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

[.badner]

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.

Here are the jobs of both PI and PDox Development http://career.paradoxplaza.com/jobs
http://career.paradoxplaza.com/jobs
Thank godness there's such a good marketing for the beta.

Can't also wait to see the new mobile game developing team http://career.paradoxplaza.com/jobs/22958-mobile-director

The AI for a mobile game seems already made by the HOI4 team, though.

 

[FOARP]

As said, PI owns PDS, and hence every employee of PDS is also an employee of PI.

Working for a subordinate company does not make you an employee of the parent company, either in fact or in law. PI and PDS are two separate companies doing separate things. PI makes money from publishing games, many of them not from PDS.

And yes, a job like coding AI, or in fact any coding job, is one that can be spoiled by adding too many personnel to the project. Some tasks are always going to be one-man jobs on the Gantt chart because they need the unity of approach that comes from having one person work on them. Others are harmed by adding personnel to them due to the training time being greater than the time saved.

As for AI being "broken", please grow a sense of proportion. If we're comparing with HOI3 the AI is no worse at this stage than it was for that game one year post-release, and otherwise the game is way better.

Here are the jobs of both PI and PDox Development http://career.paradoxplaza.com/jobs
Thank godness there's such a good marketing for the beta.

Can't also wait to see the new mobile game developing team http://career.paradoxplaza.com/jobs/22958-mobile-director

The AI for a mobile game seems already made by the HOI4 team, though.

Mobile games will make money to cover their costs. This has nothing to do with HOI.

 

[indika_tates]

Just wait a year or two until the game is polished. It's the never ending history of every PDX game. Ck2 is in a very good shape. Eu4 also. I have played these games since the release date and both Ck2 and Eu4 have changed a lot to a good direction.

The same will happen with Hoi4. Some of you just need a bit of patience.

 

[Wminus]

Working for a subordinate company does not make you an employee of the parent company, either in fact or in law. PI and PDS are two separate companies doing separate things. PI makes money from publishing games, many of them not from PDS.

And yes, a job like coding AI, or in fact any coding job, is one that can be spoiled by adding too many personnel to the project. Some tasks are always going to be one-man jobs on the Gantt chart because they need the unity of approach that comes from having one person work on them. Others are harmed by adding personnel to them due to the training time being greater than the time saved.

As for AI being "broken", please grow a sense of proportion. If we're comparing with HOI3 the AI is no worse at this stage than it was for that game one year post-release, and otherwise the game is way better.



Mobile games will make money to cover their costs. This has nothing to do with HOI.

As I said, on the linkedin page, both the software developers and the marketing staff register with "paradox interactive", so frankly the PDS vs PI argument is an irrelevant red herring.

Further, a project such as designing and implementing an AI for a game like this isn't just a straightforward "coding job" for one guy, it's a serious software engineering project in its own right and requires a whole team to do properly.

Just wait a year or two until the game is polished. It's the never ending history of every PDX game. Ck2 is in a very good shape. Eu4 also. I have played these games since the release date and both Ck2 and Eu4 have changed a lot to a good direction.

The same will happen with Hoi4. Some of you just need a bit of patience.

Duno man. If you look at HoI3, even to this day the AI is a disaster that isn't even able to form a coherent front-line without constantly shuffling troops.

 

[.badner]

Just wait a year or two until the game is polished. It's the never ending history of every PDX game. Ck2 is in a very good shape. Eu4 also. I have played these games since the release date and both Ck2 and Eu4 have changed a lot to a good direction.

The same will happen with Hoi4. Some of you just need a bit of patience.

Both had a working (although not perfect) AI at launch and provided at least somewhat plausible worlds. HOI4 is a big step backwards from these releases. Still my favorite campaign from EU4 was right after release (First EU was EU3 NA).

Mobile games will make money to cover their costs. This has nothing to do with HOI.

Considering they are able to develope (and sell) DLCs for EU4, Stellaris, CK2 at the same time, while probably also developing Vicky3 and maybe Rome2 I don't think their money is to short to deliver what the customers payed for over 1 year ago.

From their last annual report:
"Operating profit amounted to SEK 308.0
(241.7) million, an increase of 27 %."

https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/en/paradox-interactive-ab-publ-publishes-annual-report-for-2016/
This is around 320 million €.
320.000.000 €
Should be enough for a tad bigger budget to fix the game the fans payed for 1 year ago. And adding focustress and new uniforms to the toysoldiers is not fixing it.


IMHO Paradox is willingly transfering itself to a big player on the gaming market next to EA or Ubi.
The IPO, the opening on the mobile market and the proportion between marketing and developing are logical steps on that way from that POV.
They still have more than enough goodwill from a lot of the fanbase, which still sees them as a small semi-indie developer and let them things pass, which nearly no gamer does for EA, Ubi, Creative Assembly or other Publishers/Developers. And they are pretty good at keeping that old image. Kudos the the marketing for that.

