Reasons behind HoI4 problems: Too many marketing people, not enough programmers?

[Wminus]

We all know what happens when a good, healthy engineering/gaming company with a focus on long-term profit and passion for making games is sold out to (often kinda useless) MBA/Marketing/etc. types who are only interested in short term profit and couldn't give less of a toss about the actual product. This is what has routinely been happening with EA - but is this becoming the case with PI too? I took a look at PI's linkedin page,https://www.linkedin.com/company/paradox-interactive, and there appears to be a trend: it seems most of the new hires are not engineers, but aforementioned business degree holders, and management is also dominated by them.

This is worrying. Such practices will lead to games with awesome trailers, marketing campaigns, that look flashy etc. but have braindead AI, bugs, imbalances and so on - ie games that sell well and look promising, but have little depth. Of course you also get a billion DLCs adding useless but "marketable" features (Relive the ANZAC! Bring glory to New Zealand with its new national focus tree!!), instead of what the game needs for good gameplay.

So my question is, is this the reason for the problems with HoI4? Most games aimed at casual gamers aren't meant to be played for more than 10 or so hours - is this what we will see with HoI5? If so I'd be worried if I was in charge, because historical grand strategy simulators aren't exactly that competitive for this market group.

 

[grandad1982]

Christ not another one of these threads.

 

[bERt0r]

Reasons behind HoI4 problems: Too many people complaining, not enough constructive criticism?

 

[Bundeswag]

Reasons behind HoI4 problems: Too many people complaining, not enough constructive criticism?

There is a lot of constructive criticism in the forums. Also the community is not obligated to only give constructive criticism. It is the developers that should solve the problems not the community. Of course a lot of players want to help with bug reports, suggestions, etc. and that is probably helpfull for developers. Still a player should also be allowed to tell what he thinks is wrong without giving a solution to the problem.

 

[Alex_brunius]

I'm pretty sure that the main reason behind HoI4s AI issues is not recent Paradox recruitment, but decisions taken 3-4 years ago when the game was in early design phase and it was decided how things should work

Decisions to make a radically different game from HoI2 or HoI3 with a complex and much more realistic production and division design systems for example have caused alot of issues making an AI that can cope with these changes.

Look for example at the DD on division design soon 3 years ago.

So the reason for issues with the AI is thus that the game has grown more complex, not less!

If Paradox had made a less complex game closer to HoI2 with each divisions being made up of 1 or 2 different units at most, none of them country unique more then to it's name, and production being very simplified the AI would be extremely powerful ( HoI2 level + 5 years extra worth of computing power and development experience ).

Instead they wanted to make a more complex game...

 

[Tasmosunt]

Christ not another one of these threads.

Come on, these Paradox has turned to the Darkside threads are a good laugh.

 

[Wminus]

I'm pretty sure that the main reason behind HoI4s AI issues is not recent Paradox recruitment, but decisions taken 3-4 years ago when the game was in early design phase and it was decided how things should work

Decisions to make a radically different game from HoI2 or HoI3 with a complex and much more realistic production and division design systems for example have caused alot of issues making an AI that can cope with these changes.

Look for example at the DD on division design soon 3 years ago.

So the reason for issues with the AI is thus that the game has grown more complex, not less!

If Paradox had made a less complex game closer to HoI2 with each divisions being made up of 1 or 2 different units at most, none of them country unique more then to it's name, and production being very simplified the AI would be extremely powerful ( HoI2 level + 5 years extra worth of computing power and development experience ).

Instead they wanted to make a more complex game...

Nah, you're missing the point. What I'm saying is that these decisions are symptoms of the recent development, where the focus of the company seems to be shifting. Making a more complex game with lots of fancy features is good for impressing customers and making cool trailers (=> good for sales, short term profit and thus probably manager bonuses), but clearly bad for gameplay if they cannot be properly implemented into a coherent system.

Please do note that I'm not one of the people who wants 10 different types of semi-motorized horse artillery. I just want an elegant game that works properly.

 

[Alex_brunius]

Nah, you're missing the point. What I'm saying is that these decisions are symptoms of the recent development, where the focus of the company seems to be shifting. Making a more complex game with lots of fancy features is good for impressing customers and making cool trailers (=> good for sales, short term profit and thus probably manager bonuses)

If Paradox only care about short term profits, why in your opinion do you think they keep supporting their games with free patches for 5+ years? ( unlike almost all other developers ).

 

[Wminus]

If Paradox only care about short term profits, why in your opinion do you think they keep supporting their games with free patches for 5+ years? ( unlike almost all other developers ).

Because they finance them with DLCs? But OK, true, quite a few of the DLCs have been quite good and added meaningful content, though.

Anyway, I'm not saying they only focus on short-term profit (yet), I'm just asking if there might be a trend going towards that direction. I'm just asking questions here.

 

[Surimi]

You do realize Paradox Interactive is a publisher with a separate, subsidiary development studio (Paradox Development Studios) which made Hearts of Iron 4.

