• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
The hate isn't unjustified, it's been building because Paradox seems to be following the same path as some other companies and it's like they're looking for a revenue stream that grants the most outlay with the minimum amount of effort and work that needs to be put in.
They're a business, not a charity, so of course they look to maximize revenue and minimize expenses. Any of us would do the same, otherwise eventually you go out of business.
 
  • 6
Reactions:
They're a business, not a charity, so of course they look to maximize revenue and minimize expenses. Any of us would do the same, otherwise eventually you go out of business.
Occasionally, there are companies, that are working for the good of society as a whole. That doesn't mean that they can turn a profit, these companies just don't squeeze their costumers with dirty tricks.

Paradox was one of these companies. Not anymore.
 
  • 6
  • 1
Reactions:
Occasionally, there are companies, that are working for the good of society as a whole. That doesn't mean that they can turn a profit, these companies just don't squeeze their costumers with dirty tricks.

Paradox was one of these companies. Not anymore.
Come on, they are a computer games company that makes fun games that people like, there is nothing deeper.

> working for the good of society as a whole
Did they ever participate in any social activities or social projects, or contributed anything to anything? Some companies do it, but as far as I know PDX never did, all their relations with the people were strictly seller/customer. I don't understand where do people get this deep special love for Paradox.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • 6
  • 1
Reactions:
@XYN I can see your confusion about my choise of words.

With "working for the good of society as a whole" is NOT about charity or social activities, it is about what your goal is, when you work. Do you want to make other people happy or do you only care for your own profit?

Obviously this is not a black-or-white answer, but there is a spectrum from companies that I think work primarily based on greed to companies that I think work primarely on the hope to make their costumers life better.

I don't understand where do people get this deep special love for Paradox.
For me, the reason is very simple. They create games that nobody else creates, and their games are the only game I want to play (except Minecraft).
I understand not liking these business practices (I for one don't like their DLC system and poor quality control), but the idea that PDX in the past was some sort of a good guy and now they are evil, that just doesn't make sense - they are fairly average as far as publishers go.
I think, as far as game companies go, Paradox was one of the better. Ubisoft or EA have a terrible reputation for good reason. And while this is, again, not a black-or-white thing, this very beginning is a steep step in this spectrum.

Anyways, we have to wait, how Paradox ultimatly reacts. There announcement is now a few days out, and has met a fair bit of criticism. Will they listen or not? And how much? Only time will tell.
 
  • 6
  • 1
Reactions:
@XYN

Anyways, we have to wait, how Paradox ultimatly reacts. There announcement is now a few days out, and has met a fair bit of criticism. Will they listen or not? And how much? Only time will tell.
The problem with judging Paradox by how they react to comments on the issue is that there are at least as many praising the idea as complaining, possibly more praising it than complaining. So no matter what they do, there are going to be people complaining that Paradox ignored the feedback they've received.
 
  • 2
Reactions:
I don't understand where do people get this deep special love for Paradox.
It comes from the 2000-2009 era, and primarily from 2001-2004 (if memory serves) when Johan was regularly putting out patches for EU2. Not just bugfixes, but major updates with improved game mechanics and new events, that would in modern Paradox terms be considered a DLC that costs money.

I can't really blame Paradox for monetizing their support for their games, though I strongly dislike how far they've gone. I hate the infinite DLC model of game releases that they started adopting with EU3 and fully implemented for CK2 and later games.

For the sake of addressing the actual topic of this thread - I guess I'm mildly against the subscription scheme. I'd never use it which is why I don't care all that much. The default-renew setup is an abomination; renewing for another month should require action by the customer each time. If Paradox's current customer base likes it (referring to comments about the EU4 version of this), shrug, OK, give them what they want. It's been clear for about 12 years now that I am not part of their target customer base... :rolleyes:
 
  • 7
  • 2
Reactions:
It comes from the 2000-2009 era, and primarily from 2001-2004 (if memory serves) when Johan was regularly putting out patches for EU2. Not just bugfixes, but major updates with improved game mechanics and new events, that would in modern Paradox terms be considered a DLC that costs money.

