You really can't assume that the majority of players are NEETs or are mentally/emotionally handicapped.
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Example of how another company treats suggestions from players
- Thread starter StefanFan
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Let's face it, Paradox by far isn't the worst company in the Video Game industry and are capable of self-awareness, but I still feel that the people in charge of PR and CM doesn't understand how a niche game community is and reac,t usually some of devs do their jobs better (Even if they aren't supposed to do it) and seems the only ones being genuinely invested in the game (That's my feeling, but since I'm rarely on PDX Plaza my point of view maybe less valuable);
And yes, part of the reason I do rarely suggestion (Apart from obnoxious "Belgium formable nation" and nerfing some flavor events, because well I'm pretty toxic in that subject), I play usually with a french-speaking community (With all-kind type of players) on Discord, where sometimes we have serious and constructive topics on why and how certains mechanics do sucks, what can be add,...Most of the ideas aren't that dumb or breaking the game or are useless enough to be not consider;
But no one of us wants to do a suggestion on the forum, because first the non-english forums are ultimate trash and it seems pointless to post it on the english-speaking forum.
(For an another paragraph I wanted to talk about why some people decides by purpose to get an illegal version of the game or some of the DLC's, especially since the launcher give an exploit for DLC's cracking, but I guess it's pretty forbidden to talk about that here)
Anyway, I'm sure I wasn't the most usefull in that topic, but I wanted to say something
And yes, part of the reason I do rarely suggestion (Apart from obnoxious "Belgium formable nation" and nerfing some flavor events, because well I'm pretty toxic in that subject), I play usually with a french-speaking community (With all-kind type of players) on Discord, where sometimes we have serious and constructive topics on why and how certains mechanics do sucks, what can be add,...Most of the ideas aren't that dumb or breaking the game or are useless enough to be not consider;
But no one of us wants to do a suggestion on the forum, because first the non-english forums are ultimate trash and it seems pointless to post it on the english-speaking forum.
(For an another paragraph I wanted to talk about why some people decides by purpose to get an illegal version of the game or some of the DLC's, especially since the launcher give an exploit for DLC's cracking, but I guess it's pretty forbidden to talk about that here)
Anyway, I'm sure I wasn't the most usefull in that topic, but I wanted to say something
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Every time I see this kind of thread I see the same knuckledraggers going on about how horrible Paradox is... never mind Wargaming, Gaijin, Bioware, Blizzard, EA, Pirahna Games (even though I do like their games), Bethesda, Valve (yes they're still a gaming company, somewhat), Epic, and probably every Japanese gaming company in existence (at least in regards to their treatment of the North American market).
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There is nothing against being critical if it's a game you love, and see or feel it is going downhill for whatever reason.
I think your reference to Wargaming is spot on. A huge fan-base being disappointed from 2015 onward. They made an epic game (WoT) by probably sheer luck of having the right people and tech at the right time and are just pissing on the game for years now to squeeze all the money out. Such a shame and so unnecessary. I don't say it's this bad at PDX but it feels very much the same at least.
Why is it, when you are lucky enough to find the holy grail or something close, the game developer is often sold to investment bankers and happily sell shares, instead of staying independent, being proud of the product. I would think just water the plant and make it into a healthy tree?
Here fyi from wiki regarding Paradox Interactive "investment banking" practices as of 2016:
On 31 May 2016, trading in Paradox Interactive commenced on Nasdaq First North under the symbol PDX.[14] The initial price offering was 33 per share kr (US$3.96)[15] valuing the company at 3,485 million kr (US$420 million). Paradox set aside about 5% of the shares to allocate to Tencent, valued at about 174.24 million kr (US$21 million).[16] Wester continued to hold 33.3% of the shares of the company, while investment firm Spiltan held to 30.5% of the shares.[16] Finances created by the offering allowed Paradox to begin several acquisitions of various studios and intellectual properties.[16]
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You realize that those aren't investment banking... that's just pure investment, right? Furthermore, a 5% share isn't anywhere near a controlling amount. At most it means that Tencent is interested in providing an avenue to the Chinese market for Paradox Interactive games. If Paradox truly was selling out, Tencent certainly had the money to buy them out entirely. Furthermore, what most people forget is that before Tencent even gained sole ownership of Riot Games, they had majority stake for a long ass time. I mean near a decade now. So all that time League of Legends was developed under majority ownership by Tencent. Tencent were incredibly hands off with the whole thing. There'd have been a huge uproar you would have heard about if they weren't.
If we're talking about the investment firm Spiltan, that's been the case for nearly a decade now. If you have an issue with them, you have an issue with PDX in general at that point.
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First of I didn't know Spiltan was in it for 10 years now. But I have a lot of experience regarding investment firms taking over companies in general and for most it means short term visions and squeezing money out as fast as possible. Besides that, going for public stocks often means more short term goals, as that keeps the holders happy. I don't know if this is true for Paradox but I just wanted to highlight the change as of 2016. Thx for your reply.
And in what way does Wargaming, Gaijin, Bioware, Blizzard, EA, etc. being bad too prevent us from criticizing Paradox for their fuckups?
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It adds perspective. It's all well and good to criticize issues, but people in the forums often go beyond that and act like Paradox is doing an awful, horrible job compared to the rest of the industry.
