Hearts of Iron 1 was an expensive, bug-ridden, loss-making failure, and I'm okay with that.

[FOARP]

@Secret Master linked to this post by @Johan from 2003 elsewhere but I though it deserved it's own thread just because of what it tells you about how it was that this game series came to exist and how it looked in the early days. Speaking as someone who picked up Hearts of Iron 1 second hand in a shop in Brighton, and have wondered ever since why anyone would have sold their copy of that awesome game, it explains a lot:

1) We got 2.5 programmers in Paradox. We are company of totally 7 developers. I'm the half-programmer/half-projectlead.

2) Of the 50$ you pay for a game in a shop, we end up with <5$... that is about 5-6 months after the game is sold, and the publisher actually pays on time.

3) I work 10+ hours each day working on games, and we spent about 90% of our time on Hearts of Iron after the release until late February to support the game with patches. I just got home from a 13 hour workday on Victoria and I was gonna check on a HoI bug...

4) We've still lost an insane amount of money on HoI as it costed more to develop than we ever got paid.

5) I'm tired of hearing all the.. The game is not finished because feature x does not work as I want it/The AI sucks/The engine doesn't work/etc.. Its a game, not a simulation, and I find it fun to play myself.


Here's the deal... I'm not gonna take any more whining.. Go to your publisher and whine if you have to.. They earn all the money anyway.

The whole thread is also worth reading just to see what people were complaining about.

My takeaways from this:

1) People complaining about the DLC system need to engage with the fact that the alternative is games that cost 50-60 USD. Actually, the 50 USD asking price for HOI1 in 2003 works out at 64.43 US$ in today's money - imagine how people would react if Paradox tried to charge that much now!

2) Lots of people complain about Steam, but I'm going to bet that the developers get to keep more of the asking price for a Steam sale than the less-than-10% implied by Johan's post. If you were a developer, it would be a no-brainer to use the distribution method that allows you to keep the biggest share of the proceeds.

3) A lot of people were really angry about Hearts of Iron 1, something that really surprises me. I had no expectations when I bought the game and was very pleasantly surprised by it - and especially the possibilities that it opened up - even though the flaws were very apparent (I'd give it a score of ~75% tops, whereas HOI2 was an easy 90%+), yet back in the day people really expected everything to work, and maybe that wasn't so unreasoanble if they had paid 50 dollars for it?

4) Many of the things people were complaining about, under the apparent impression that they could be easily fixed (e.g., amphibious invasions) still don't work very well even 13 years later. Maybe they aren't easy problems to fix?

5) Finally, the fact that Hearts of Iron 1 made a huge loss (or at least it had made a loss as of August 2003, it may have turned it around later) is a really big surprise to me. I hadn't realised that Johan and the rest of the Paradox team had took such a gamble in making HOI2 and I'm very impressed that they stuck with it after such bad initial results.

 

[safe-keeper]

^^also part of the reason why I'm ticked with pirates (and all their paper-thin excuses).

 

[AledlePieux]

Comment 4) raises hope for Victoria 3, Sengoku 2, East vs. West... all the Zombie Games are rising!

 

[hewhoispale]

^^also part of the reason why I'm ticked with pirates (and all their paper-thin excuses).

Yeah, international waters should be safe to travel in this day and age.

 

[mursolini]

1) People complaining about the DLC system need to engage with the fact that the alternative is games that cost 50-60 USD. Actually, the 50 USD asking price for HOI1 in 2003 works out at 64.43 US$ in today's money - imagine how people would react if Paradox tried to charge that much now!

Plenty of games ask 60$ for base price, and more $$ on top for season pass or day1 DLC. And people still buy them.
Matrix sells wargames that can cost 80$ for base version. Nothing really suggest that people woun`t buy PI games at that price, as eventually people will drop more than 65$ on the game, it is like EU4 with 2 DLCs. Obviously, PI marketing probably knows better, what kind of price tag is best for their games

2) Lots of people complain about Steam, but I'm going to bet that the developers get to keep more of the asking price for a Steam sale than the less-than-10% implied by Johan's post. If you were a developer, it would be a no-brainer to use the distribution method that allows you to keep the biggest share of the proceeds.

They had their own publisher, and unless you have a proof that Steam offers better % of money than other digital distribution services, I`m just going to assume it has far more to do with cost of maintaining non-steam versions than any real advantage in profit margin

You really can`t compare retail and digital distribution. For retail, you have to have all the logistics of disk printing and distribution, for digital, you don`t. It has nothing to do with publishers.

