Why did PDX decide to sell Expansion passes?

[sterrius]

my vision of a season pass is not different from a kickstarter campaign. You're paying for some content you still don´t have in the hopes that your finance will help that DLC to come out better or equivalent to what you paid.


I went with field marshall edition because paradox is the company i have on my top5 best companys right now.

Of course that can change in the future. All my decisions are made with the present/future of a company, not its past. Its hard to build up the kind of trust i have on paradox right now and very easy to lose it.

In the end its a matter of trust.
Also the fact right now i can spare the money, i don´t know in the future .
If they fail to deliver DLC´s i find it worth i will simply do not buy it and will recommend other people to not buy it.

I totally lost more money betting on games already released or in pre-order in the past. As a 20+ years of gaming this kind of becomes impossible to avoid.

Losing money with a game that in the end is not fun for you is part of the process of being a gamer. You can protect yourself a lot those days with youtube etc, but still can happen and you learn and move on. (And today most of the time get a refund).

My analysis is that paradox today offer low risk of the game not being what you expect of them. If not at release at least within 2-3 months with patchs. Also most DLC´s of paradox deliver a good amount of content. Its a personal opinion and people is free to disagree with this.

The most recent company that broke my trust was creative assembly with rome 2: total war. Needed 2 years to play the game right, only got atilla after 1 year and a half once sure the game worked fine. Also waiting 1 year + to get the warhammer: total war.

Maybe one day i go back to buy something from them on release.

 

[JakeCourtney]

I'd gladly pay them $150 for a game if it meant ALL future expansions were included. It's already the sort of practice common among AAA studios. Face it gentlemen, their going public has put the shareholder above the fanbase.

How many of those games are support for over 3+ years though?

 

[Maizel]

I'd gladly pay them $150 for a game if it meant ALL future expansions were included. It's already the sort of practice common among AAA studios. Face it gentlemen, their going public has put the shareholder above the fanbase.

I don't attend the Paradox meetings, but I suspect you are right. I suspect their upcoming IPO has alot to do with their, frankly, abrupt shift in strategy with Stellaris and HoI 4. to conform with the going practices of other big studios.

Paradox, at one point really stood apart from the other developers who glady jumped on on the bandwagon of many of the business practices many of us hate.

Then CK2 introduced the gazillion expansions. Now with HoI4 and their expansions passes and tiny preorder incentives that could just as well have been added to the base game. Sure, Paradox was a little behind the curve on this one, and it took a little while, but now there is virtually no difference between Paradox and other studios.

Paradox does support their products a long time. But since CK2, alot of that support went to fix bugs after release, and to iron out bugs the many, many expansions they put out introduced to the game. Stop acting like it is a gift to us customers.

If you put out DLC's for 3 years, it is only natural to support the game while doing it. It is not a concession to us.

There are a lot of developers who support their products for a long time. Most of them without churning out DLC after DLC.

 

[JakeCourtney]

I don't attend the Paradox meetings, but I suspect you are right. I suspect their upcoming IPO has alot to do with their, frankly, abrupt shift in strategy with Stellaris and HoI 4.

It's possible I guess. They did have a stance against the whole expansion pass thing and now they're trying it out with HoI4. Like I said, the first wave of content they put out for Hoi4 is going to be massively judged just passed on the fact that a of people bought the pass for them.

I guess time will tell how them going public will change things.

 

[JungleJames]

How many of those games are support for over 3+ years though?

Bethesda supported their product all the way to the experimental paid mods / Steam Workshop some 5 years after the release of Skyrim. Diablo II: Lord of Destruction just received a patch a few months ago and that game was released in 2001, a grand total of 15 years after its release.

 

[JakeCourtney]

Bethesda supported their product all the way to the experimental paid mods / Steam Workshop some 5 years after the release of Skyrim. Diablo II: Lord of Destruction just received a patch a few months ago and that game was released in 2001, a grand total of 15 years after its release.

I'm talking actual content updates and not come failed community paid mods or tiny little technical patches. That is because for the last 15 years they've been selling the Diablo box set at full price in stores.

 

[JungleJames]

I'm talking actual content updates and not come failed community paid mods or tiny little technical patches. That is because for the last 15 years they've been selling the Diablo box set at full price in stores.

Fair point but that is essentially why Paradox has supported their releases as well, there's an opportunity for revenue generation, or there is a revenue stream there. EVE Online, same thing; free expansions for the price of the monthly subscriptio PLEX or no. CK2's DLC supported its continued development just as the ubiquity of D2's Battlechest supported whatever patches have come since, regardless of how minor.

 

[Gauge]

I would be interested on where Paradox is getting these metrics and determining that people want Season Passes and Tiered systems? If you are using sales, that is an incredibly flawed argument. Here is why.

TLDR: Capitalism is amoral (Didn't say immoral). If you understand this concept and apply it to Johans explanation, there is no need to read the rest of my post.