I can't really blame Paradox for monetizing their support for their games, though I strongly dislike how far they've gone. I hate the infinite DLC model of game releases that they started adopting with EU3 and fully implemented for CK2 and later games.

For the sake of addressing the actual topic of this thread - I guess I'm mildly against the subscription scheme. I'd never use it which is why I don't care all that much. The default-renew setup is an abomination; renewing for another month should require action by the customer each time. If Paradox's current customer base likes it (referring to comments about the EU4 version of this), shrug, OK, give them what they want. It's been clear for about 12 years now that I am not part of their target customer base... :rolleyes:
I have all the DLCs for CK2 so there is no point, but think I'll use it for CK3 if it will be available.

It might be more expensive if you subscribe every month from day 0, but if you are like me and wait a couple years before playing a new PDX game, and only play maybe 2-4 months out of a year, then subscription becomes massively cheaper than buying these infinite DLCs (and better than the alternative - not buying some and playing a game with a skewed balance full of holes).

However as I mentioned a few pages ago, this is only if they actually give CK2 some maintenance.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • 2
Reactions:
not buying some and playing a game with a skewed balance full of holes
We'll have to agree to disagree on that one. :) I wouldn't take Holy Fury if Paradox gave it away, in part because of balance concerns. I quite enjoy CK2 with just the key must-have DLCs (plus Legacy of Rome because I like Byzantium, and Horse Lords because Paradox gave it away last summer). I expect I'll do the same with Stellaris someday, and perhaps EU4 as well.

My policy is to wait until Paradox officially finishes with a game (I'll always hold a grudge over buying EU3 "Complete" [sic] Edition only to see them release two more DLCs). I play slowly and intermittently so any system where the cost scales by real world calendar time is not for me.
 
  • 3
Reactions:
Keep in mind that we're talking about a game that's nine years old (and six days). Presumably, most of the people here have been playing CK2 for years (I know I have). $5/month may not seem like much, but after years that adds up -- especially if you compare it to the humble bundle offer.

This'll probably get me some Disagrees, but the rare times I pick up DLC are almost always in bulk (and that was certainly the case for Vicky 2 and CK2). Unfortunately, if Paradox decides to end DLC bundles (and no, subscriptions don't count because you don't own them), I don't see myself getting much DLC from Paradox, just the base games.
 
Last edited:
  • 4
Reactions:
They're a business, not a charity, so of course they look to maximize revenue and minimize expenses. Any of us would do the same, otherwise eventually you go out of business.
Reputation and trust. Years to build, seconds to destroy. If this is what defines your belief as good business sense, you're only going to last about 2 years.
 
  • 9
  • 1Like
  • 1
Reactions:
playing base EU4 or CK2 or HOI4 isn’t really indicative of the game at all.
I really don't see the sense in this. They should simply lower the price or bundle the DLCs into two or three packs. A subscription is not the answer and none of us are served by Paradox dipping their toes in this.
 
  • 6
Reactions:
I do not understand the torrent of negativity that this has received, it seems like a decent solution to the paywall issue. A massive problem I ran into with CK2 when introducing it to friends is the massive DLC pile. When we played together they could benefit from me owning the DLC (Which is already a fairly generous feature). But when they then wanted to try single player, they were suddenly playing a different game, especially to convince someone this seems like a great feature.
Would it suck if this was the only way? Sure.
Do I want it for games that are still very much in development? Probably not.
But for CK2 which is basically "finished"? This seems like a great option to be able to play the finished game without having to pay for the entire development cycle.
 
