Experimentation
- Thread starter BjornB
- Start date
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Yes how could you possibly survive if someone else was offered an alternative payment option. It literally makes the game completely unplayable when someone might chose a subscription model over paying for DLC's.
- 1
Except that the staff was caught lying on different occasions about the implementation of said system, so people are rightfully angry and freaking out. Is it so hard to just read the entire thread and understand the position of other people?
- 1
- 1
I think this is a positive developement if pdx keeps charging for the base game, if the base games are free in the future it's probably downhill from there as they need to invent new ways for charging for stuff. Mentioning the biggest positive could get me banned.
- 1
I saw a post by a forumite here suggesting a subs model about 3 years ago. Laughed my head off at the absurdity of it. I mean as if a company would do that for one strategy game....well...Christ alive.
One of the biggest advocates of your DLC policy here, and I tell you something, if I was subscribed to a game, I want content and lots of it, regularly, of high quality and I would want refunds on a subscription when patches or updates break the game. Im buying time from you, not the game. If I can't play it, I want reimbursements on that lost time. Im no longer buying a product from you, I'm buying a service. If that's the case, the service better be good.
Imagine the sheer outrage of Imperator if that was a subs model "when is the content out", "When is the content out", "Whens the ocntent out" etc etc flooding the forums
I get where you are going with this, but I dont think its going to work as you anticipate. Its got more potential headaches in it than the problem you discovered about standardizing the game design for people without certain DLCs. I think its going to bite you firmly in the backside if im honest.
Just change the pricing of the older DLCs for heaven's sake!
One of the biggest advocates of your DLC policy here, and I tell you something, if I was subscribed to a game, I want content and lots of it, regularly, of high quality and I would want refunds on a subscription when patches or updates break the game. Im buying time from you, not the game. If I can't play it, I want reimbursements on that lost time. Im no longer buying a product from you, I'm buying a service. If that's the case, the service better be good.
Imagine the sheer outrage of Imperator if that was a subs model "when is the content out", "When is the content out", "Whens the ocntent out" etc etc flooding the forums
I get where you are going with this, but I dont think its going to work as you anticipate. Its got more potential headaches in it than the problem you discovered about standardizing the game design for people without certain DLCs. I think its going to bite you firmly in the backside if im honest.
Just change the pricing of the older DLCs for heaven's sake!
- 1
I'm usually morally against the subscription model (specially for games that do not have ongoing expenses, like server cost.) This idea though might be a moral version of implementing it. What about a "rent to own" process, where people who have spent 1.2 - 1.5 times the price of the game (more than $200) on subscription, would receive a copy of the game.
- 1
.png){kind=avatar}
It's not about no longer having access to the games we own, it's about the fairness of such a system, and how much worse it can be abused down the line. You spend, say, $17 through humble bundle to own all of EU4. That's nice. The bundle goes away, you're enjoying a game, then hey, your friend wants to play too. But in order for him to play, and have all the DLCs, he has to Sub now. So he subs, for $10 a month. After the second month, he's already paid more than you did for the game. On the forth, he's paid twice a much, and on and on. Worse, he can't really stop subbing to buy the game himself, cause a sub is just $10, and buying the game an DLC is over $300+. It doesn't matter it's been 5 years and spent a total of $600 on the game, it was bled out over years with the little money he has left over each month to spend on games. He can't just pull $300 out of his butt all at once. He's now trapping, having to pay the $10 each month to play, losing more and more money over time. And you? You only spend $17 once and not a cent more. That sounds very fair, doesn't it?
I disagree, it shouldn't be 1.2 - 1.5 more than the price, cause remember that the games and DLC go on sale too. So the 'Price' is always flexing, and we really don't need an other Sony, where physical stores and every other platform holds sales all the time, but Sony rarely ever lets games drop full price. (Heck, Fallout 76 is still full priced $60 on PS4...).
