Does Paradox Spread Itself Too Thin?

[unmerged(230810)]

Over in the Hearts of Iron 3 forum a Mac user started a thread complaining about the lack of support the Mac version of HoI3 is getting -- specifically that the latest version of the game is still not available for the Mac, so the game remains somewhat 'broken'. A Paradox staffer responded that they're a small team and haven't had time to update the Mac version.

I also note that a major patch which fixed many HoI3 errors remained a 'beta' patch for months (at least 6 months, maybe longer) and thus was not available over Steam -- leaving all Steam purchasers playing a broken game unless they came to the forums, discovered the patch, downloaded it and installed it manually (as I did).

I mention these facts because, according to PC Gamer's coverage of yesterday's Paradox press conference:

There are 15 new PC games being covered today that include: Magicka, Cities in Motion, Defenders of Ardania, Pride of Nations, Supreme Ruler Cold War, Sword of the Stars 2: Lords of Winter, King Arthur 2, Magna Mundi, Navar War: Arctic Circle, Crusader Kings 2, Pirates of the Black Cover, Hearts of Iron, Dreamlords Resurrection, Salem, and Gettysburg.

Of those, Gettysburg, Pirates of the Black Cove, and Salem are brand new announcements. Salem, we’re told, is Paradox’s first MMO.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/01/20/paradox-press-conference-were-covering-it-live/

Fifteen games! For a small developer?

Is that perhaps too many?

As far as I know, Creative Assembly is working on one major release, Shogun 2. They've probably got some team members doing early work on the Shogun expansion, and they might have some resources devoted to the next engine, but that's 3 games, not 15.

I imagine it's not a coincidence that CA's games are always polished in terms of interface and graphics, and always feature useful tutorials, while Paradox seems to rush things out without so much as a spell check. HoI3 is still riddled with typos and horrible grammar (not to mention a next-to-useless 'tutorial') a year and a half after release.

I don't intend to be hating on Paradox, because HoI3 is a brilliant game and I don't regret the purchase. However, I can't help but feel that it has not been and is not being given the attention it needs. I wonder if players of Vicky 2 or EU3 or other Paradox titles might feel the same way about their favorites?

Am I the only one thinking that maybe Paradox should focus their efforts and try to deliver fewer, more polished, better supported games?

 

[Teurlinx]

They publish these games, not develop them.

 

[SolSara]

Over in the Hearts of Iron 3 forum a Mac user started a thread complaining about the lack of support the Mac version of HoI3 is getting -- specifically that the latest version of the game is still not available for the Mac, so the game remains somewhat 'broken'. A Paradox staffer responded that they're a small team and haven't had time to update the Mac version.

I also note that a major patch which fixed many HoI3 errors remained a 'beta' patch for months (at least 6 months, maybe longer) and thus was not available over Steam -- leaving all Steam purchasers playing a broken game unless they came to the forums, discovered the patch, downloaded it and installed it manually (as I did).

I mention these facts because, according to PC Gamer's coverage of yesterday's Paradox press conference:



Fifteen games! For a small developer?

Is that perhaps too many?

As far as I know, Creative Assembly is working on one major release, Shogun 2. They've probably got some team members doing early work on the Shogun expansion, and they might have some resources devoted to the next engine, but that's 3 games, not 15.

I imagine it's not a coincidence that CA's games are always polished in terms of interface and graphics, and always feature useful tutorials, while Paradox seems to rush things out without so much as a spell check. HoI3 is still riddled with typos and horrible grammar (not to mention a next-to-useless 'tutorial') a year and a half after release.

I don't intend to be hating on Paradox, because HoI3 is a brilliant game and I don't regret the purchase. However, I can't help but feel that it has not been and is not being given the attention it needs. I wonder if players of Vicky 2 or EU3 or other Paradox titles might feel the same way about their favorites?

Am I the only one thinking that maybe Paradox should focus their efforts and try to deliver fewer, more polished, better supported games?

The internal team does not develop fifteen new games, we are currently working on Crusader Kings 2, Hearts of Iron 3: For the Motherland and an unannounced title. Of the fifteen games announced, we work on two of them. We are fifteen people (plus two interns) working on three games, the rest of the announced games are developed by other teams.

Edit: Emu'd

 

[Woody Man]

As Teurlinx said, they have several teams working on needed projects, most games being announced are only being published by them. Spreading themselves too thin from a business sense? Not at all, they're expanding well.

EDIT Double Emu'd

 

[gigau]

The internal team does not develop fifteen new games, we are currently working on Crusader Kings 2, Hearts of Iron 3: For the Motherland and an unannounced title.
[...]

Can we at least know when the said "unannounced title" will be announced ?

 

[unmerged(230810)]

The internal team does not develop fifteen new games, we are currently working on Crusader Kings 2, Hearts of Iron 3: For the Motherland and an unannounced title. Of the fifteen games announced, we work on two of them. We are fifteen people (plus two interns) working on three games, the rest of the announced games are developed by other teams.

Edit: Emu'd

Ah, thanks for the clarification, although I must assume all these games are being tested internally -- the idea they require no team resources is one I don't buy.

Second... this means that your quality control is, to put it mildly, lacking. Why can't you take the time to polish your in-game text, fine-tune the interface, or create a proper tutorial? Why is HoI3 still wall-to-wall typos after 18 months of release? (And perhaps more importantly, why does the company think it's okay to release games in this state in the first place? I've worked on mod teams that put more effort into proofing text...)

 

[Seli]

The internal team does not develop fifteen new games, we are currently working on Crusader Kings 2, Hearts of Iron 3: For the Motherland and an unannounced title. Of the fifteen games announced, we work on two of them. We are fifteen people (plus two interns) working on three games, the rest of the announced games are developed by other teams.

