Can we take a moment to appreciate Paradox Interactive?

[Devin90]

One thing I like about Paradox, or at least Stellaris development, is that it's always moving forward.
Changes are always happening, and they are generally for the better.

Far too many devs I see design themselves into a corner and limit what they can do from then on.
With Stellaris, I see systems being totally revamped as needed, and I feel this is very good for the overall health of the game and future development.

 

[Morwys]

It might be clear, but I think it's also too academic and binary. Sure, decent products are a necessary baseline, but there are so many at least decent ones out there that it makes lumping them into two piles inaccurate. You make it seem like the difference is between 10/10 but accuses me of doing horrible things vs 2/10 but is willing to go to insane lengths to keep me as a customer. I'd frankly take good customer service over good products, because the difference nowdays is more between 9/10 but accuses me of being horrible or tries to nickle and dime for all I own vs 8/10 but is constantly doing all they can to make their product better and is willing to help me with issues while being otherwise reasonable.

Sure, the product might be better in the former case, but if there's an almost as good one out there but with a far more likeable team behind it, why would I go for the former?

Because I want the best product possible and I don't care about service. I'll take a 9/10 with horrible service over a 8/10 with excelent service every time. What's so wrong about that? It's my way of consuming stuff.
We just disagree on what we prefer, can't we leave it at that? Can't we just think differently? I accept that there's a lot of people who don't agree with me in this thread and that's okay. But I simply will not take a moment to appreciate PI because I don't think it's deserved or necessary. Why can't people just accept that not everyone thinks they're perfect? That some people think they're almost just as bad as the others?
Let's just agree to disagree, if you don't mind. I don't share the OP optimism, I don't agree with the general 'appreciative' attitude and I just manifested my opinion. Feel free to disagree.

 

[James Fire]

Because I want the best product possible and I don't care about service. I'll take a 9/10 with horrible service over a 8/10 with excelent service every time. What's so wrong about that? It's my way of consuming stuff.
We just disagree on what we prefer, can't we leave it at that? Can't we just think differently? I accept that there's a lot of people who don't agree with me in this thread and that's okay. But I simply will not take a moment to appreciate PI because I don't think it's deserved or necessary. Why can't people just accept that not everyone thinks they're perfect? That some people think they're almost just as bad as the others?
Let's just agree to disagree, if you don't mind. I don't share the OP optimism, I don't agree with the general 'appreciative' attitude and I just manifested my opinion. Feel free to disagree.

What if the service is the product, or part of it?

 

[Morwys]

What if the service is the product, or part of it?

Good question!

By "the service is the product", I assume you mean those cases when we don't buy some 'thing' but when we pay for some 'activity'. For example, a car mechanic (If I'm mistaken, I apologize). In those cases, I make a distinction between what I call "actual service" and "customer support".

The "customer support" is how well the employees or the company in general treat me whenever I need to speak to them - e.g., how polite the mechanics are. By "actual service" I mean the 'activy' itself regardless of how I'm treated - e.g. the actual car repair I'm paying for. In this case, my earlier opinion stands the same: I don't care if the mechanics laugh at me, make fun of me or disrespect me, what matters is how well my car was fixed. As I said before, the ideal would be the best of both worlds, but if I had to choose - and we often need to - a better product is always my preference. If there's no difference between a 8/10 and a 9/10, obviously I prefer the better customer support.

With that said, to be back on topic: I'd say that a lot of gamers focus too much on the "good guy developers"/"evil corporation developers" dichotomy and forget that what really matters in the end is how good their games really are, regardless if they're "evil" or not. In fact, calling a company "evil" is really unfair and childish, in my opinion. Those guys thrive because people buy their games. If you check the lists for best selling games of 2017, you'll see that most of them were involved in some kind of loot box scandal or something like it. People take it to Twitter and Youtube to bash them around... but end up buying their games anyway. If a consumer acts stupid, then it's only logical for a company to take advantage, it's naive to think otherwise. I believe that if people did less fanboyism/hating and focused on discussing the games themselves, then we'd have better results.

That's why, every time I see a "X is the best dev/publisher house! let's congratulate X!" thread or a "X is doomed, they're evil, let's bash them!" thread, my response is always the same: Let's not.

 

[James Fire]

Good question!

By "the service is the product", I assume you mean those cases when we don't buy some 'thing' but when we pay for some 'activity'. For example, a car mechanic (If I'm mistaken, I apologize). In those cases, I make a distinction between what I call "actual service" and "customer support".

The "customer support" is how well the employees or the company in general treat me whenever I need to speak to them - e.g., how polite the mechanics are. By "actual service" I mean the 'activy' itself regardless of how I'm treated - e.g. the actual car repair I'm paying for. In this case, my earlier opinion stands the same: I don't care if the mechanics laugh at me, make fun of me or disrespect me, what matters is how well my car was fixed. As I said before, the ideal would be the best of both worlds, but if I had to choose - and we often need to - a better product is always my preference. If there's no difference between a 8/10 and a 9/10, obviously I prefer the better customer support.

