Now there's a blast from the past, cheers for the nostalgia FOARP/Secret Master 
. I never realised HoI1 didn't make a profit (or, plausibly, I've forgotten since), but it was ground-breaking for its time. I remember enjoying myself a lot, and while it had some flaws from a gameplay and historical plausibility perspective, it was a huge step forward in terms of games that depict all of the second world war, and put together by a small team, so it would have been a bit rough holding it against them (I can't remember what I posted back then, mind, but I hope I wasn't unkind/unfair - from memory, back then most of my forum activity was playing around trying to mod it, rather than general discussion).
As for the price, pretty much all games of any decent standing were $60 or so US new back then (and often over $100 Australian, as our exchange rate wasn't much chop at that stage), and it was just how much it cost. Strategy games have always been value for money for me (and then some), so it's never bothered me.
For the sake of the discussion:
1) Totally - PDS have more people working on HoI4, and I'd expect for longer than HoI1, and we'll be paying less, and people will still complain. My golden rule is that "people will always complain", so people complaining doesn't necessarily indicate anything, it's important to look at the number and type of complaints to see whether it's entitled bellyaching driven by limited perspective, or indicative of an actual issue needs' addressing.
2) I've always been surprised by people complaining about Steam. Steam was one of the driving forces in making PC gaming 'work' again. People don't like DRM, of course, but Steam's is about the 'lightest' I've seen in the business (and optional for people using it), so again, it makes no sense to me.
3) A bit like #1, people are often angry as well. I think part of the issue was people coming to Paradox and not being familiar with their business model at the time (as outlined by Secret Master above - release on time so we don't go broke, patch later so it works). It was right at the time when the internet had made games being broken on release feasible, and there was general dissatisfaction with the trend in the PC gaming community (and, imo, often rightly so). The only reason I gave PDS slack was because what they were doing was so ambitious and original, they were obviously pushing themselves hard to innovate, so they weren't releasing broken to rip off consumers, but more because of overreaching/publisher pressure. They were also very good at post-release support, unlike many devs/pubs at the time (and now).
4) Haha, yes and yes. The ongoing struggle for effective naval invasions in PDS games has been a more than decade-long struggle. EU4's are actually pretty good now, and HoI4's look potentially the best yet by some margin, so the fight is going in the right direction.
5) For me as well - PDS have been quite good at taking risks (Runemaster's a great example of another, as is their experimentation with licensing the engine to external teams, which has had both big wins (DH, AoD) and less positive results), but I never realised HoI started this rough. Am very glad they stuck with it.
. I never realised HoI1 didn't make a profit (or, plausibly, I've forgotten since), but it was ground-breaking for its time. I remember enjoying myself a lot, and while it had some flaws from a gameplay and historical plausibility perspective, it was a huge step forward in terms of games that depict all of the second world war, and put together by a small team, so it would have been a bit rough holding it against them (I can't remember what I posted back then, mind, but I hope I wasn't unkind/unfair - from memory, back then most of my forum activity was playing around trying to mod it, rather than general discussion).As for the price, pretty much all games of any decent standing were $60 or so US new back then (and often over $100 Australian, as our exchange rate wasn't much chop at that stage), and it was just how much it cost. Strategy games have always been value for money for me (and then some), so it's never bothered me.
For the sake of the discussion:
1) Totally - PDS have more people working on HoI4, and I'd expect for longer than HoI1, and we'll be paying less, and people will still complain. My golden rule is that "people will always complain", so people complaining doesn't necessarily indicate anything, it's important to look at the number and type of complaints to see whether it's entitled bellyaching driven by limited perspective, or indicative of an actual issue needs' addressing.
2) I've always been surprised by people complaining about Steam. Steam was one of the driving forces in making PC gaming 'work' again. People don't like DRM, of course, but Steam's is about the 'lightest' I've seen in the business (and optional for people using it), so again, it makes no sense to me.
3) A bit like #1, people are often angry as well. I think part of the issue was people coming to Paradox and not being familiar with their business model at the time (as outlined by Secret Master above - release on time so we don't go broke, patch later so it works). It was right at the time when the internet had made games being broken on release feasible, and there was general dissatisfaction with the trend in the PC gaming community (and, imo, often rightly so). The only reason I gave PDS slack was because what they were doing was so ambitious and original, they were obviously pushing themselves hard to innovate, so they weren't releasing broken to rip off consumers, but more because of overreaching/publisher pressure. They were also very good at post-release support, unlike many devs/pubs at the time (and now).
4) Haha, yes and yes. The ongoing struggle for effective naval invasions in PDS games has been a more than decade-long struggle. EU4's are actually pretty good now, and HoI4's look potentially the best yet by some margin, so the fight is going in the right direction
.5) For me as well - PDS have been quite good at taking risks (Runemaster's a great example of another, as is their experimentation with licensing the engine to external teams, which has had both big wins (DH, AoD) and less positive results), but I never realised HoI started this rough. Am very glad they stuck with it
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