 to ~$105! Crusader Kings base game now cost $105! Wtf is happening??

How in the hell this match the purchasing power of the region? Our average wage has not increased in the last years and we got an economic and political crisis, but our currency is the same value as 2 years ago after fluctuations. What happened that Paradox think that sudently the entire country have a 50% increased purchasing power!?

As Gabe said, flooding a company with emails and putting bad reviews everywhere hurts and have costs to the company (he said this in the paid mods backlash). This is the only weapon the community have and I'm happy to see the community is using it. Sadly the only way to make they think this was a mistake is if the backlash is bigger enough to hurt profits more than keeping the old price.

 

[CookieMonk]

If somehow a drop in sale in this steam sale forces Paradox to revise its policy regarding dlcs and this arbitrary price changes, I don't think they will regain the lost respect even after that because it will basically mean that the only thing this company listens to is "Money", this community her consumer base you know the actual people mean nothing at all to this company.

They should have gotten advise from "EA" about "How not to treat loyal customers".

 

[CookieMonk]

As it should be. I literally noticed this price increase TODAY. I am baffled. The price increase in my region is literally 50%! Holy Shit! Stellaris got from ~$70 to ~$105! Crusader Kings base game now cost $105! Wtf is happening??

How in the hell this match the purchasing power of the region? Our average wage has not increased in the last years and we got an economic and political crisis, but our currency is the same value as 2 years ago after fluctuations. What happened that Paradox think that sudently the entire country have a 50% increased purchasing power!?

As Gabe said, flooding a company with emails and putting bad reviews everywhere hurts and have costs to the company (he said this in the paid mods backlash). This is the only weapon the community have and I'm happy to see the community is using it. Sadly the only way to make they think this was a mistake is if the backlash is bigger enought to hurt profits more than keeping the old price.

Trust me the community has come together about this insult, it just needs a little more time and they will feel the pinch, we will not bend over any longer, this is not going away.

 

[CookieMonk]

As a long term customer (some 10 or so years), your decisions are appaling. Not only do you increase the prices of games which are several years old, you also justify that with a harmonization which in layman terms means nothing other than: "we think we can get away with higher prices FOR OUR OLD GAMES". There is really no other reasonable explanaition for it.

While it is obviously true that other companies review their prices regularily, too, other companies review them to figure out how much they might want to LOWER the prices on their base products. Which btw is actually a sensible thing to do for various reasons. Do you people really think a price more than 150 - 200 € for EU IV / CK2 with the non flavour DLCs is an attractive price?

At this point I am glad I passed on HoI 4, it might very well not the last Paradox title I'll not buy.

Well, you do certainly get exposure with your very, very weird decisions. Who knows, may be Jim Sterling will chime in, too?

I see more and more youtubers are coming out against Paradox policies and i salute each and every one who stands up and speck out. I will Sub your channel.

 

[binn05]

As Gabe said, flooding a company with emails and putting bad reviews everywhere hurts and have costs to the company (he said this in the paid mods backlash). This is the only weapon the community have and I'm happy to see the community is using it. Sadly the only way to make they think this was a mistake is if the backlash is bigger enought to hurt profits more than keeping the old price.

Just to clarify, do you mean bethesda's paid mods, right? Or I am missing something?

 

[Fredrik II]

Hello all and thanks for your feedback, Following up from yesterday, this will sound a bit schizophrenic but I have really appreciated the reactions from this forum. I have spent the last 24 hours reading your comments and feedback and replying to email (fredrik.wester@paradoxplaza.com for all of you who didn't know it); during this time I came to a couple of conclusions:

1. In regards to the price changes you are absolutely right. You deserve more transparency and better communication from Paradox when it comes to changing of our prices and pricing policy. Therefore I have decided to roll back all price changes made; any price changes will have to be for future products well communicated in advance. I just came off the phone with Steam and they say we can't do the roll-back before the Summer Sale is over (otherwise it would mean we have to take all Paradox products off the summer sale) but it will be done right after. For anyone who bought any of the games during this time (including during the summer sale) we will try to refund (if possible in the Steam platform) or reimburse with games of a value exceeding the difference. If none of this is possible (I do not in detail know the limits to the Steam platform) we will internally calculate the difference in revenue before and after the price change, double the value, and donate the money to the UNHCR.

