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Please remember that what we are doing right now is a test.

Some people have been requesting a statement on our plan for this, but there is none. Our plan is to run this test and see how it works out before thinking what this could mean for the future.

This thread is also getting a bit too long and things are starting to go in circles a bit, so please prioritize using agree and disagree on previous posts rather than repeating what has already been said. This way your feedback will be much easier to process. Thank you!

And as always. We appreciate your passion for this 7 year old game, it's invaluable to us. But please try to keep a constructive tone, thank you!



I wrote a post couple hours ago but since you are running a test, here is a basic free telemetry for you :)

  • I purchased EU IV on 7 Apr, 2017 @ 10:14am PDT. I have 37 hours of play time.
  • Crusader Kings II was part of the purchase. I have 13 hours of play time
  • I had no interest on CK II those days so it was laying down on my Steam backlog.
As you can see, I am not a 'pro gamer', Twitch 'stream'er, Youtube 'Let's Play'er or a Paradox evangelist/enthusiast. I am just your targeted "new player" type. I just like grand strategy games and whenever i find a free time, i play them for just to clear my mind and have some fun.

Like a month ago i had an urge to give CK II a chance. Damn i have so much fun and decided to give some $$$ or £££ on DLC's. Just my luck, you decided a 2020 Lunar New Year Sale discount on DLC's.

Let's have a look:

CKII_DLC.PNG


White ones are in my wishlist. Total value is 154,5‬0 TL (~26.02 USD / ~23.54 €)

I can and will afford those DLC's. If these were included on a monthly subscription, i would never ever think about giving a dime.

We evolved from "hunter-gatherer" human societies in terms of antropology. So we hunt for ideal things and gather them.

  • In this screenshot, my brain says: "I hunt for ideal price, these are ideal prices. I'm going to gather them. Even i play it or not".
  • If these were on your desired subscription model, my brain would say: "These are not yours, you just borrowed them. So why are you paying monthly for a game you play occasionally?"
To provide an answer to your test, i prefer pay once and forget. I don't want to see "Paradox Interactive" on my CC bill every month/year.

Long story short: just listen to your core human user base alongside your fancy and trendy telemetry stuff.
 
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I wrote a post couple hours ago but since you are running a test, here is a basic free telemetry for you :)

  • I purchased EU IV on 7 Apr, 2017 @ 10:14am PDT. I have 37 hours of play time.
  • Crusader Kings II was part of the purchase. I have 13 hours of play time
  • I had no interest on CK II those days so it was laying down on my Steam backlog.
As you can see, I am not a 'pro gamer', Twitch 'stream'er, Youtube 'Let's Play'er or a Paradox evangelist/enthusiast. I am just your targeted "new player" type. I just like grand strategy games and whenever i find a free time, i play them for just to clear my mind and have some fun.

Like a month ago i had an urge to give CK II a chance. Damn i have so much fun and decided to give some $$$ or £££ on DLC's. Just my luck, you decided a 2020 Lunar New Year Sale discount on DLC's.

Let's have a look:

View attachment 540793

White ones are in my wishlist. Total value is 154,5‬0 TL (~26.02 USD / ~23.54 €)

I can and will afford those DLC's. If these were included on a monthly subscription, i would never ever think about giving a dime.

We evolved from "hunter-gatherer" human societies in terms of antropology. So we hunt for ideal things and gather them.

  • In this screenshot, my brain says: "I hunt for ideal price, these are ideal prices. I'm going to gather them. Even i play it or not".
  • If these were on your desired subscription model, my brain would say: "These are not yours, you just borrowed them. So why are you paying monthly for a game you play occasionally?"
To provide an answer to your test, i prefer pay once and forget. I don't want to see "Paradox Interactive" on my CC bill every month/year.

Long story short: just listen to your core human user base alongside your fancy and trendy telemetry stuff.

Can we please not denigrate any other research methods beyond what people on this forum say? I don't think a subscription service is the best idea, but the game's userbase is way larger than this forum.
 
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Can we please not denigrate any other research methods beyond what people on this forum say? I don't think a subscription service is the best idea, but the game's userbase is way larger than this forum.
I didn't mean denigrating telemetry or any kind of metrics. I just wanted to express my opinions. This whole thread on this forum aims that, doesn't it?
 
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Yes, but your phrase "fancy and trendy telemetry" is really reminiscent of lots of arguments against scientific measures and other such things.
This is getting off the track and @BjornB will be angry :)

I meant "Please Paradox, just don't rely on only computer based telemetry. Those can be deceptive, Human psychology is credible as some computer analysis. Hear us, we, human beings. Most companies are using technology and science based metrics nowadays, but they are ignoring their target audience: the human. Don't fall into that trap" in short using terms "fancy" and "trendy".
 
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It's exactly this, of course. The profit-motive is the only reason companies do anything.
That's not necessarily a bad thing or a sign of greed. That's simply how companies operate and in most cases can provide more and better goods and services to their customers. One can easily predict that a more steady flow of revenue would provide better quality DLC and perhaps allow them to hire more devs,which will speed up the process of development.
 
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A subscription method... where you are subscribed until the total amount of money reaches how much it would cost to buy all the DLC would make sense. You can play the DLCs without paying full price. Until you have paid full price at which point you own everything.

But if this is just... Hey you get an indefinite subscription until you cancel it. Then no. This is worse than having a million DLCs IMHO.

HOW exactly does this work? If I can subscribe and ill get the game and DLCs when I paid the total amount whenever that happens, then cool. I might give it a try. If not then... no thanks. Just sounds like a bad idea.
 
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That'd be the absolute best way to do this, and honestly seems like... well an amazing way to do it. IF they decide to do it that way.

But there is more profit in just having indefinite subscription (unless people cancel it early... I bet Paradox would have made less money on I:R if it was sub based since people would cancel so fast.) so I somehow doubt that'll be done?

Depends on what their aim is, one can hope for them actually aiming to lower the bar to entry.
 
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That'd be the absolute best way to do this, and honestly seems like... well an amazing way to do it. IF they decide to do it that way.
Maybe the Money could be used for all Products in the paradox store, like other games so you can subscribe and later purchase something new:)

I think it is a rather fair way to do business, but if it is sustainable I don't know.
 
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Yeah if anything that sounds like too good of a deal for people. Then again its not counting discounts, or I doubt it would? Well pointless to speculate but it could be an amazing system.

Or it could be awful and just be what you'd expect out of a subscription. It's still all up in the air it seems.
 
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The subscription model makes sense since EU4 already has a pseudo-subscription modernization system. Paradox's grand strategy games are not normal games. They are most comparable to niche enthusiast software like Train Simulator (which makes EU4 look cheap). A typical game gets some patches around release and then maybe a few more for an expansion pack some years down the line. EU4 in comparison is on the 30th major patch and has regular major balance changes and reactions to community feedback. Getting the "full-experience" costs more than triple-A games, but that's because people are willing to pay for it. We are enthusiast, after all. Nobody else on the market can make games like these.

The issue is that the DLC system makes everything overly compartmentalized. The quality of the game suffers because features are spread out between DLCs that must function independently, and thus will not interact. That's besides the added development cost to make sure that every single combination of every DLC being activated/deactivated works correctly. That and the high cost of entry for new players are the major flaw of the current DLC system. And no, just making old stuff cheaper won't solve anything. That will only decrease revenue and lead to less development being done. That's like the old expansion-based model of EU3, which wasn't updated nearly as often (because that model made less money). The current DLC model is a necessary evil.

However, if you could transfer all the current revenue into a subscription model than the game quality would benefit. You'd no longer need to compartmentalize each DLC release and add stupid tick-box mechanics which have nothing to do with the rest of the game. It would also make the barrier for entry much lower and remove one of the major complains about the game (look at all that scary expensive DLC!). Business-wise it's a perfect rational decision and something I realized by myself quite a while ago. It would also make the game itself better. The key is the execution. The suggestion to copy ESO's subscription model seems like an interesting one.
 
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I understand why a Subscription system might be appealing, the massive list of DLCs that build up over time eventually make the games unappealing to those who didn't join it early and buy them as they came out.