  • 6
  • 1
Reactions:
I do not understand the torrent of negativity that this has received, it seems like a decent solution to the paywall issue. A massive problem I ran into with CK2 when introducing it to friends is the massive DLC pile. When we played together they could benefit from me owning the DLC (Which is already a fairly generous feature). But when they then wanted to try single player, they were suddenly playing a different game, especially to convince someone this seems like a great feature.
Would it suck if this was the only way? Sure.
Do I want it for games that are still very much in development? Probably not.
But for CK2 which is basically "finished"? This seems like a great option to be able to play the finished game without having to pay for the entire development cycle.

As people have already said in this thread. The worry is that if this turns out profitable enough with CK2, they might introduce it to the new games. What if it becomes the only way to get and play DLC at one point? Or even the games themselves?
Or worse yet, what if eventually you have to buy a monthly Paradox subscription to play any of the games? I don't wanna pay for all that HOI, EU or VIC stuff just to be able to play the next instalment of Stellaris, or the newest CK DLCs.

Of course, right now nothing points towards things ever becoming that bad. Maybe, hopefully, this will always remain an optional thing. But this could be a testing of the waters to expand the subscription into being necessary, a fist small step into that direction.
So people have the right to give negative feedback for this, in hopes that it will prevent the model from becoming mandatory.

I want to give PDX the benefit of the doubt, that this won't turn mandatory, but I'm still worried about it.
 
Last edited:
  • 11
  • 1
Reactions:
The nice thing about these choices by Paradox is you can choose not to give them your money. You can spend it somewhere else. On something else.

This is better than requiring the player to spend hundreds of dollars on a single game, just to unlock all the content in that game.
 
  • 6
  • 1Like
Reactions:
The nice thing about these choices by Paradox is you can choose not to give them your money. You can spend it somewhere else. On something else.

This is better than requiring the player to spend hundreds of dollars on a single game, just to unlock all the content in that game.
That's quite true. Though something to keep in mind, if you want to draw customers you make an incentive to draw customers. If hundreds of dollars of DLC is the problem, then as the game ages you should be dropping the price on the oldest stuff to get new people to buy the product. CKII is over 9 years old now the 'whales'(aka people who buy extra content day one) are long since gone onto other titles, and really the entire bundle including the DLC should be around $30-40. It receives almost no support, no fixes, no core updates. The last core update is moving onto year 3.

If the games in general go into subscription, it will increase piracy. If they keep the price high while offering no incentives, again all they're doing is increasing the possibility of it being pirated. And since people know that the game is likely going to get DLC hand over fist and it costs 1/3 the price of a new game without adding 1/3 of the content, it will increase piracy. It also doesn't help that 7-8 year old content is still selling for $18, if that didn't recoup costs within the first year they're also massively misreading the market.

Piracy as GabeN puts it is a "service problem." And he's right. I'll bet a shiny $2 coin(cdn - actual value $0.38USD) that if they sold the game for $40 with all the DLC, they would make more sales in the first 30 days then all of 2020, and would probably increase the customer base by 30%
 
  • 7
  • 1
Reactions:
I really liked this idea as it's a hard game to convince people to try once they see the price tag of the DLC
but, so far everyone I've suggested this too has been more against it than they were that before so idk
 
  • 2
Reactions:
I think a better way would be to just make the old dlc cheaper and eventually free

50% price after 1 year,
Another 50% off after 2 years
Then free

Long time players will still buy new full price $20 dlc to avoid waiting atleast a year for cheaper prices
New players won't be scared of $300 dlc on a $40 game, generating more sales and players (an future full price dlc buyers)

With a subscription, you'll wait 6 month ($30 subscription), for a $10 dlc
Nobody will buy a game for $40 that also has a subscription. Not even mobile games are this bad
 
  • 6
Reactions:
Could you reduce the price proportional to how much of the DLC we already own? Mind that I'd probably still not subscribe, since I'd still rather see the DLCs get discounted properly. The only things I don't own are the bits and bobs you cut out to sell separately from the DLCs that actually have meaningful content.
 
  • 1
Reactions: