Well, for me it comes down to customer loyalty and the choices Paradox has made over the years.
Talking about why I would personally pre-order.
1. Easy budgeting. I already have paid now in, but maybe that wouldn't have been the case down the road... such as needing a new tire. I need a new tire, I want Stellaris... so I probably would have held off.
2. Tangible benefits. I feel the addition of the art collectors book and the ebook (I like reading) were well worth with extra $30 to the game (I'm Canadian so the prices are a bit more) for the Galaxy edition (On top of the other things featured in the Nova edition). I might have been disappointed in Spore, the game, but I wasn't disappointed by the collector's edition's content.
Most importantly.
3. They have earned my trust over the year.
- My gateway Paradox Game was Hearts of Iron 2 with a good friend of mine back in High School. Since then, I had to scour my local game shops and venture an hour to Toronto to buy their games. Which was a pain to do. Then they moved to digital distribution, partly my reason for the fast adoption of Steam... I could finally buy games that weren't 'Call of Battlefield - Modern Trench Warfare' or solely console based. (Never really owned a console and the PC gaming market was a pain in a smaller city).
- After failures, Paradox would change their policy. Its a company, so the change is slow, but they still implemented policy, most noticeably with the release of HOI3. That was a wreck, but PI recognized this and started improving their QA process. Games such as Victoria 2 and Crusader Kings 2 weren't nearly as bad on release. (They've been improving over time)
- Excellent Post-release cycle. Like the fury of hell riding on their heels, they typically get set to fixing bugs pretty quickly and even before their DLC policy they devoted a fair amount of resources to the post-release cycle which was fantastic.
- Day 1 DLC policy. Purely cosmetic. If Paradox wanted to add more features, they either patched it in or saved it for a DLC expansion.
- DLC expansion. Helping with the post development cycle of patching their game, the dlc expansion gave further longevity to a game. In a multiplayer setting, everyone could access the host's content, even if the players did not personally own said content. A great move.
- I didn't preorder all those games aside from IPs I was very interested in... my favourite IP of Paradox Interactive to this point has been the Victoria series, and I preordered Victoria 2.
- Transparency: I am clearly seeing the game itself, bugs and all, and conscious effort to fix them and get feedback from the community. Its been a blast watching the Blorg livestream.
4. Finally. I like this new IP, I've been hoping for a decent science fiction game for a while... 'The Viceroy' and 'Distant Worlds' are great, don't get me wrong but I always wanted more and the potential to play with my friends.
I tend to have a bias for science fiction, I blame my father. Getting me into the 'Analog' magazine (would publish a host of novellas, short stories, and science news) and his collection of the Dune and Foundation series... as well as Star Trek and Star Wars films (Our New Years tradition being to marathon long movie series like Star Wars. XD)
TL;DR
They've earned my customer loyalty (dat trust), and I have a significant bias towards science fiction games.
Talking about why I would personally pre-order.
1. Easy budgeting. I already have paid now in, but maybe that wouldn't have been the case down the road... such as needing a new tire. I need a new tire, I want Stellaris... so I probably would have held off.
2. Tangible benefits. I feel the addition of the art collectors book and the ebook (I like reading) were well worth with extra $30 to the game (I'm Canadian so the prices are a bit more) for the Galaxy edition (On top of the other things featured in the Nova edition). I might have been disappointed in Spore, the game, but I wasn't disappointed by the collector's edition's content.
Most importantly.
3. They have earned my trust over the year.
- My gateway Paradox Game was Hearts of Iron 2 with a good friend of mine back in High School. Since then, I had to scour my local game shops and venture an hour to Toronto to buy their games. Which was a pain to do. Then they moved to digital distribution, partly my reason for the fast adoption of Steam... I could finally buy games that weren't 'Call of Battlefield - Modern Trench Warfare' or solely console based. (Never really owned a console and the PC gaming market was a pain in a smaller city).
- After failures, Paradox would change their policy. Its a company, so the change is slow, but they still implemented policy, most noticeably with the release of HOI3. That was a wreck, but PI recognized this and started improving their QA process. Games such as Victoria 2 and Crusader Kings 2 weren't nearly as bad on release. (They've been improving over time)
- Excellent Post-release cycle. Like the fury of hell riding on their heels, they typically get set to fixing bugs pretty quickly and even before their DLC policy they devoted a fair amount of resources to the post-release cycle which was fantastic.
- Day 1 DLC policy. Purely cosmetic. If Paradox wanted to add more features, they either patched it in or saved it for a DLC expansion.
- DLC expansion. Helping with the post development cycle of patching their game, the dlc expansion gave further longevity to a game. In a multiplayer setting, everyone could access the host's content, even if the players did not personally own said content. A great move.
- I didn't preorder all those games aside from IPs I was very interested in... my favourite IP of Paradox Interactive to this point has been the Victoria series, and I preordered Victoria 2.
- Transparency: I am clearly seeing the game itself, bugs and all, and conscious effort to fix them and get feedback from the community. Its been a blast watching the Blorg livestream.
4. Finally. I like this new IP, I've been hoping for a decent science fiction game for a while... 'The Viceroy' and 'Distant Worlds' are great, don't get me wrong but I always wanted more and the potential to play with my friends.
I tend to have a bias for science fiction, I blame my father
. Getting me into the 'Analog' magazine (would publish a host of novellas, short stories, and science news) and his collection of the Dune and Foundation series... as well as Star Trek and Star Wars films (Our New Years tradition being to marathon long movie series like Star Wars. XD)TL;DR
They've earned my customer loyalty (dat trust), and I have a significant bias towards science fiction games.
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