2. Some of the frustration has been expressed due to our DLC policy and how we handle additional content for our games. Since the release of Crusader Kings 2 (Feb 14, 2012) we have adopted a policy where we release paid content and at the same time content for free even if you do not want to pay for the DLC. This means that if you only paid for the original game, you still have a completely different game today with thousands of additions, upgrades and changes. This doesn't mean you should stop giving us feedback on how we conduct our business but if you straight out just hate our DLC policy I respectfully say that we have to agree to disagree.

3. I have promised myself never to give in to mob mentality; it's one of the worst things I know and a terrible way to convince me. In fact, being a pig-headed CEO of a company that has grown from 7 people to 225 during time I have had the privilege to run it, I have probably from time to time been more prone to say "no" than "yes" when people gang up on me/us to make us change our minds - I guess partly by principle not to cave in due to pressure. In this case, my change of stance has been made from communicating with people who have been active in our community for 10+ years, people who spent thousands of hours in our games and coming to the conclusions you find above.

Finally - as much as I love a good conspiracy theory; to be frank, the whole "Tencent bought 5% of Paradox and now they're all greedy" and "They're now a publicly traded company and therefore do things the market wish for" is below the level of intelligence of this community. I still hold 33.3% in Paradox, I am still CEO, board member and avid gamer. All you need to know is that the buck stops here. All problems/feedback can easily be sent my way, I will not always agree but I promise to listen.

Best
Fred
fredrik.wester@paradoxplaza.com

 

[prasejednomalo]

Seems I somehow catch the right time to visit the forum and respond among the first: <3 Fred! This is the Paradox I know and love and have supported for a decade or so now (but not with thousands of hours, I admit)

EDIT: can't change the Steam score because their store seems to be hiccuping, but will happily return all my reviews back to positive again!

 

[blackninja9939]

Seems I somehow catch the right time to visit the forum and respond among the first: <3 Fred! This is the Paradox I know and love and have supported for a decade or so now (but not with thousands of hours, I admit)

EDIT: can't change the Steam score because their store seems to be hiccuping, but will happily return all my reviews back to positive again!

Yeah the steam store is crapping itself due to all the people going on for the summer sale. It is barely event possible to load a page let alone change reviews or make purchases

 

[Dеithwen]

I just came off the phone with Steam and they say we can't do the roll-back before the Summer Sale is over (otherwise it would mean we have to take all Paradox products off the summer sale) but it will be done right after.

Now this is amusing. I'm far from accusing you of anything, but... You know how this looks, right?

 

[Fredrik II]

Now this is amusing. I'm far from accusing you of anything, but... You know how this looks, right?

Please tell me, I'm really bad at reading between the lines.

 

[Fredrik II]

I'm really glad this community don't have so many White Knights like other communties have, they will defend a company that don't give a fuck about them even if they are literally fucked in the ass.

We must praise what should be praised, and criticize what should be criticized. This is our chance to change this kind of policies.



This one exactly, I will quote Gabe here:



Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/33uplp/mods_and_steam/cqojx8y/?context=3

And he said too that the only thing that matter is money and "vote with your wallet".

He said himself that pissing off the Internet cost you a million bucks in just a couple days. This is the only reason companies care about backlash. As you can see, the backlash of million of emails, support tickets and general angry internet persons on the The Internet generated more costs for Valve than the revenue of the paid Mods.

Always remember what Gabe said here: "pissing off the Internet costs you a million bucks in just a couple of days".

If the Paradox community keeps the backlash with the negative reviews, email spam and general negativity on the social media, this will literally cost million to Paradox.

And as Gabe concludes: "That's not stupidly greedy, that's stupidly stupid."

I don't know what the hell Paradox is thinking....

You can always read my thoughts above (Post 68 in this thread)

 

[Dеithwen]

Please tell me, I'm really bad at reading between the lines.

It looks like the prices were increased for the duration of the sale in order to avoid selling the products at actually discounted prices.

 

[Everstill]

Please tell me, I'm really bad at reading between the lines.

Using General cynicism, I think he means that you guys "Tried to get away with it" but unfortunately you guys had to "sorry for being caught".

But it's because we are with the blood boiling at the moment. Just like with the Steam paid mods, if you guys reconize this was a mistake and rollback, the community will calm down after a time and stop the backlash. But you need a more genuine explanation than canned messages of "miscommunication" that all other companies use.... You are Paradox, goddammit, you guys don't need PR talk with us.

 

[Darrenb209]

It looks like the prices were increased for the duration of the sale in order to avoid selling the products at actually discounted prices.

