Europa Universalis IV Subscription Now Available on Steam and Microsoft Windows

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Why do so many people here act like the Sub model is supposed to be used by the majority of players?
It isn't. It's meant for those who play the game rarely but want all the features in it when they do find time to play. they play it for a few months, then cancel it, and restart it a year or two later. Those who buy the DLCs regularly have no reason to care about it, and that's how it's meant to be.

Personally, I'd just call it Rent and not frame it as a Subscription, even if it auto-renews every month. But that's just terminology.
 
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5 USD per month per game seems kind of pricey.

I think subscription services are good to play out new games that normally I wouldn't buy at full price. I rather spend 2-3 times that per month on a service like xbox game pass, which rotates the game library. If I find a game that I like and that has replay value, I then buy it. For instance, I played The Outer Worlds vanilla on game pass and really liked it. Now that they have new DLC for it, I'll buy the bundle.

If I really like a game and all of its DLC content, I'd prefer to buy it and have "ownership" of it, than to depend on a subscription service. Which gives no guarantee of keeping the same rate a few months/years from now.

I think the rent-to-own model is more attractive (Like with Splice for music production, which I use a lot).
 
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I do think these single game subscriptions would be sweeter if for every month you spent money on subscription you'd "own" same amount worth of dlc, so after few years of subscription you'd have most of the content without it.

That said yeah, I don't have strong negative reaction as long paradox doesn't move into "live service game, let's gauge all money out of customers" direction :p (I don't think dlc is inherently predatory business practice, though I do understand why people would be annoyed by lot of expensive dlc)
 
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Paradox’s flagship grand strategy game will soon be available in an entirely new way. Europa Universalis IV’s expansion and additional content is now available via subscription letting you enjoy all of the expansions and add-ons that have been developed over the last eight years.

All new subscribers will gain immediate access to all additional content ever created for Europa Universalis IV, with no additional upfront cost. If you already own the base game and some of the expansions or content packs, this subscription does not remove that ownership, but will open up all content that you have not purchased.

Subscribers must already own the Europa Universalis IV base game. Subscription is handled in-game and can be accessed once you start up Europa Universalis IV. This is only available to players on Steam using Microsoft Windows.

Sign up now to enjoy:
  • All 14 major expansions, including the religious battles of Art of War and Chinese imperial drama of Mandate of Heaven.
  • Access to the upcoming Leviathan expansion, and all future expansions and content developed for Europa Universalis IV.
  • 3 immersion packs, adding new mechanics for Spain, Great Britain and Russian nations.
  • 9 content packs, adding new unit designs, advisor portraits and music for dozens of different nations.
  • and many more improvements to the core game experience.
This subscription will be available on 18 March 2021 for $4.99/£3.99/€4.99 per month. This subscription will automatically renew at the end of every month until it is cancelled.

This is an additional service on top of our existing model and we are not replacing anything - we're just adding another option!
 
Personally i have no problem with subscriptions and actually think it would work rather well for PDX games and it would be a nice way for new people to not buy all the DLC. what is off for me is the pricing.
5 euro a month. its 7 years and 7 months since the release of EUIV. while i know there differences in inflation and DLC size etc. over the years that would amount to 455 euro for a subscription from the getgo to now.
In the mean time theres "only" been release game + DLC according to steam for around 430 euro in the same period.

While i know this is a flawed way of looking at it due to as i mentioned inflation and changes in team/content produced over the years. Since a subscription means you dont own the game, it also means a more predictable income stream for the developer and it will atleast to some extend mean paying it forward at times. this should result in a decent discount for the consumer. Which i tbh find it very hard to see with the price set as is.
And this is even without considering buying DLC on sale instead of at release or in general not wanting/buying everything.

So for me, Concept fantastic, pricing is off. I would also like a system where you can pick titles. So price for 1 title, 2 titles, 3 titles etc. which again should also include discounts.
 
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5 USD per month per game seems kind of pricey.
5 USD per month is a good price (less than a one-day lunch) but per game can be pricey for people that play them all.

But i pay every six months a subscription for WOW :

Screenshot_20210318-115111_Chrome.jpg

Thats aprox. 10.9 USD per month, and as i said earlier, i would pay a sub for a "Paradox pass" to get all the games and their respective DLC because i play more hours/day of Paradox Games than WOW (Shadowlands is an horrible expansion after all, but i still play Classic ).....just imagine being able to play the full Stellaris or Cities:Skylines game when your "main game" is EU4 or HOI4 by paying less than a lunch/day.