With that said, to be back on topic: I'd say that a lot of gamers focus too much on the "good guy developers"/"evil corporation developers" dichotomy and forget that what really matters in the end is how good their games really are, regardless if they're "evil" or not. In fact, calling a company "evil" is really unfair and childish, in my opinion. Those guys thrive because people buy their games. If you check the lists for best selling games of 2017, you'll see that most of them were involved in some kind of loot box scandal or something like it. People take it to Twitter and Youtube to bash them around... but end up buying their games anyway. If a consumer acts stupid, then it's only logical for a company to take advantage, it's naive to think otherwise. I believe that if people did less fanboyism/hating and focused on discussing the games themselves, then we'd have better results.

That's why, every time I see a "X is the best dev/publisher house! let's congratulate X!" thread or a "X is doomed, they're evil, let's bash them!" thread, my response is always the same: Let's not.

Why should we not recognize a developer for not using predatory sales pitches?

 

[Morwys]

Why should we not recognize a developer for not using predatory sales pitches?

We should. By buying their product. More importantly, we should also recognize those who do use predatory tactics by not buying their product. Being a fanboy/hater does nothing directly to affect a company; as I said, some of the best sold games last years had A LOT of bad reviews and outrage aimed at them. In the end, what really matters is their profit. I want PI to succeed, but I don't sugar coat what they do, because they need to get better. They're not perfect, they need constructive criticism in the form of financial growth, not fanboyism.
For example, I brought several new players to PI games and it was a pain to convince them to expend over 4 times what a AAA game costs in my country. That's because PI has a horrible DLC model that inflates their pricing. Some bought bundles, other stuck to the base game. So, if you ask me, PI has a DLC strategy that's unfriendly with new players. It doesn't matter to me, I have it all for all the in house products. But for a new guy wanting to start playing the older stuff like EUIV and CKII, it's really hard, specially in developing nations. And here lies a problem: A model that never changes is unsustainable. Clausewitz is getting old and it shows. Soon, the novelty, or the 'good guy' shtick will not be enough. They will need to inovate and that's expensive. They need market share and that only comes with new players. I've been here for close to ten year now and probably will be for many more years, but I'm not enough. They need someone to tell them, with their wallets, "this is good and this is bad, keep up with the good stuff". And to provide healthy feedback we need to be rational. As I said before, the removal of wormholes and warp really turned me off from Stellaris; I bought all DLC except for Megacorp, hoping I could get used to it, but I didn't. I still play it on 1.9, but it's not the same. And more importantly, I'm not a customer anymore. However, I believe it was a smart move: it brought the game more in line with the industry meta for space strategy sims, made it more friendly to newbies and casuals and probably made more people play the game. So they lost some customers, but got more out of it. Too bad for me, but in the end, I'm happy for it; it brings us closer to better games in the future. Anything that brings the world closer to a Vicky 3 is fine in my book.

Anyways, in my opinion, the closer we get to a dev, the more personal our relationship becomes and it becomes harder to recognize mistakes and wrong doings, as well as good behavior. That's why many of the haters out there started as fanboys. If we keep our distance and our comitment to a minimum, it's easier to react rationally when they do stuff we're not confortable with.

 

[James Fire]

We should. By buying their product. More importantly, we should also recognize those who do use predatory tactics by not buying their product. Being a fanboy/hater does nothing directly to affect a company; as I said, some of the best sold games last years had A LOT of bad reviews and outrage aimed at them. In the end, what really matters is their profit. I want PI to succeed, but I don't sugar coat what they do, because they need to get better. They're not perfect, they need constructive criticism in the form of financial growth, not fanboyism.
For example, I brought several new players to PI games and it was a pain to convince them to expend over 4 times what a AAA game costs in my country. That's because PI has a horrible DLC model that inflates their pricing. Some bought bundles, other stuck to the base game. So, if you ask me, PI has a DLC strategy that's unfriendly with new players. It doesn't matter to me, I have it all for all the in house products. But for a new guy wanting to start playing the older stuff like EUIV and CKII, it's really hard, specially in developing nations. And here lies a problem: A model that never changes is unsustainable. Clausewitz is getting old and it shows. Soon, the novelty, or the 'good guy' shtick will not be enough. They will need to inovate and that's expensive. They need market share and that only comes with new players. I've been here for close to ten year now and probably will be for many more years, but I'm not enough. They need someone to tell them, with their wallets, "this is good and this is bad, keep up with the good stuff". And to provide healthy feedback we need to be rational. As I said before, the removal of wormholes and warp really turned me off from Stellaris; I bought all DLC except for Megacorp, hoping I could get used to it, but I didn't. I still play it on 1.9, but it's not the same. And more importantly, I'm not a customer anymore. However, I believe it was a smart move: it brought the game more in line with the industry meta for space strategy sims, made it more friendly to newbies and casuals and probably made more people play the game. So they lost some customers, but got more out of it. Too bad for me, but in the end, I'm happy for it; it brings us closer to better games in the future. Anything that brings the world closer to a Vicky 3 is fine in my book.