5) Finally, the fact that Hearts of Iron 1 made a huge loss (or at least it had made a loss as of August 2003, it may have turned it around later) is a really big surprise to me. I hadn't realised that Johan and the rest of the Paradox team had took such a gamble in making HOI2 and I'm very impressed that they stuck with it after such bad initial results.

They did gamble on Victoria 2 being profitable, didn`t they? They even had bets of sorts.

 

[BobbyDylan]

^^also part of the reason why I'm ticked with pirates (and all their paper-thin excuses).

Totally agree.

 

[novapaddy]

I have Hearts of Iron Platinum in its original box. It says 90% score from PC-Gamer on the front.

I also have Diplomacy in its PC-CD rom case.

I also have Hearts of Iron Anthology (hoi2) in its DVD-ROM packing.

I wonder if Paradox would like these for their museam. Didn't I see something like this in the walkaround video they released of their offices a while back?

 

[Kovax]

As one of the people who paid somewhere around $50 for HOI1 and felt badly cheated (partly because I was not aware at the time of the available patches and Paradox's typical "ship it, THEN get it to work" business model), I'm really amazed at how well the series turned out.

Speaking of Pirates, that's something that was never fixed in EU3. In the early releases, Pirates were easily "farmable" for free ships. That was altered to make them uncapturable, and the spawn rates were altered. That made them all but guaranteed to reappear along any unpatrolled trade route after 30 days, so a couple of missed patrol cycles along the major trade routes would result in more pirates than the entire world's navies combined. After several tries to fix the situation, they were removed completely. How could it be so difficult to pick a spawn rate that makes it a "rare" occurrence?

International waters may be semi-safe these days (except around Somalia), but internet waters are another matter.

 

[Secret Master]

They had their own publisher, and unless you have a proof that Steam offers better % of money than other digital distribution services, I`m just going to assume it has far more to do with cost of maintaining non-steam versions than any real advantage in profit margin

You really can`t compare retail and digital distribution. For retail, you have to have all the logistics of disk printing and distribution, for digital, you don`t. It has nothing to do with publishers.

Hold your horses...

Many people may not know this, but in the old days, Paradox was not their own publisher. They used Strategy First as a publisher.

To give you an idea of how that relationship ended, Paradox started their own publishing because that was where the money was. And when they finally ended their contract with Strategy First, they also patched games to remove the DRM Strategy First made them put in the games. (And people wonder why I like this group of folks...)

I'm not suggesting that the move to digital isn't about the costs of creating physical media, but Paradox already went through the "Publishers are taking the lion's share of money for games" stage long before they adopted the DLC Model.

There is a legitimate case to be made that certain publishers might be shafting developers, but in this particular case, Paradox already solved that problem on their own.

True Story:

Back when EU was still a thing, I reinstalled the game and started playing it without the disk in the drive completely by accident. When I realized the DRM wasn't working, I used back-channels here at the forum to contact "the powers that be" and let them know that the DRM was messed up. I didn't do a public post, because I thought I was clever and would not inform software pirates that there was a hole in the system. The PM I got back was like, "Umm, yeah, it's been like that for a year. We killed the DRM after we finished up with Strategy First. You didn't know, Secret Master?"

Of course, that was back when the forum was just me, Castelleon, Bib, all of Johan's alts, and Lord Durham talking in a giant echo chamber....

EDIT: Put in the wrong EU.

 

[FieldMedic]

Any one of us could be a Johan alt!

 

[Secret Master]

I slightly changed the thread's title to better reflect the content in this discussion.

Please continue with the discussion.

 

[Ostheim]

I think I spent nearly $200 on CKII and every single DLC, no regrets supporting the company with my money. Of course how you see it depends on your income.

 

[Bridger15]

1) People complaining about the DLC system need to engage with the fact that the alternative is games that cost 50-60 USD. Actually, the 50 USD asking price for HOI1 in 2003 works out at 64.43 US$ in today's money - imagine how people would react if Paradox tried to charge that much now!

Hang on, why wouldn't it cost $60? I fully expect it to be $60 just like every other AAA game out there. It should be at least $50 IMHO. You think Paradox games are still categorized as unpolished "indie" like games that they used to be?

 

[FOARP]

Hang on, why wouldn't it cost $60? I fully expect it to be $60 just like every other AAA game out there. It should be at least $50 IMHO. You think Paradox games are still categorized as unpolished "indie" like games that they used to be?

