Just to play devil's advocate, there's a player benefit that a lot of people here are missing. The player gets a lot of variety for less price. If you spend $150 to buy ck2 + expansions on sale (last I saw it on steam anyway), and you buy nothing else for 15 months, then you are effectively paying $10 a month for that full ck2. But you can only play one game for that huge amount of time. I like pdx games, but i'd probably get bored if I only played one for 15 months straight. By contrast, if you paid $10 a month for usage of the entire pdx library*, you can play any game you want on any day.
* the title says 'dlc subscription' but it could easily be a subscription for the base game too.
P.S. i'm not advocating for it, I just wanted to make a point. I'm okay with the current system.
I know that I'm not 'missing' a thing. I know that I'm not missing a thing because I know which games of Paradox I own and which DLC's I own and how long I've owned them in addition to how much time I've invested into playing these games. You can get a vague idea just by looking at the icons to the left of this post. This is how I know you own Stellaris, Crusader Kings II, EU III, EUIV, Victoria 2, Prison Architect (which you may or may not have purchased before Paradox took ownership of), etc. What I don't see in those icons under your profile are DLC's. If I knew you on Steam I'd be able to see how much time you've invested into said games you own.
Now it's time for some math.
Let's say Paradox implements a $10 a month subscription. Just with that much information alone we can ascertain that anyone who subscribes ends up with a monthly bill of $10. That would be on top of any/all other monthly bills an individual might have. Who wants another monthly bill? I, for one, know I don't want another monthly bill. Especially when I know that if Paradox implements such a policy so will ALL the other game developers/publishers will follow suit. That could easily add up into hundreds of dollars a month for those who own games that are developed by various/numerous companies (EA, Kalypso, Frontier, Firaxis, OxyMoron Games, Ubisoft.... Just to name a few). I believe an average person who has an average income (give or take) simply can't afford such nor should they be forced to limit their options by choosing one or two companies to subscribe to.
Let's consider the value you get for having a subscription vs one time payments.
If you subscribe to a company and play 1 game for 1 hour then the value of that game for you was $10 per hour. If you played for two hours then your value was $5 per hour. If you played for 100 hours then your value was $0.10 per hour. Do you see where I'm going with this? Ok, in case you don't then consider the fact that in order to maintain a lower cost value for the player the player will need to maintain an average number of hours playing said company's games each month because that value of the game is in direct correlation to money spent divided by hours played. This means that each month you pay a subscription fee you must play a certain number of hours in order to maintain a certain value that you, the player, get out of said game(s). Each month you pay that $10 fee you negatively affect your overall value of said game(s).
So what value do you get for your game if you purchase it outright?
Let's say you purchase EUIV at full price (currently the base game costs $39.99; rounded to $40). Let's say you played the game for 1 hours. The value you got for your money out of the $40 purchase and played for only 1 hour is $40 per hour. I know that sounds like a lot but if you are like most people you'll play more than 1 hour. If you played for 100 hours the value you got out of the game was $0.40 per hour. Yes, I know this is still higher that in the subscription example above. But you must consider the fact that in the subscription example you must average 100 hours of play time a month in order to maintain that $0.10 per hour value. Whereas in this example you don't have that limitation as for each additional hour you play the price you paid for the game makes the value better for you. To illustrate: If you purchased the game for $40 and played for 1000 hours the value you got for your money was $0.04 per hour. That means you spent $0.04 per hour for 1000 hours of entertainment.
I, for one, have an invested amount of $225 into EUIV alone. I have also invested 3354 hours into the game alone and I have owned the game since September 2016. With that information you should be able to calculate that I would have spent $350 in monthly fees had their been a subscription policy. I would have spent more for the game if I paid a monthly subscription. The value I got out of the game is better to have purchased the game and the DLC's. My current value is $0.07 per hour of play (This is based off the hard numbers and doesn't take into account what has been gifted me nor what was purchased at discount in sales). My value is still less than what I would have acquired if I paid a subscription and as I continue to play EUIV the value that I get out of the game will improve for me. Whereas had I been paying a subscription my value would be closer to a constant and less (meaning more cost per hour).
So NO. I'm not 'missing' a thing. Thank you.