However, applying such a system to an existing game raises some headaches: as someone who has bought all/most DLCs for a lot of PDX titles, will I continue to keep them once things switch over to being subscription based(they better, I'm pretty sure it would be illegal in many places if you took them away)? will I need to pay the subscription to acquire future updates/features/changes that otherwise would have been DLC? if so do I get a discount for my past contributions? or will everything going available in both DLC and Subscrition formats, so I can take whichever I prefer? if someone subscribes long enough that their total spent on it adds up to the total price of the base game and DLCs do they unlock it as a full purchase(actually that doesn't sound like a half bad system, so long as we can trust you to keep track of their payments accurately, and you don't play keep-a-way by adding new DLCs at prices that outpace the rate of subscription fees collected between them)?

if this is how future games, such as CK3, are developed exclusively then that fine, I'll know what I'm buying(or not) and be able to judge it fairly... which would be not at all, since payed subscriptions make me anxious about maximizing use before I loose access... and I don't play PDX games frequently enough anymore to really justify paying every month for the privilege, especially not if I need one for each individual game.
 
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Haven't read the thread, but I just saw the RPS story so I'm poking my head in to say that it's highly, highly unlikely I would play a subscription-based game.

Granted, I used to say that I would never pay for DLC and I ended up buying most of the DLC Paradox releases for the games I've owned. But Paradox has been the exception rather than the rule, because generally the base game has been interesting enough to whet my appetite for more.

That being said, those are one-time purchases. I typically load up my Steam wallet and then wait for the DLC to go on sale (exception being C:S, as their DLC pricing seems to offer more value). But when it comes to subscriptions .... well, I already pay for Netflix, Hulu, etc. At some point, I have to say "no, I can't afford anymore." I waited out Disney+ until they offered a bundle package with my existing Hulu subscription. I've signed up for CBS because of the Picard series, but I'm likely to cancel that when the Picard season ends. I don't think I could do that with a game.

I think I understand the appeal of a subscription model to a game publisher (steady stream of income rather than peaks and valleys influenced by releases), but there's only so many subscriptions the consumer can afford. This isn't to stamp my feet and say Paradox's pricing model *has* to align with what I want. Paradox has gotta do what it's gotta do. But I don't think I'd be coming with it.
 
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I saw this in a video by RadioRes, which is how I heard of this at first, and I think he sums up my opinion on the matter in this quote:

"I've been using XBOX Game Pass for PC lately and their price point is great, but they do offer a ton of games. So in my opinion, the best thing would be if Paradox can figure out a way to monetise the subscription service for all Paradox Development Studio games."
(Sidenote: I personally do not use XBOX Game Pass.)

However, that's the only thing supporting the idea of a subscription service. If it was limited just for a game like EU4, for the sake of example, then I would be against the idea for the sole reason that if there were more 2019-type years, which had no DLC releases whatsoever, then the subscription service would be a total waste of both money and time because I can just buy the DLC that I want, maybe during the time of a Steam Sale, and keep them for as long as I live and save a lot more money that way.
 
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Please remember that what we are doing right now is a test.

Some people have been requesting a statement on our plan for this, but there is none. Our plan is to run this test and see how it works out before thinking what this could mean for the future.

This thread is also getting a bit too long and things are starting to go in circles a bit, so please prioritize using agree and disagree on previous posts rather than repeating what has already been said. This way your feedback will be much easier to process. Thank you!

And as always. We appreciate your passion for this 7 year old game, it's invaluable to us. But please try to keep a constructive tone, thank you!
Well, as much as it is messy, I would say that a long repetitive thread on this site is probably more constructive than a slew of negative reviews on steam , as has happened in the past when people got passionate and didn't feel heard otherwise.
 
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Why is it a slap in your face to offer you access to ALL dlc for X money per month?

Is it somehow worse than insisting on you paying for them all first?
With all due respect,, ,that is unfortunately seems a bit of a strawman argument, considering there are many options between paying full release price for all dlc and making a subscription model. As has been said before in this thread, the suggestions of creating a price reduction system for older dlc that after they are two or three years get rolled into the base game or at least getting the older dlc bundled into a significantly cheaper legacy package are such possibilities. Also, if you are giving away free dlc for ck2 as well as making the base game free, these are possible strategies, if this is truly about getting newer players up to speed , and not about creating a consistent revenue stream through subscription.
 
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That's not necessarily a bad thing or a sign of greed. That's simply how companies operate and in most cases can provide more and better goods and services to their customers. One can easily predict that a more steady flow of revenue would provide better quality DLC and perhaps allow them to hire more devs,which will speed up the process of development.
Or it's about the fact that it makes stockholders happier.
 
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