Edit: Emu'd

Technically at least four games if you include Paradox France, but that is of course with additional people as well.

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

Paradox games aren't perfect, they tend to have bugs on release, etc, but less projects and mo' money doesn't seem to automatically translate to bug-free games. Look at Civ5.

Paradox still make the best strategy games around by a mile IMO.

 

[Captain Gars]

Ah, thanks for the clarification, although I must assume all these games are being tested internally -- the idea they require no team resources is one I don't buy.

None of the internal devs with the exception of Johan spend any time on these external projects.

Second... this means that your quality control is, to put it mildly, lacking. Why can't you take the time to polish your in-game text, fine-tune the interface, or create a proper tutorial? Why is HoI3 still wall-to-wall typos after 18 months of release? (And perhaps more importantly, why does the company think it's okay to release games in this state in the first place?

Very few companies can wait to release a game until you think it's 100% done. Creative Assembly is an interesting company to mention - I wonder if all those who bought Empire agree with you... But we aim to improve our QA process and spellchecking should of course be apart of it.

I've worked on mod teams that put more effort into proofing text...)

Where you had infinite time and no costs - things we unfortunately have to take into account.

 

[safferli]

and spellchecking should of course be apart of it.

I sympathise, all those smelling pisstakes!

EDIT: That said, spelling mistakes are probably the easiest to fix once the game is out, and the community has spend hundreds of thousands of man-hours pouring over them. I guess, at least.

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

Something else to bear in mind... publishing all these new games brings more people to the forum, which makes more people look at the internal games. there are 10,000 new members here in the last month, that's phenomenal.

 

[eleinvisible]

Looking at how the CA shipped Storm Rise and Empire: TW in the same month, I'd say they work on at least 2 projects at once.

 

[LeeDub]

The internal team does not develop fifteen new games, we are currently working on Crusader Kings 2, Hearts of Iron 3: For the Motherland and an unannounced title.

*drools uncontrolably*

 

[unmerged(244600)]

Can we at least know when the said "unannounced title" will be announced ?

that would be nice. peer pressure... peer pressure... peer pressure

 

[unmerged(188040)]

I sympathise, all those smelling pisstakes!

EDIT: That said, spelling mistakes are probably the easiest to fix once the game is out, and the community has spend hundreds of thousands of man-hours pouring over them. I guess, at least.

Well, and coming from a publishing and editing background I might be biased I admit, but misspellings and poor grammar should be a major concern, as they really speak of the quality of the work in a lot of people's minds. I also don't buy into the excuse of "we are not native English speakers" because if a product is being published in English you have the responisbility as the publisher to ensure the use of that language is correct.

I hope the official policy of the company is not "we will release this with hopes the end users will for free fix all of our spelling and grammatical errors for us." If so I will be greatly disappointed.

Perhaps I'm a bit opiniated because of my careerfield, but It bothers me when something that is often an indicator of quality control, spelling and grammar, is seeminly treated as an afterthought with little signifigance. Though I guess in a business sense it doesn't matter as much as I want it to. I mean, look at my icons horrible grammar hasn't stopped me from purchasing titles.

 

[Count of Reval]

Well, and coming from a publishing and editing background I might be biased I admit, but misspellings and poor grammar should be a major concern, as they really speak of the quality of the work in a lot of people's minds.

I had a professor who said she always reads any research paper containing mistakes only until the third misspelling error. After that she stops reading and puts a paper away, because - according to her - an author has proven having no respect for the reader and she can't take such a careless person seriously in any other aspect as well.

Everybody feared her.

 

[safferli]

I had a professor who said she always reads any research paper containing mistakes only until the third misspelling error. After that she stops reading and puts a paper away, because - according to her - an author has proven having no respect for the reader and she can't take such a careless person seriously in any other aspect as well.

Everybody feared her.

Until someone found 3 grammar errors in her own working papers?

 

[Will Lucky]

Can we at least know when the said "unannounced title" will be announced ?

Rome: Augustus/Alexander's Ambition .
....I hope .

 

[unmerged(8351)]

My thought on Paradox are in the patch policy thread, but I find the idea someone would hold up CA as a good counter-example comical.

Their games have had the same set of errors even across multiple games. Auto-resolving battles still doesn't work, the battle AI is terrible, the campaign Ai has huge holes including never using sea invasions et cetera et cetera.

The TW games have I felt always over delivered on polish but under delivered on substance. Everything LOOKS really great, especially the marketing videos, but then there are no resources for fixing the underlying game.

I loved the first shogun, and played a lot of MTW, RTW/(worked on RTR as a developer) and MTW2, but each release I got more and more frustrated with the fact that known issues from previous games were still unaddressed. I could barely even stomach ETW and put just a tiny amount of time into it.

 

[unmerged(8351)]

I had a professor who said she always reads any research paper containing mistakes only until the third misspelling error. After that she stops reading and puts a paper away, because - according to her - an author has proven having no respect for the reader and she can't take such a careless person seriously in any other aspect as well.

Everybody feared her.

This professor frankly sounds like an idiot with no real academic talent. I worked in academia for a while, and most of the top notch professors I knew would laugh at such an attitude. A couple would be sticklers for grammar, but they would still read what you wrote and wouldn't even push back to much if you told them to stuff it. Of course this was in philosophy/logic where we have a familiarity with linguistics/philosophy of language and the absurdity of a concept like "correct grammar".

All that matters is getting your point across. Of course you do want to approximate acceptable grammar, to signal to your counterparty that you are educated and put time into the work (if that is important to you). But only in a computer language is following the rules exactly important. Most legal documents are filled with grammatical and spelling errors/typos and function just fine.

Personally I would love to trade 10X the grammar errors for 2X the gameplay/balance fixes. As long as it isn't interfering with my understanding of what it is saying it is of tertiary importance.