Paradox Interactive publish and market games made by their subsidiaries, but they also publish games they didn't make, like Steel Division and Tyranny, because that's what all publishers do. A handful of development studios are now able to self-publish, but it's still incredibly rare and very few of those studios do really well at it.

If you want to complain about the publisher system, then okay.. but this actually seems like a weird place to do it.

The problem with EA is not that it's run by people with business degrees, because.. you know.. it's a publisher. Its entire job is to handle the business and commercial side of selling games so that studios can concentrate on developing games. The problem with EA is that, like many large publishers, its run by people who have generally been brought in from packaged goods industries and who genuinely don't understand how games work as a market.

 

[Wminus]

You do realize Paradox Interactive is a publisher with a separate, subsidiary development studio (Paradox Development Studios) which made Hearts of Iron 4.

Paradox Interactive publish and market games made by their subsidiaries, but they also publish games they didn't make, like Steel Division and Tyranny, because that's what all publishers do. A handful of development studios are now able to self-publish, but it's still incredibly rare and very few of those studios do really well at it.

If you want to complain about the publisher system, then okay.. but this actually seems like a weird place to do it.

The problem with EA is not that it's run by people with business degrees, because.. you know.. it's a publisher. Its entire job is to handle the business and commercial side of selling games so that studios can concentrate on developing games. The problem with EA is that, like many large publishers, its run by people who have generally been brought in from packaged goods industries and who genuinely don't understand how games work as a market.

Obviously the publishers decide how the studios they own are run, and what products they produce, and thus the mentality of the guys who run the publisher wil strongly influence the product. So I don't see your point.

 

[Malickhoi]

The reasons behind HOI4 problems :
- the huge complexity of such a game
- the design choices made at the beginning (no fuel / supply, no upkeep for units, no OOB, no spying, no data ledgers...).

 

[kosmoface]

Reasons behind HoI4 problems:
Too many interests from too many players. Ask 100 players and you'll get 100 reasons why the game is "completely broken" to them personally (because anything less than "completely broken" is no more possible nowadays).

As a dev you can only fail in this environment.

 

[therealpete]

To be honest, all players should just be thankful paradox decided to produce another installment of the series....

 

[Surimi]

Obviously the publishers decide how the studios they own are run, and what products they produce, and thus the mentality of the guys who run the publisher wil strongly influence the product. So I don't see your point.

To express this in a very crude and direct sense which belies the actual complexity of the publisher/developer relationship, the publisher is the one commissioning the developer to make games for them. They are the customer, because in an immediate sense they pay the bills and absorb the risks of putting a game to market. For this reason, it certainly matters whether a publisher understands and respects the consumer and the market they're working in because if they don't then games they ask for may well not be what the consumer actually wants.

But your argument is not that Paradox Interactive have the wrong mentality and that this results in a worse game. Your argument is that Paradox interactive, which again is a publisher is hiring too many people with marketing or business backgrounds instead of software engineers and that this is resulting in worse games somehow.

"Programmers" and "business people" are not "types" or classes of people, they are skillsets. You wouldn't hire a software engineer to market a game on the basis that even if they didn't know what they were doing they would, by virtue of being a programmer, somehow muddle through inspired by their pure and perfect love for games as a medium. For that matter, plenty of software engineers and programmers don't give a shit, plenty of people who make games are all about short term profit. Look at steam greenlight, or the mobile gaming sector (both of which are largely based on a self-publishing model) and you'll find examples of naked cynicism which would make EA look like it was run by Tarn and Zach Adams.

Again, if you can't pick out specific problems beyond "business people are going to do bad things because they're business people", where's the actual substance of this criticism?

 

[FOARP]

We all know what happens when a good, healthy engineering/gaming company with a focus on long-term profit and passion for making games is sold out to (often kinda useless) MBA/Marketing/etc. types who are only interested in short term profit

You honestly don't have the first clue what you are talking about.

"programmers" and "business people" are not "types" or classes of people, they are skillsets. You wouldn't hire a software engineer to market a game on the basis that even if they didn't know what they were doing they would, by virtue of being a programmer, somehow muddle through inspired by their pure and perfect love for games as a medium. For that matter, plenty of software engineers and programmers don't give a shit, plenty of people who make games are all about short term profit. Look at steam greenlight, or the mobile gaming sector (both of which are largely based on a self-publishing model) and you'll find examples of naked cynicism which would make EA look like it was run by Tarn and Zach Adams.

Again, if you can't pick out specific problems beyond "business people are going to do bad things because they're business people", where's the actual substance of this criticism?

This. Shouting "they should hire more programmers", when you can't actually identify what the problem you think this would solve is other than "more people would solve problems because reasons", and you're anyway talking about PI not PDS, is not the way to go.

 

[Wminus]

To express this in a very crude and direct sense which belies the actual complexity of the publisher/developer relationship, the publisher is the one commissioning the developer to make games for them. They are the customer, because in an immediate sense they pay the bills and absorb the risks of putting a game to market. For this reason, it certainly matters whether a publisher understands and respects the consumer and the market they're working in because if they don't then games they ask for may well not be what the consumer actually wants.