If that was the case, they would have quietly lowered it later, then apologized when someone noticed.

It's also something that makes sense. Changing prices during a sale would cause it to need to recalculate the prices, and Steam isn't exactly well known for being willing to take on extra effort, no matter how small at the best of times, never mind at a time when the actual Steam client is struggling at best.

So long as they actually keep to what has been said here, it will be clear that the prices were fixed because they were fixed, not because the sale is over.

Once more they have proved that they are willing to listen to the fans, even if the somewhat cynical part of me thinks it's only because they have to.


...This is all assuming that this guy is actually who he says he is and not some random PR guy trying to defuse things.

I'm not asking for proof by the way, I'm not sure I want to find out how they'd decide to prove it.

 

[agus92]

It looks like the prices were increased for the duration of the sale in order to avoid selling the products at actually discounted prices.

That has been done always. This time it was more than that.

 

[agus92]

...This is all assuming that this guy is actually who he says he is and not some random PR guy trying to defuse things.

I'm not asking for proof by the way, I'm not sure I want to find out how they'd decide to prove it.

AFAIK, he's using his personal account. I'ts not the first time he posts on the forum.

 

[bippukt]

Hello all and thanks for your feedback, Following up from yesterday, this will sound a bit schizophrenic but I have really appreciated the reactions from this forum. I have spent the last 24 hours reading your comments and feedback and replying to email (fredrik.wester@paradoxplaza.com for all of you who didn't know it); during this time I came to a couple of conclusions:

1. In regards to the price changes you are absolutely right. You deserve more transparency and better communication from Paradox when it comes to changing of our prices and pricing policy. Therefore I have decided to roll back all price changes made; any price changes will have to be for future products well communicated in advance. I just came off the phone with Steam and they say we can't do the roll-back before the Summer Sale is over (otherwise it would mean we have to take all Paradox products off the summer sale) but it will be done right after. For anyone who bought any of the games during this time (including during the summer sale) we will try to refund (if possible in the Steam platform) or reimburse with games of a value exceeding the difference. If none of this is possible (I do not in detail know the limits to the Steam platform) we will internally calculate the difference in revenue before and after the price change, double the value, and donate the money to the UNHCR.

2. Some of the frustration has been expressed due to our DLC policy and how we handle additional content for our games. Since the release of Crusader Kings 2 (Feb 14, 2012) we have adopted a policy where we release paid content and at the same time content for free even if you do not want to pay for the DLC. This means that if you only paid for the original game, you still have a completely different game today with thousands of additions, upgrades and changes. This doesn't mean you should stop giving us feedback on how we conduct our business but if you straight out just hate our DLC policy I respectfully say that we have to agree to disagree.

3. I have promised myself never to give in to mob mentality; it's one of the worst things I know and a terrible way to convince me. In fact, being a pig-headed CEO of a company that has grown from 7 people to 225 during time I have had the privilege to run it, I have probably from time to time been more prone to say "no" than "yes" when people gang up on me/us to make us change our minds - I guess partly by principle not to cave in due to pressure. In this case, my change of stance has been made from communicating with people who have been active in our community for 10+ years, people who spent thousands of hours in our games and coming to the conclusions you find above.

Finally - as much as I love a good conspiracy theory; to be frank, the whole "Tencent bought 5% of Paradox and now they're all greedy" and "They're now a publicly traded company and therefore do things the market wish for" is below the level of intelligence of this community. I still hold 33.3% in Paradox, I am still CEO, board member and avid gamer. All you need to know is that the buck stops here. All problems/feedback can easily be sent my way, I will not always agree but I promise to listen.

Best
Fred
fredrik.wester@paradoxplaza.com

I am speechless. And I have been proven wrong.

I don't know what really made you change as your mind, but as a long-time member (since 2008 but not very active), I can say that this restored my faith in Paradox. I think I am going to celebrate by completing my CK2 pack.

I will make a more detailed reply later with some suggestion as I have to sleep now.

 

[Fredrik II]

Using General cynicism, I think he means that you guys "Tried to get away with it" but unfortunately you guys had to "sorry for being caught".

But it's because we are with the blood boiling at the moment. Just like with the Steam paid mods, if you guys reconize this was a mistake and rollback, the community will calm down after a time and stop the backlash. But you need a more genuine explanation than canned messages of "miscommunication" that all other companies use.... You are Paradox, goddammit, you guys don't need PR talk with us.

Agreed.