Anyways, in my opinion, the closer we get to a dev, the more personal our relationship becomes and it becomes harder to recognize mistakes and wrong doings, as well as good behavior. That's why many of the haters out there started as fanboys. If we keep our distance and our comitment to a minimum, it's easier to react rationally when they do stuff we're not confortable with.

So why do you buy the better game, and not the one that doesn't have microtransactions?

And what's wrong with also recognizing them other ways?

 

[Hertzila]

Because I want the best product possible and I don't care about service. I'll take a 9/10 with horrible service over a 8/10 with excelent service every time. What's so wrong about that? It's my way of consuming stuff.
We just disagree on what we prefer, can't we leave it at that? Can't we just think differently? I accept that there's a lot of people who don't agree with me in this thread and that's okay. But I simply will not take a moment to appreciate PI because I don't think it's deserved or necessary. Why can't people just accept that not everyone thinks they're perfect? That some people think they're almost just as bad as the others?
Let's just agree to disagree, if you don't mind. I don't share the OP optimism, I don't agree with the general 'appreciative' attitude and I just manifested my opinion. Feel free to disagree.

Sure, I can agree to disagree. I can even agree to agree or disagree to disagree. No real sweat off my back.

But this is a public conversation / argument on a public forum about a topic that I have some care for. If I have something to add or I feel the need to expand on my own reasoning or argue for my case or against anothers, I will. Some of it will be in the form of "This is why I think A is a better way to go than B!" The default assumption is to keep the conversation ongoing and moving if you have something to add, right?

 

[tapewormlondon]

You know I was thinking about this just the other day, whilst I played Holy Fury. The fact that we are all still playing and immensely enjoying these games, years in some cases after release, shows that despite the flak it gets and its imperfections, that the DLC policy that Pdox has created is a great design.

Stellaris in two weeks time, will essentially be the equivalent of what Stellaris 2 would have been, except the sequel would only be in preproduction and not released until a few years from now. In fact 2.2 will Probably be much better than a sequel could have been as its a continuously evolving product.

EU4 and CK2 are also vastly different from their launch and for many, myself included have remained fresh and extremely interesting to play throughout its lifetime, which just wouldn't have been possible without the (mostly) high quality DLCs Paradox produce via their own innovations and by listening to their fan base.

The fact that they reply to forum posts still blows me away. Try posting a suggestion or god forbid a grievance on the 2k forums or other developers. Its pointless.

Anyway, Its a good formula by a good company. Long live the Platypus.

 

[Morwys]

So why do you buy the better game, and not the one that doesn't have microtransactions?

Games with microtransactions are usually not good because they have microtransactions. I don't think I ever bought one. I believe the "better game" doesn't need that kind of monetization, a far better one in my opinion is DLCs and full expansions.

And what's wrong with also recognizing them other ways?

As I said, I don't think that's really constructive. But again, that's just my opinion.

But this is a public conversation / argument on a public forum about a topic that I have some care for. If I have something to add or I feel the need to expand on my own reasoning or argue for my case or against anothers, I will. Some of it will be in the form of "This is why I think A is a better way to go than B!" The default assumption is to keep the conversation ongoing and moving if you have something to add, right?

I understand. So, let me ask you a question. Why do you care about this topic?

 

[FiddleSticks96]

One thing I like about Paradox, or at least Stellaris development, is that it's always moving forward.
Changes are always happening, and they are generally for the better.

Far too many devs I see design themselves into a corner and limit what they can do from then on.
With Stellaris, I see systems being totally revamped as needed, and I feel this is very good for the overall health of the game and future development.

Agreed. Stellaris as it is today, and especially as it will be next week, is on a completely different level compared to when it first released. Even though it wasn't that long ago the first few builds of Stellaris feel like a distant memory. Even the current faction system, shallow as it might be for the time being, is still way better than the old system that essentially boiled down to "We don't want to be slaves/purged" or "Whatever. We just do as we're told."

 

[Hertzila]

I understand. So, let me ask you a question. Why do you care about this topic?

Primarily? Because it's my main hobby and I'd rather not see it go down the drain. I'd hope instead that they keep making games that I enjoy. I'd also rather not feel like I will support something I vehemently disagree with if I buy a game. Vote with your wallet and all that.