Except for Matrix games, I don't think I've ever dropped that much in a single go on any game. It represents a lot of buy-in if you haven't played the game yet and don't know if you'll like it or not.

I'm not saying it's not worth it, but you won't really know how much a game is worth until you've played it for a while.

 

[Maizel]

Hang on, why wouldn't it cost $60? I fully expect it to be $60 just like every other AAA game out there. It should be at least $50 IMHO. You think Paradox games are still categorized as unpolished "indie" like games that they used to be?

Except that PDox games aren;t really AAA titles.

I expect €39.99. It is is €59.99, I'd raise my eyebrows. We all know we would pay whatever they were asking for the game, I however doubt anyone not already familiar with HOI would take the plunge for 60 bucks over something like Warhammer Total War.

€40 also seems like a fair price for a game. €60 is bigwig developers ripping you off with their shallow games.

 

[GhengisKhan]

Of course, that was back when the forum was just me, Castelleon, Bib, all of Johan's alts, and Lord Durham talking in a giant echo chamber....

It wasn't only an echo chamber i believe there were lots of us reading at the time. I actually surfed the boards pretty religiously before actually joining and posting something and im pretty sure many others did as well. I can't even remember how i found out about HoI 1 but it was that same day i started browsing the baords. Didn't actually join until they announced HoI2.

 

[GhengisKhan]

Except that PDox games aren;t really AAA titles.

I expect €39.99. It is is €59.99, I'd raise my eyebrows. We all know we would pay whatever they were asking for the game, I however doubt anyone not already familiar with HOI would take the plunge for 60 bucks over something like Warhammer Total War.

€40 also seems like a fair price for a game. €60 is bigwig developers ripping you off with their shallow games.

Im not sure i totally agree with the not AAA titles anymore. I've played several AAA titles recently and id say the quality mark has been surpassed as of late by PDS's games.

Thing is most AAA games are FPS/RTS's and PDS's games are not really that sort of game. Id say their games are AAA for the type of games they make. Your not going to see many AAA studios pushing back a game for more than a year just because they aren't happy with it. Maybe Blizzard or Valve but thats about it.

As an example Star Wars Battlefront while beautiful was absolutely horrible. Not to bad in the bug front but the whole concept and balancing. Just a bad game.

 

[Snow Wolf]

Paradox is a publisher now and gets to rip off other companies. fun.

 

[safe-keeper]

I think I spent nearly $200 on CKII and every single DLC, no regrets supporting the company with my money. Of course how you see it depends on your income.

Yeah, I have a very good impression of PDX as a company, but I simply can't spend that much money on a single game. Then again, I play EU and HOI way more than CK, so who knows how many DLCs I'll end up buying for EU4, HOI4, and Stellaris .

Hang on, why wouldn't it cost $60? I fully expect it to be $60 just like every other AAA game out there. It should be at least $50 IMHO. You think Paradox games are still categorized as unpolished "indie" like games that they used to be?

I think it would be far more than $50. War in the East cost like $80 or something. CK2 with all the DLC built in would be truly massive.

I for one prefer to be able to choose for myself what I pay for. Like when I go to a fast-food place for a burger, and I get to not pay for fries and a soda I don't want .

 

[Maizel]

Im not sure i totally agree with the not AAA titles anymore. I've played several AAA titles recently and id say the quality mark has been surpassed as of late by PDS's games.

Thing is most AAA games are FPS/RTS's and PDS's games are not really that sort of game. Id say their games are AAA for the type of games they make. Your not going to see many AAA studios pushing back a game for more than a year just because they aren't happy with it. Maybe Blizzard or Valve but thats about it.

As an example Star Wars Battlefront while beautiful was absolutely horrible. Not to bad in the bug front but the whole concept and balancing. Just a bad game.

I agree with that. But AAA doesn't necessarily mean quality. Just like Big budget films can be much worse than independent productions.

€40 seems a fair price to me, and is also one of the reasons I put up with the insane amount of DLC Pdox pumps out. Most of it is good stuff, but I doubt anyone would disagree with me that having the full experience for modern Pdox games will go deeper into your wallet than any crappy AAA title like battlefield and it's DLC ever would.

Raising the basegame price to 60 bucks, knowing that you will most likely 'have' to spend at least a hundred more bucks for the DLC that you want, will put the whole business model in a whole other light, even if it is only 20 bucks off from the total.