But my assumption is, that it will backfire at one point.

The old fans are somewhat let down, in my opinion. Sure they released a last beta patch for Vicky, but look how they treated MoTE or Sengoku. Or the release of the very game we are taking about. The weekly streams showing the gameplay and trying to hide the lacking AI. The false promises of the dev diaries. The lacking - at times non existing - communication with the fanbase post release.

Unfortunally I also bought till half an year ago nearly every DLC for EU4 because I wanted to support paradox making the games I like.
Maybe behavior like this led to paradox as it is now.

Sry for my bad english, it's a difficult topic for a non native speaker.

 

[Wminus]

Just wait a year or two until the game is polished. It's the never ending history of every PDX game. Ck2 is in a very good shape. Eu4 also. I have played these games since the release date and both Ck2 and Eu4 have changed a lot to a good direction.

The same will happen with Hoi4. Some of you just need a bit of patience.

Duno man. If you look at HoI3, even to this day the AI is a disaster that isn't even able to form a coherent front-line without constantly shuffling troops.

Both had a working (although not perfect) AI at launch and provided at least somewhat plausible worlds. HOI4 is a big step backwards from these releases. Still my favorite campaign from EU4 was right after release (First EU was EU3 NA).





Considering they are able to develope (and sell) DLCs for EU4, Stellaris, CK2 at the same time, while probably also developing Vicky3 and maybe Rome2 I don't think their money is to short to deliver what the customers payed for over 1 year ago.

From their last annual report:
"Operating profit amounted to SEK 308.0
(241.7) million, an increase of 27 %."

https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/en/paradox-interactive-ab-publ-publishes-annual-report-for-2016/
This is around 320 million €.
320.000.000 €
Should be enough for a tad bigger budget to fix the game the fans payed for 1 year ago. And adding focustress and new uniforms to the toysoldiers is not fixing it.


IMHO Paradox is willingly transfering itself to a big player on the gaming market next to EA or Ubi.
The IPO, the opening on the mobile market and the proportion between marketing and developing are logical steps on that way from that POV.
They still have more than enough goodwill from a lot of the fanbase, which still sees them as a small semi-indie developer and let them things pass, which nearly no gamer does for EA, Ubi, Creative Assembly or other Publishers/Developers. And they are pretty good at keeping that old image. Kudos the the marketing for that.

But my assumption is, that it will backfire at one point.

The old fans are let somewhat down, in my opinion. Sure they released a last beta patch for Vicky, but look how they treated MoTE or Sengoku. Or the release of the very game we are taking about. The weekly streams showing the gameplay and trying to hide the lacking AI. The false promises of the dev diaries. The lacking - at times non existing - communication with the fanbase post release.

Unfortunally I also bought till half an year ago nearly every DLC for EU4 because I wanted to support paradox making the games I like.
Maybe behavior like this led to paradox as it is now.

Sry for my bad english, it's a difficult topic for a non native speaker.

Exactly. The IPO (which their CEO called "an opportunity to let the employees, fans and solid investors to participate in the Paradox adventure" - lol ok) is a very strong indicator by itself that they're going for 100% commercialisation.. Yet if they hope to use their marketing army to get into the juicy casual gamer market and forget about their old fans, I have my doubts. The kind of strategy games they're good at simply aren't that interesting to most people.

 

[bERt0r]

If you look at HoI3, even to this day the AI is a disaster

HOI4 is a big step backwards from these releases.

 

[Kadanz]

Christ not another one of these threads.

 

[FOARP]

Duno man. If you look at HoI3, even to this day the AI is a disaster that isn't even able to form a coherent front-line without constantly shuffling troops.

Exactly. The IPO (which their CEO called "an opportunity to let the employees, fans and solid investors to participate in the Paradox adventure" - lol ok) is a very strong indicator by itself that they're going for 100% commercialisation.. Yet if they hope to use their marketing army to get into the juicy casual gamer market and forget about their old fans, I have my doubts. The kind of strategy games they're good at simply aren't that interesting to most people.

You don't see the contradiction between moaning about how HOI4 is being ruined by "commercialisation" compared to previous titles, and then saying that previous titles had the same/similar problems?

And no, you're still not understanding the basic point: PI and PDS are two different companies doing two different things. Even if they employ some of the same people this does not mean you can ignore this difference. One publishes games and therefore needs to hire more marketing staff than the other.

As for the IPO, this is their way of raising cash from their company which they set up and they made successful. I don't get all the whining about it, particularly complaining about " commercialisation" when ultimately we're talking about a business.

 

[Alex_brunius]

Duno man. If you look at HoI3, even to this day the AI is a disaster that isn't even able to form a coherent front-line without constantly shuffling troops.

