Just want to add my voice here.
This whole situation has burned up years of goodwill that Paradox had built up with me up until this point in just months, in a way I'd never in my dreams have thought possible.
I work in backend tech at a video game developer in Dundee myself and I've had it playing in the back of my mind for a while now to maybe apply to Paradox and move to Stockholm as a sort of unlikely pipe dream scenario. Especially with how bitter a pill to swallow Brexit has been as an EU citizen living in the UK. I guess the last few years just keep on being filled with disappointment.
I honestly had so much respect and admiration for Paradox going into CK3. I've always raved about how good their games are to anyone who would listen and probably bored several people half to death with in-depth play-by-plays of the various empires and roleplay scenarios I've really gotten carried away with in Stellaris. I read every single Dev Diary each week leading up to CK3 and was honestly so freaking excited, like I can't really remember being that hyped about anything since a few years ago when I got my first car. I'm not even exaggerating.
But this has just left such an ugly taste in my mouth.
Stories are important. Stories are powerful. Stories matter. We imitate them and learn from them and are shaped by them. They are a reflection of the world, and conversely, human behaviour often changes to resemble them back.
This is why representation is so important for queer people in media. In a world without meaningful LGBT representation the message that you're sending to some poor closeted teen in a small intolerant town is that they're completely alone. That they aren't important. That they don't matter enough to tell stories about.
When someone struggling with their identity gets ahold of a role-playing game it often helps them figure things out. I've honestly seen more posts than I'd have expected from other queer people on social media mentioning how games like the Sims were one of their few outlets to express their sexuality or gender identity when they were still in the closet.
Imagine discovering an honestly awesome game like CK3, with almost endless roleplay possibilities, only to find you can't even marry a same-sex partner. You can set up a cannibal cult and an empire with institutionalized incest, but marrying your character's literal same-sex romantic partner is arbitrarily off-limits. It just feels... terrible. I imagine it would feel even worse if you're unlucky enough to live in a regressive country that doesn't afford you that same right in your own life.
When I realized I couldn't marry a same-sex partner in the base game I immediately started looking into making a mod for it myself, and then I basically just went through several stages of disbelief, frustration, and dissapointment when I realized it wasn't possible at all.
And I just feel let down by you now, Paradox. It's probably a little irrational, but it's honestly how I feel. It has literally even soured my enjoyment of Stellaris (my all-time favourite game) by association.
I wish I could just not take it personally, but my life experiences are full of self-righteous cis straight people hurting me in ways they claimed weren't personal for my intrinsic characteristics. Queer people getting the short end of the stick once again in a thousand tiny ways shouldn't really come as much of a surprise, only it actually does hurt this time because I really didn't expect it coming from you.
I wasn't really going anywhere with this. Just venting. I'm going to stop playing CK3 for a while. I'll maybe check back in a year to see if anything's changed. Thank you for at least providing an answer, even if "you're not a high priority" wasn't what I wanted to hear.