There is also something else we've mostly ignored and not many people put thought into. We're namely arguing the price of us owning the game eventually, either through a sub, or lower costing DLC. But say we did do a Sub system. What exactly guarantees we'll get more content, that was created better, and much more often? The money goes to the Parent Company, Paradox, not directly to the Dev for whatever game we're sub to/playing. How do we know they will actually use our money to improve the games? What's stopping them from, say, Putting down a Sub for each Strategy game, CK3, EU4, HoI4 and so on. Then collecting all that money and pumping into a new game you have to Sub to in order to access and play and you can't buy the game or any DLCs.
Will the DLCs actually have more content than say a single feature? Or 5 buttons that add passive useless buffs? Or just Cosmetic Skins which has no gameplay impact and yet they spent time and money making anyways? Will they still pull a EU4, where it looks like they Release a DLC with a Theme, then cut out the cosmetic part to sell for half the price of the DLC. That's what it looks like anyways. Would that still be a thing to try and nickle and dime more money out of you?
For all we know, they could remove access to buying the game for new players, force a Sub to access and play, and not actually change anything Devolpment wise, hording all the new money to spend how they want, and not spend it to improve the game at all. We don't know. We have to blindly trust them, which they are a company that wants to make as much money as possible, as we can SEE with how horrible and overpriced their DLCs for every Strategy game are. Which is why we're trying to force it to where if they DO do a a Sub, that it is much more Consumer Friendly, and we still get to own the games so we can Opt out without having to waste a whole lot of money. Much more over time than we spent actually buying the games, especially if the games were on Sale, or in Humble Bundle.
- 1
It's not just an alternative payment option, it's a way to open the door for using subscription models for all their games, and eventually exclusively. While you may not think it's a big deal now , doesn't mean it won't be.
- 1
This is basically a slippery slope fallacy if I ever seen one.
Even more so because making their quite frankly niche games purely subscription based (And thus making a relatively small audience even smaller) is about the worst possible move they could go for both economically and PR wise. They'd have to be absolutely mental.
- 1
They arrived at the subscriber model because someone from marketing thought that the season pass was a really good idea and what if we had a permanent season pass. Like the season pass wasn't widely derided on release, and then immediately walked out to more content because it was obvious their original plan was garbo.
With a subscription model you don't have that kind of onus to deliver a quality product.
Rent-to-own is the only way to deliver this kind of product with any sense of fairness. They won't do that of course, because if you're going to implement all of the nonsense of a subscription service, you might as well make the service something you can print money with.
- 1
And that worse thing is, as seen with the Disagree sign on your post, there are some people that don't understand that and want to push a much more predatory Subscription Model, just because that's what the Company obviously wants.
I mean, I can think off the top of my head 3 other Modules that would work, and be Consumer Friendly. But they will just disagree blindly and won't change their mind, even tho they know they are wrong, or worse don't even understand why it's wrong no matter how much you point it out to them with facts and information.
Either way tho, plenty of people gave their opinions, and many suggested much better systems. I just hope they pick a very consumer friendly solution, as there are plenty of games from them I still don't own, and would love to. Such as Stallaris, Hearts of Iron, Victoria 2, and Imperial Rome. But all are too pricy for me to get into, and I hate buying a broken incomplete game, so I won't buy just the base game now and the DLCs later. After all, why waste money on something I won't even be able to use for months at a time? I'd rather buy something else.
- 1
That's obviously not true. There is a reason why there are almost no games that are exclusively subscription based anymore, and it definitely don't make sense to do it with a niche game like this. Resorting to a slippery slope fallacy to attempt to justify this as a morally acceptable outrage doesn't work.
I guess many people are so used to the internet outrage culture that they jump on any stupid bandwagon like this.
- 1
I kind of like the 'rent to own' approach (as an additional option to buying outright) and I think that it could actually work for PDX too in the long run. Why is this the case, well....
One definite however, is that there should NEVER be any extra's given to subscribers that are not available to outright purchasers.