It only means that if you let outside investors have majority stock. Spiltan has been invested in the company since before going public, and combined with the CEO that's 65% of stock roundabouts, giving them majority. Public stock for them purely is a means of increasing funds available to them to invest in development studios such as Hairbrained Schemes, which speaks of a long-term outlook. They don't have major stockholders that would be in a position to pressure them to suddenly change their entire company culture other than Spiltan, who have not acted in a short-term manner such as that.
If that continues to be the case should Spiltan get new leadership would be a legitimate question, but the current situation is positive for Paradox regarding its ability to act independently.
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People don't say that Paradox is " is doing an awful, horrible job compared to the rest of the industry", they are saying that they are doing an awful, horrible job period. The rest of the industry can do whatever it wants and stoop as low as it wants. As long as PDX doesn't stop doing stupid stuff we'll continue to call them out on it.
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About Paradox's customer treatment, its a strange situation. Issues like the launcher situation, empty games on launch (Stellaris, Hoi4, and Imperator all had sup-par launches), one of the most aggressive (non-cosmetic) DLC policies on the market, and increasingly alarming internal issues (see: Glassdoor page). On the other hand, they're not buying and gutting studios, the games they release are at least *mostly* functional, and the DLC policy is at least not predatory per say. They're fairly middle of the road in terms of developer/publishers, but the issues they do have, they've got really bad. I think they can do a lot more towards customer treatment and general development quality (why do 5+ year old major UI bugs get no attention after nigh on a dozen reports but 2 week old minor 'exploits' are patched instantaneously without having a single complaint?) and the incredibly tone-deaf forum responses to said issues really needs to be addressed. If the devs are truly facing all of these issues with bug fixing (ignoring the years of mismanagement that lead to this state), at least be open with us about that. Don't leave the customer in the dark for 5+ years about why the UI is lying to the player or why the AI continues to actively sabotage itself to annoy the player.
What really grinds my gears about these issues is how willing people are to overlook and ignore the obvious (and often admitted) faults because 'the rest of the industry is worse'. I do not understand why so many people feel the need to whiteknight for a multimillion dollar company that's repeatedly said that they care more about sales than reviews and whose CEO is taken from the online gambling industry. These people aren't even saying things like "yeah I know its bad but" just absolute acceptance of these many issues as not even problematic.
What really grinds my gears about these issues is how willing people are to overlook and ignore the obvious (and often admitted) faults because 'the rest of the industry is worse'. I do not understand why so many people feel the need to whiteknight for a multimillion dollar company that's repeatedly said that they care more about sales than reviews and whose CEO is taken from the online gambling industry. These people aren't even saying things like "yeah I know its bad but" just absolute acceptance of these many issues as not even problematic.
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It always amazes me at how alarmist you guys get. Too much stress worrying about shit that isn't actually happening. Oh, and next person who complains about the DLC policy is going to make me fall out of my chair laughing. Oh god forbid one out of twenty players has to buy the DLC, then host a game where players who don't have it can all play the DLC for free. Woe is me.
I haven't had a steady job that's lasted longer than a year over the past decade and I can still afford the "horribly expensive" DLC. Maybe try spacing out your buying and getting them when on sale rather than complaining constantly about some of the cheapest content per hour of playtime on the entire market.
I haven't had a steady job that's lasted longer than a year over the past decade and I can still afford the "horribly expensive" DLC. Maybe try spacing out your buying and getting them when on sale rather than complaining constantly about some of the cheapest content per hour of playtime on the entire market.
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Paradox listens to feedback. They're changed course on something they were doing as a direct result of feedback many times. But this does not and never will mean taking every single suggestion from every single player. It has to be obvious to you that, for one thing, not every player wants the same thing. It would be literally impossible to incorporate every suggestion given that many of them are directly contradictory of each other. Second, not every idea fans have is viable or good. I've seen a lot of smart, level-headed analyses on this site, but I've also seen a lot of half-baked opinions. Paradox would make a terrible mish-mash of a game if they reacted to everything.
Perspective is not a good comparison. Just because your neighbor's trash is smellier than yours doesn't mean licking your dumpster is healthy. Specially so when it's an entirely subjective matter.
And besides, shitting on EA's been growing old. Their development process is pretty industry-standard at this point, so the only thing to complain about them is DLC creep and microtransactions. Coincidentally, DLC creep is also the most remarkable thing about all Paradox games, and with the "We recommend you play tag X with music pack Y" buttons and the literal crime that is S:GC, microtransactions are also becoming part of it.
Another crappy comparison. We all know Riot Games isn't the best company to rely on for business practices and handling the fanbase. Their saving grace is not charging you, but they're also the ones who have had internal issues of sexual harassment, told an entire subreddit of fans to shut up over their "200+ years of collective game design experience" (only to be proven wrong immediately after) and have, as one of their chief designers, a guy so hated by the community he's become a meme after saying he intentionally does not make champions fun to play against.
That, and Tencent also tried to push Riot Games into making a mobile game that they didn't want to make, prompting Tencent to make their own mobile MOBA with League assets for the Chinese market without contacting them, so it wasn't quite hands-off. It's true, though, that blaming investors is a bad call - there is no conspiracy here, no rich reptillian trying to extort us. The issue is in Paradox's own culture, and the shareholders don't do much other than provide them the liquidity that they need to act smug and confident.
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