But your argument is not that Paradox Interactive have the wrong mentality and that this results in a worse game. Your argument is that Paradox interactive, which again is a publisher is hiring too many people with marketing or business backgrounds instead of software engineers and that this is resulting in worse games somehow.

"Programmers" and "business people" are not "types" or classes of people, they are skillsets. You wouldn't hire a software engineer to market a game on the basis that even if they didn't know what they were doing they would, by virtue of being a programmer, somehow muddle through inspired by their pure and perfect love for games as a medium. For that matter, plenty of software engineers and programmers don't give a shit, plenty of people who make games are all about short term profit. Look at steam greenlight, or the mobile gaming sector (both of which are largely based on a self-publishing model) and you'll find examples of naked cynicism which would make EA look like it was run by Tarn and Zach Adams.

Again, if you can't pick out specific problems beyond "business people are going to do bad things because they're business people", where's the actual substance of this criticism?

Nah, that's not my argument at all. If you have too many marketing and business types, and too few engineers, then the product suffers but the hype increases. Is this a good combo?

Also, this "publisher" grew out of a group of programmers, artists and game & history enthusiasts gambling on making a grand strategy game set in the renaissance-enlightment era, the era of Swedish glory. It wasn't a bunch of marketing and MBA types who got the ball rolling and captured their niche market, but people who actually enjoy gaming. Honestly, this "publisher" issue you keep going on about is entirely irrelevant - it's beyond clear that PI isn't the "customer" of PDS (we're not solving a theoretical make-believe business case here, Surimi), but the entity that RUNS PDS and decides what kind of games they are going to develop, in what time-frame and who the target audience are.

Now, who would you want to have on the top running things? A guy who's interested in gaming and thus has spent many years working as a programmer/artist/whatever and knows how projects are run and games work, or some smooth-talking MBA? You do indeed bring up one valid point, namely that programmers are not guaranteed to be passionate about grand strategy historical games, but at least in my anecdotal experience, they are much more likely to be passionate about it than the business slick brought out of the packaging industry

 

[Wminus]

You honestly don't have the first clue what you are talking about.



This. Shouting "they should hire more programmers", when you can't actually identify what the problem you think this would solve is other than "more people would solve problems because reasons", and you're anyway talking about PI not PDS, is not the way to go.

Have you not noticed the huge issues with AI, balance, bugs and patches that don't really fix anything? Do you think this is normal, or is it possible that the engineering arm simply doesn't have enough resources? Is then the solution to hire 10 new marketing people?

I don't know. For all I know the reason for these problems is an over-ambitious engineering department, but the trend I saw on linkedin frankly points to Paradox's focus shifting towards something that reminds me of ubisoft & EA. That's why I'm asking these questions.

 

[FOARP]

Have you not noticed the huge issues with AI, balance, bugs and patches that don't really fix anything? Do you think this is normal, or is it possible that the engineering arm simply doesn't have enough resources? Is then the solution to hire 10 new marketing people?

I don't know. For all I know the reason for these problems is an over-ambitious engineering department, but the trend I saw on linkedin frankly points to Paradox's focus shifting towards something that reminds me of ubisoft & EA. That's why I'm asking these questions.

Again: you were looking at PI's linkedin page. PI did not develop this game. How many or few marketing people PI has is irrelevant.

And no, this really wasn't caused by a lack of developers at PDS. Look at the development history of HOI4 and it's pretty obvious what happened: HOI4 got stuck in development hell because the game as originally conceived wasn't enough fun, so they had to go through a number of iterations before it got up to snuff. Having more developers wouldn't have improved this, any more than having more authors writing a book improves the book, or more actors acting in a film improves the film.

As for whether this is normal or not: go and look at how every HOI title was in its first year after release.

 

[Wminus]

Again: you were looking at PI's linkedin page. PI did not develop this game. How many or few marketing people PI has is irrelevant.

And no, this really wasn't caused by a lack of developers at PDS. Look at the development history of HOI4 and it's pretty obvious what happened: HOI4 got stuck in development hell because the game as originally conceived wasn't enough fun, so they had to go through a number of iterations before it got up to snuff. Having more developers wouldn't have improved this, any more than having more authors writing a book improves the book, or more actors acting in a film improves the film.

As for whether this is normal or not: go and look at how every HOI title was in its first year after release.

As said, PI owns PDS, and hence every employee of PDS is also an employee of PI. If you actually look at their linkedin page, you'll see that the software engineers indeed write "Paradox Interactive" on their CV and register as employees of PI.

Further, are you seriously comparing developing a huge project like this with writing a book? Naturally, working on developing a huge product (or system) like this obviously isn't a case of "too many cooks spoil the broth", you actually need large teams to work on each aspect of the system and you need good leads to make sure everything functions coherently. Let's take the AI for example: From what I understand, currently there's only ONE guy working on it, even though it's utterly broken. A sub-project like developing an AI that's able to make the decisions necessary to run a detailed simulation of a WW2 era nation is a huge job, and would require a serious team,, yet who knows what kind of resources they got during the development process?