- The game and DLC are regularly on discount, so PDX don't always get the full RP for each product
- Sales through Steam lose them a percentage of the RP in any event (30%??)
- After 6 months subscription you are 'gifted' EU4
- Each 3 months ongoing afterwards, you are 'gifted' DLC 1, then DLC 2, then DLC3 in the order of release.
One definite however, is that there should NEVER be any extra's given to subscribers that are not available to outright purchasers.
Last edited:
- 1
Yeah essentially what was spoken about before although a bit different. The idea of sub money going into a fund you can buy the game and DLC with, possibly all PDX games and DLC with which would make the sub model quite genius and encourage more people to actually sub. Maybe even stay subbed when not playing? Who knows.
But the idea of sub going towards actually owning the game is something I hope they do instead of indefinite sub.
- 1
Another thing is I've been thinking about, I assume if successful Paradox would want to roll this out on other titles (in fact I strongly suspect this is a test for CK3 and really has nothing to do with EU4 if I'm being cynical). I own all their main games and dip into all of them for long periods at a time. What is someone like me to do? Pay £5 a month per game? I don't think so.
So what would end up happening, is you might increase your player base on particular IPs. However, you wouldn't see buy in to the others and their player bases wouldn't ever get off the ground. That or you would see an exodus of players from one IP to another every time a new game was released. Because no one in their right mind is going to pay £40 a month to sub to them all.
So what would end up happening, is you might increase your player base on particular IPs. However, you wouldn't see buy in to the others and their player bases wouldn't ever get off the ground. That or you would see an exodus of players from one IP to another every time a new game was released. Because no one in their right mind is going to pay £40 a month to sub to them all.
- 1
Paradox, you were once a company that treated your costumers fairly, honesty and openly.
Now?
1) You tried to slip this past behind our backs dishonestly
2) When caught you lied stated that there would be no exclusive content
3) Then you were caught lying again as it was quite clearly advertising sub exclusive content
4) You THEN had to backtrack after being caught.
845 people so far oppose this plan/model vs 47 that do.
When we buy a game, we OWN the game. We don't want to keep paying for a game we already own.
Now?
1) You tried to slip this past behind our backs dishonestly
2) When caught you lied stated that there would be no exclusive content
3) Then you were caught lying again as it was quite clearly advertising sub exclusive content
4) You THEN had to backtrack after being caught.
845 people so far oppose this plan/model vs 47 that do.
When we buy a game, we OWN the game. We don't want to keep paying for a game we already own.
- 1
Dunno if anyone's said it yet, and it's probably already come up in your internal discussion, but one possible downside to having multiple options like this is confusing people who are looking into buying the game (it'd obviously be quite bad if people thought they had to buy all the DLCs and a subscription to get all the content).
- 1
Not something I've seen brought up in the last 4 pages. But it was something I thought about, or something close anyways. Namely I would wonder how they would market it, namely would they put the 'Sub now to play!' in big bold letters with all the benifits to it across the page. And in the fine print, down in the very button corner you need to Zoom in to see, is a button that says 'Or you can buy the game and not have to sub'.
Which makes me wonder how they are going to set up a Subscription thing with Steam and GoG, since those platforms have you buying a game, and don't have a built in Sub System. So would the Sub Information pop up after they buy the base game with(out) some DLCs in the launcher, of the game they already own? Are they going to make it sound like you 'Have' to sub to get the whole experience and manipulate people into thinking that buying and owning the game isn't worth it?
^ None of that is good at all, especially if it's just a normal Sub and not a Fund to eventually buy the games and dlcs.
- 1
Unfortunately, you really don't. If you read the fine print you are actually only buying a licence to play the game. Not the actual game. Silly but true.
Especially on say.. steam. If your account is banned, and they dont even have to tell you why.. good luck getting them back
- 1
I'm not angry, but I assure you ain't getting a cent from me with this 'Brand New System" .
(including other future game titles, btw)
.(including other future game titles, btw)
- 1