Exactly. The IPO (which their CEO called "an opportunity to let the employees, fans and solid investors to participate in the Paradox adventure" - lol ok) is a very strong indicator by itself that they're going for 100% commercialisation.. Yet if they hope to use their marketing army to get into the juicy casual gamer market and forget about their old fans, I have my doubts. The kind of strategy games they're good at simply aren't that interesting to most people.

I didn't know that the IPO which made them go "100% commercialization" happened before HoI3 was released in 2009 ( since apparently it hade the same problems ).


You also need to understand that an IPO doesn't mean the company gets any bigger need to produce short term profits. The company had owners before the IPO which demanded profit to exactly the same degree that the public owners now do.

If anything sharing the ownership with the fans ( I know of at least 5 fans that bought shares ) means that the fans get more control over what decisions Paradox make, not less.

 

[spartansociety]

I didn't know that the IPO which made them go "100% commercialization" happened before HoI3 was released in 2009 ( since apparently it hade the same problems ).


You also need to understand that an IPO doesn't mean the company gets any bigger need to produce short term profits. The company had owners before the IPO which demanded profit to exactly the same degree that the public owners now do.

If anything sharing the ownership with the fans ( I know of at least 5 fans that bought shares ) means that the fans get more control over what decisions Paradox make, not less.

Not sure I would agree with this as a general statement. One common criticism of modern business ipractice s that CEO's benefit from short-term changes that look good while they are getting paid the big bucks in bonus payments, but result in long term difficulties for the company. Dell is an example of a company that gradually went down the tube after being listed. The former owner, along with private equity, bought all the shares so he could delist and make Dell great again. As a publicly listed company it was to hard to make changes, as shareholders and the board were only interested in boosting the short term profit.

In regards to PI though, I see little to no evidence of this. PI looks like a relatively small company that is very much connected to its shareholders and customers.

 

[Alex_brunius]

In regards to PI though, I see little to no evidence of this. PI looks like a relatively small company that is very much connected to its shareholders and customers.

I meant it only specifically for Paradox. The CEO actually reduced his ownership for the IPO to get enough shares to list, so if anything he would benefit less personally from short term decisions after the IPO then before it.

 

[Daddl]

https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/en/paradox-interactive-ab-publ-publishes-annual-report-for-2016/
This is around 320 million €.
320.000.000 €
Should be enough for a tad bigger budget to fix the game the fans payed for 1 year ago. And adding focustress and new uniforms to the toysoldiers is not fixing it.

You should have a closer look and check for sanity before you spread wrong numbers like that. Operating proft before tax was 308 million SEK. Thats 32 million Euro, not 320 million, and it was before tax, so you have 25 million Euro left after tax and financial result. Thats certainly not bad, but if you think Paradox is anywhere near EA (812 million Euro before tax) or Ubisoft (156 million Euro before tax) you are very very very mistaken.

This whole topic is dull: Do you really think companies work like this? The evil marketing guy forces the poor publishers to concentrate on short-term profit and milk the poor customers with false promises? If you really think thats true I wonder how any company ever is still alive.

 

[Surimi]

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?

And if you have too few marketing and business types and too many engineers, then the product suffers because it doesn't have a revenue stream capable of supporting its development. This is why publishing as a sector exists. This is why almost every development studio attaches itself to a publisher, because having the skillset to make games and having the skillset to sell games are completely different things and very, very few people have both.

Additionally, it's very seldom as simple as "let's throw more engineers at the problem and it will be fixed". There are challenges to having a larger team, particularly when a project does not actually need a larger team.

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.

Not really. It grew out of a board game company called Target Games which initially had zero programmers and no real interest in video games. Svea Rike (the video game) wasn't a passion project which captured the hearts of everyone involved, it was a cash-in side project to capitalize on the success of a popular board game. When Target Games went bankrupt, they sold off their video game division to Paradox Entertainment, which also wasn't really interested in video games, but used the revenue from the video games division to purchase a bunch of brands. They ultimately sold off the video games division to focus on developing the various brands they had acquired and became Cabinet Entertainment. Theodore Bergquis, Johan Andersson and Frederick Wester decided to salvage Paradox Entertainment's video game division as Paradox Interactive. Wester would ultimately buy out Bergquis share in the company, while Bergquis went on to be CEO of Gamersgate (which he also co-founded with Wester).

The corporate identity of Paradox Interactive as a company which focuses exclusively on niche games is very much a product of management decisions and is part of a deliberate sales strategyu. It isn't something which comes out of good old-timey homespun programmer values or fresh-baked code just like mama used to make. In the real world games are both a creative industry and a business, the two go hand in hand. If you can sell something but can't make it, you go out of business because you have nothing to sell. If you can make something but can't sell it, you go out of business because noone buys your stuff. Going out of business means no games for anyone.

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?

How many years has this programmer/artist/whatever spent marketing games.

How many years have they spent running a business?

Again, these are completely different skillsets. I would rather the creative person focus on doing creative things and actually making games, rather than trying to run a business and inevitably driving it into bankruptcy, resulting in no games for any of us.