Sorry but I have to release steam about the way of communication

[Zoob]

I think it's the other way around entirely. Steam sales induce people to buy games they would have never bought, because they think they're getting a 'great deal'. I reckon that group far outweighs the small group that is 'going to buy but willing to wait on a sale'. Why would steam adopt a policy that didn't bring in more money overall? Why do stores every have sales? Because it results in more spending, not less.

I take this point entirely, it just means that companies should wait a long time before deep sale prices are introduced, the more holdouts that give in at the higher price point the better.

I do think that games on PC are valued far less than they are on console who seem to be willing to pay more for games, rightly or wrongly.

 

[xtfoster]

The reason for the understandable frustration is a release date has been stated and then pushed twice.

They have NEVER given a release day. They did (ONCE, not twice) give an estimate (Q2 2015) but never gave a date. They also were clear when they had to give up on that date that they would NOT make that mistake again. All other dates that have been floating around these Forums have been guesstimates from forumites, not from Paradox.

 

[Daelyn75]

Personally, I like how Bethesda released Fallout IV. It came on in November 2015, and they announced it in June of 2015. Cannot argue with that. I've literally had one crash in over 200 hours of playing that game, and I completed it.

They must have been in what would be considered at PDS approved beta, and they were fully confident of being able to meet it's release date in 5 months. I think that Paradox said approved alpha next time? Or was it approved beta? Either way, it shouldn't be that long from either. I think approved alpha to release would be about a year, and beta 4-6 months right? Yep, I personally think approved beta would be best, since the game is basically done, and just needs some tweaking. Maybe next game to be announced will be like this.

 

[TheCrimsonMajor]

A false dilemma (also called false dichotomy, false binary, black-and-white thinking, bifurcation, denying a conjunct, the either–or fallacy, fallacy of exhaustive hypotheses, the fallacy of false choice, or the fallacy of the false alternative) is a type of informal fallacy that involves a situation in which only ...

Soldat444, as fabius so nicely put it, you've articulated two extremes in developer-fan communication as the only acceptable options, when in reality most game developers' approaches fall somewhere in the middle, including Paradox. It's a "damned if they do, damned if they don't" scenario for the developers, and I sympathize with how difficult it is for them to balance the competing interests of transparency and managing customer expectations. It's unrealistic to expect any game developer to embody either of those absolutes.

All things considered, I think Johan's reason for the delay (a near-complete rework of the entire game because the quality didn't meet Paradox's standards) is more than adequate to justify making fans wait a little longer. A game that is broken at launch is almost never fixed. Paradox is one of the few developers that even attempts to add substantive content and new gameplay mechanics after release, and it still can take them years to get it right (fueled by DLC, of course).

The PR consequences from a bad launch can be devastating for the developer. This can translate into the developer devoting less resources to continuing support of the game, reasoning that because it has already had a horrible launch, the damage has been done and it's more efficient to work on a new title. Conversely, if you're not dealing with potential vaporware, what's the worst consequence of further delays in development? You have to wait a bit longer to play the game. That's it.

I know you said that you understand the reasons for the delay, and don't want a buggy release. I sympathize with your lack of patience. But, if you're like most of us, don't you have a huge backlog of games to play? Just a thought.

 

[Goodis]

A game that is broken at launch is almost never fixed. Paradox is one of the few developers that even attempts to add substantive content and new gameplay mechanics after release, and it still can take them years to get it right (fueled by DLC, of course).

This so much, it's either released and broken(*cough* total war *cough*) or just scrapped. It's not easy telling people it's not nearly finished and they have no clue about a release date, VERY BOLD move, and i respect that.