To get more on topic, one thing that always confused me was that whole "talk is cheap" thing and how it's not worth much as a reason for not giving thanks. But conversely, doesn't that mean that giving complements and encouragement is actually very easy and doesn't take much to do, so why would you not do it? If saying "Thanks." to a dev you like will help them keep their spirits up and help them stay focused on the development, what harm is there to do it? It's not something that takes a lot to earn and could very well be something you just give to devs (or people in general) that you like, since talk is cheap and is no sweat off your back. Unless the point is that people should be absolute cheapskates and never be thankful for anything, but I don't think that's their point.

 

[Morwys]

To get more on topic, one thing that always confused me was that whole "talk is cheap" thing and how it's not worth much as a reason for not giving thanks. But conversely, doesn't that mean that giving complements and encouragement is actually very easy and doesn't take much to do, so why would you not do it?

In a broad sense, for the reasons I mentioned. I've already stated them in several comments in this thread.

In PI case specifically, because I don't think they deserve it. The reasons why I think so were stated in my first comment in this thread.

 

[Mikhail_Mengsk]

It feels strange to me to compliment someone/something for not being terrible.

I mean, yes, some big producer is bad, does bad things. PDX so far doesn't seem to take that route. Good. That's why we are still here, buying their products and adding in daily feedback hoping they fix issues/add awesome things. And they did several times. But it's not like we didn't notice: again, we are here, we are still buying their products.

This thread feels a bit fanboy-ish to me, and fanboyism is bad.

Eh, maybe i'm just being grumpy.

 

[FiddleSticks96]

It feels strange to me to compliment someone/something for not being terrible.

I mean, yes, some big producer is bad, does bad things. PDX so far doesn't seem to take that route. Good. That's why we are still here, buying their products and adding in daily feedback hoping they fix issues/add awesome things. And they did several times. But it's not like we didn't notice: again, we are here, we are still buying their products.

This thread feels a bit fanboy-ish to me, and fanboyism is bad.

Eh, maybe i'm just being grumpy.

We do let PDX know we are still their customers by buying their products, yes, and that is job security for the devs, but you can't really call an implied "thanks" as being polite. Voicing your appreciation for somebody can do wonders for their morale and self-image. Ultimately, I made this thread for the Stellaris devs and not for PDX specifically. Also, you aren't coming across as grumpy. I'm in a foul mood when I wake up and it lasts until I've eaten breakfast, so I know where you're coming from.

 

[Eled the Worm Tamer]

It feels strange to me to compliment someone/something for not being terrible.

I mean, yes, some big producer is bad, does bad things. PDX so far doesn't seem to take that route. Good. That's why we are still here, buying their products and adding in daily feedback hoping they fix issues/add awesome things. And they did several times. But it's not like we didn't notice: again, we are here, we are still buying their products.

This thread feels a bit fanboy-ish to me, and fanboyism is bad.

Eh, maybe i'm just being grumpy.

Nah I feel the same. Companies are not your freinds, brands are not your freinds. Does Paradox make an intresting product? Yep. Do I respect the Devs? Damn right I do. Is their openness and transparency welcome? also yes. But thats why I am buying (though never pre-ordering) their product.

I suppose I should go and do a positave 'things I like and want to see more of' thread at some point, but some of the way people fawn on companies that are explicitly producing a good or servace to generate profit gets rather cloying to me. Paradox is one of my favorite companies, sure, but the idea of 'brand loyalty' ultimately only serves the brand not the person. The relationship is ultimately one sided, and transactional. ( I mean if Paradox closed tomorrow I'd be bummed out for weeks. If I die in my sleep tonight they wont even notise.)

 

[amocpower]

I can still remember, that i was owerwhelmed with EU 1...I guesst its now about 20 years. Paradox make many good games and also good publisher. I give 948,70 €, across 16 Games and lots of DLC´s to paradox(and thats only on Steam) and very happy with there product. Ofcourse I get some times mad about changes, decisions or Bugs(WtT: China Theater...did they fix it?)...but they do amazing job! Thanks guys

 

[Medicine Man]

It feels strange to me to compliment someone/something for not being terrible.

I don't think there's anything wrong with taking a moment to appreciate things that are good in life.

I agree that maybe we shouldn't herniate ourselves patting Pdox on the back, but putting into words what good developers do right is a useful exercise, even for devout cynics.

Think of it as an exercise in differentiating between developers who want to make money by developing good games vs developers who want to make money at all costs.

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

I just dropped 20 bucks on their product sight unseen and even expecting it to have launch day hiccups because I trust at the end of the day I will thoroughly love the play experience. I can't show appreciation any more tangibly than that.

 

[Thure]

Ahaa, I see. So, using this logic, (for example) Iceland and Norway are American countries because they have Access to Atlantic Sea

No... by that logic Norway and Iceland would be ATLANTIC countries because they have access to the Atlantic sea. Would be new for me it the Atlantic was called 'American Sea'.