If you assert that people WANT something by what they are willing to pay, your argument is fundamentally flawed. People are willing to do many things that they don't want. Many people, myself included want this game very much. We've watched let's plays, it clearly looks very fleshed out for the depth of strategy it provides. There are many reasons to want the game. After raging a bit, I'm debating on whether or not I'm going to purchase this title still because of the amoral decisions being made pushing this company ever closer to E.A. land. I may decide to cave, I may not. This does not mean I WANT to pay for a season pass, or for content which is finished and should be in the base price of the game, but, for amoral reasons, aren't.

People don't WANT these amoral (debatably anti-consumer) options. They are WILLING to deal with them. Conduct a poll, ask everyone on the forum if they would prefer one game with all the content finished at release time, or if they would prefer this tiered system with season passes. Take a wild guess what that outcome would be.

I understand you can never actually say this, you're going to be a public company soon, so garbage business lingo is going to be spewing left and right, but don't misrepresent statistical models. That's just beneath you. Change your WANT to a WILLING in your statement and it is far more accurate, but sounds a lot worse. That's because you're now making Capitalistic Amoral decisions. Which I assume will be the norm after your IPO.

Many people will say, well yea, they need to make money. That is correct, they need enough money to run their business, and they've long since had that kind of money. They are trying to expand, expand, expand now. Squeak out as much revenue as possible. This is when unethical, and amoral decision making processes happen.

Expect it to get worse. They are obligated to their share holders to make amoral decisions to expand and increase revenue (depending on dividend offerings or not). These are not fundamentally immoral decisions, because they are making them in the vacuum of capital. These decisions have no morals, good or bad. Generally, and statistically, this ends badly for us.

They will exploit what people are WILLING to do, at the expense of the people who made them who they are in the first place, us, the community. We become statistically irrelevant to their goal (expanding), because so many people are WILLING to let them empty their pockets for them.

E.A. is a terrible company, and yet they do very well because so many sheep are WILLING to let them take their money. So E.A. says EXACTLY what Johan said. Our metrics indicate this is what people want.

B.S. You are turning into E.A., deal with it. The company you work for is turning into E.A. deal with it.

I'm still debating on whether or not to buy this, as from a moral standpoint I haven't purchased an E.A. or Ubisoft title in longer than I can remember. I don't want to give Paradox a free pass for this. I know I'm statistically irrelevant (hurr metrics Johan), but it matters to me. If I do buy it, it will be the last one I purchase. With the announcement of IPO and the handling of HOI4 and Stellaris, it's clear where Paradox is headed, and I'm not following.

 

[jibby123]

If the game polished and finished as we (the game producer and customer) would like to see it or how good it could/should be then they might as well advertise it as....

"we are releasing the base game, buy it for £30....but over the years it takes us to get to the polished article it will cost the customer £100+".

What do we prefer?? The base game released and no updates, or been given a 'sneak preview' early to get your hands on it now knowing it will improve with time?

You're the customer, you decide. It's crap the way we are enticed to buy a final game for £60/80/100 in my personal opinion, but what's the alternative? Vote with your credit card, but enough (including me) will be suckered in to paying top money for the finished article.

If anyone buys HOI4 on release day next month and think it's the finished article then they are naïve. It's an informed choice on how you spend your credit card at least.

 

[herm]

If the game polished and finished as we (the game producer and customer) would like to see it or how good it could/should be then they might as well advertise it as....

"we are releasing the base game, buy it for £30....but over the years it takes us to get to the polished article it will cost the customer £100+".

What do we prefer?? The base game released and no updates, or been given a 'sneak preview' early to get your hands on it now knowing it will improve with time?

You're the customer, you decide. It's crap the way we are enticed to buy a final game for £60/80/100 in my personal opinion, but what's the alternative? Vote with your credit card, but enough (including me) will be suckered in to paying top money for the finished article.

If anyone buys HOI4 on release day next month and think it's the finished article then they are naïve. It's an informed choice on how you spend your credit card at least.

So what you are basically saying is that: as long as there is content they (Paradox) can add to the game, then the game is not finished when they release it, regardless of how long it would take to develop said content?

 

[jibby123]

It's for you to decide when the game is finished to be good enough to max out enjoyment is what I am saying.

You can ignore all future DLC's, but from HOI3, CK2 and EUIV and all their DLC's or 'expansions' from vanilla base game to make the game the finished article I'd say exactly that, yes.

 

[herm]

It's for you to decide when the game is finished to be good enough to max out enjoyment is what I am saying.

You can ignore all future DLC's, but from HOI3, CK2 and EUIV and all their DLC's or 'expansions' from vanilla base game to make the game the finished article I'd say exactly that, yes.

You may well think that the vanilla game is not good enough but it is obviously what Paradox can do with the time and money they can resonably allocate to the development of one game (if they want to make any money). Just to still my curiosity, would you say the same of, for example, Blizzard with regards to Starcraft 2?