But im strongly against forcing all players to be forced to subscribe to games to be able to play their games. And im not -for the record- a "Paradox shill", i have been critical of many of the bad choices they have made in the past, like Imperator or the first DLC for CK3. I just like the subscription model because forces the company to release patches (dlc) periodically and to give technical assistance and is a system far less convoluted for new players...instead of buying 46362736389900 DLC you just pay a small fee and thats it, fair and simple.
 
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oooff, 5$/€ is way too much for that.
Overall, your expansion's aren't "that" expensive.
I get it's for new people, but even then i feel it's too much for "one" game. 5$/€ for the entire in-house collection and i'd be down to play, but one game? Nope. Hard pass.
 
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It would be fair to lower subscription fees in amount of how much dlcs you already have bought. In opposite I don't see reason to pay full price for something you already purchase through another channel. Because of that, I think it is not best practice to introduce such model for so old game with so much dlcs. For completely new game without dlcs it is something I will reconsider as possibility. Also it should include base game. Oh, and what if you buy game on steam and play it there?
 
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That's awesome, thank you! Been waiting forever for this!

I can finally bring my friends into EU4 without the awkward "...buuut you need to buy $100 of DLC".

I don't have the latest expansions either because I play so rarely, but this let's me subscribe for those few weeks when I get that EU4 itch!
 
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Then buy instead. I support this initiative by Paradox based on the fact that it is a choice. If the option to buy is removed - for this or for future expansions/dlc - you will find me joining the baying mob, but as an option for customers I think it's brilliant.
How shortsighted.

If this is profitable then why wouldn't it influence their future game design?

I for one hope that they do away with DLC and focus only on this model. A unification of all the systems would minimise programming time and more importantly game design. Having a single EU4 version rather than hundreds or even thousands of combinations will eliminate stuff like the Mamluks! still not working in vanilla even after the bug was reported years ago.

Ideally something like

£5/month, after you pay say £100 then you get access to the subscription for free forever, ie basically like you slowly buy the game each month. Seems like a very small proportion of people play the game after 2 years or would keep a subscription for that long

But, then Paradox will lose income from the people who forget about it, however might I suggest a second subscription called flavour/cosmetic and then you could run that forever, and also sell cosmetics to the whales for a lot of money.
 
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It's really good that this available as an option and the price point is fair. It's not going to suit everyone, but it will work for some people. For example, a few years ago I had a job at a university, which meant I always had one month in the summer when I was between contracts. It would have been great to be able to sub for a month and get the whole back catalogue. And in any case I tend to binge on one PDX game at a time (I have no idea how people can play more than one at once given the time they take!), so if this was also rolled out for Hearts of Iron and Imperator, I'd be potentially spending £4/month for all the DLC in every game, which would be even better.

But I am very unlikely to actually buy this now as I blew my EUIV budget on last year's Humble Bundle.
 
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You gotta love how PDX solution for the issue of there being too many DLCs is to make people pay for a monthly fee to play the full game.

A great way of making money while not addressing the underlying issue, yet again.
 
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Even to the handful of friends that don't have EUIV that I've shared this with the reception hasn't been great. The price tags really aren't endearing.
 
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It will be interesting to follow how this system will develop. I am very neutral though. I do not think I will use buy any subscriptions, at least not those who are currently available. (Mainly because I already own essentially all expansions for CK2 and EU4.) However, it is absolutely possible that I could find value in something like a Stellaris subscription for example, since I have never tried it. That way I could pay 5 euros to get full access in a month and later decide if I want to continue playing or not. Likewise, I could totally see myself paying for a subscription only for a few months (over the holidays for example). But I do not think I will ever pay a subscription continually for more than let's say a year. I would much rather own the game if I plan to play it for that long. I support the initiative of game subscriptions, because it might add new ways to get your hands on the games. But I would definitely riot if game subscriptions becomes the only way to play pdx games.
 
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You really don't like to listen to your customers with regards to monetization, do you?

When you came up with the subscription idea customers told you that you should at the very least offer a subscription for all grand strategy games at once and thus provide proper value for money, since you lose access to everything the moment you cancel your subscription.

But no, here you go with just a single game for 5€/5$ per month.

This is like paying for a demo with time limit. Not even companies like Netflix offer a subscription for just one category of movies or just one TV series. Congratulations, you outdid Hollywood in terms of greed.
 
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Will we be able to continue save games once we have bought all the expansions (but not the content packs or anything else) and unsubscribed from the service or would we need to start a new save?
Also, when will the next sale be for the DLC?
 
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