 

[Kazansky22]

I got the Field Marshall version for $67 USD on GMG with the discount code.

 

[Mindmeld_me]

I am very late to this discussion but I checked the dev responses and it's really nice to see so much feedback already. I thought about doing the FM version preorder as well. I don't really need the art book, I have gotten them before and while they look cool I have no where to store them now. I saw the season pass and I would agree with the idea of renaming it. It reminds me of Counter Strike and the passes used there. It makes me think it is time dependent while I did see it spell out it gets you the first 2 expansions included. It was more of purchase cost for me. I think it's a good deal because I know I will buy the expansions when released. I think it's kind of stretch in general because it means I am paying for content I could possibly not receive if the company suddenly folded (which I find highly unlikely). I will likely buy them later and I hope they stay at the $20 dollar price point. I think it would be nice to see that option broken out separately where I can go into Steam and buy the "Early Expansion Bundle" for the discount without the other things like the forum avatar maybe and art book and such.

Truthfully it is entirely up to Paradox since it is there game. As a customer I am just eager to play the game I have been waiting for nearly 2 years now I think. How they sell it is up to them, offers are up to them as well. Personally if I didn't want anything I would just buy the base version, issue solved.

 

[JakeCourtney]

I would be interested on where Paradox is getting these metrics and determining that people want Season Passes and Tiered systems? If you are using sales, that is an incredibly flawed argument. Here is why.

TLDR: Capitalism is amoral (Didn't say immoral). If you understand this concept and apply it to Johans explanation, there is no need to read the rest of my post.

If you assert that people WANT something by what they are willing to pay, your argument is fundamentally flawed. People are willing to do many things that they don't want. Many people, myself included want this game very much. We've watched let's plays, it clearly looks very fleshed out for the depth of strategy it provides. There are many reasons to want the game. After raging a bit, I'm debating on whether or not I'm going to purchase this title still because of the amoral decisions being made pushing this company ever closer to E.A. land. I may decide to cave, I may not. This does not mean I WANT to pay for a season pass, or for content which is finished and should be in the base price of the game, but, for amoral reasons, aren't.

People don't WANT these amoral (debatably anti-consumer) options. They are WILLING to deal with them. Conduct a poll, ask everyone on the forum if they would prefer one game with all the content finished at release time, or if they would prefer this tiered system with season passes. Take a wild guess what that outcome would be.

I understand you can never actually say this, you're going to be a public company soon, so garbage business lingo is going to be spewing left and right, but don't misrepresent statistical models. That's just beneath you. Change your WANT to a WILLING in your statement and it is far more accurate, but sounds a lot worse. That's because you're now making Capitalistic Amoral decisions. Which I assume will be the norm after your IPO.

Many people will say, well yea, they need to make money. That is correct, they need enough money to run their business, and they've long since had that kind of money. They are trying to expand, expand, expand now. Squeak out as much revenue as possible. This is when unethical, and amoral decision making processes happen.

Expect it to get worse. They are obligated to their share holders to make amoral decisions to expand and increase revenue (depending on dividend offerings or not). These are not fundamentally immoral decisions, because they are making them in the vacuum of capital. These decisions have no morals, good or bad. Generally, and statistically, this ends badly for us.

They will exploit what people are WILLING to do, at the expense of the people who made them who they are in the first place, us, the community. We become statistically irrelevant to their goal (expanding), because so many people are WILLING to let them empty their pockets for them.

E.A. is a terrible company, and yet they do very well because so many sheep are WILLING to let them take their money. So E.A. says EXACTLY what Johan said. Our metrics indicate this is what people want.

B.S. You are turning into E.A., deal with it. The company you work for is turning into E.A. deal with it.

I'm still debating on whether or not to buy this, as from a moral standpoint I haven't purchased an E.A. or Ubisoft title in longer than I can remember. I don't want to give Paradox a free pass for this. I know I'm statistically irrelevant (hurr metrics Johan), but it matters to me. If I do buy it, it will be the last one I purchase. With the announcement of IPO and the handling of HOI4 and Stellaris, it's clear where Paradox is headed, and I'm not following.

That doesn't sound very good. I thought they were trying to say that the IPO wasn't going to affect them and that they were using it to start some mobile gaming development or something.

 

[Number 7]

I could understand a super deluxe pass that cost stupid money if it included 'literally everything that might be made with HOI4.'

But a singular expansion pack? It's like getting a handjob, not even reaching climax and then Johan asking me for some more money upfront just to promise me he will finish it later, but nothing more, that'll cost extra. It's pretty much telling me to go and fuck myself. Then some other guy that had the same deal before me is telling me it's a good deal because he is trying to justify to himself why he didn't get off but not to worry, that will come later, but not all of it.

It's just rude. And only idiots that don't know any better think it's a good deal. And it ain't the money, it's the principal of it. And then someone is telling me that there is a bunch of 'free' shit included which should already be included as if it was something I should be happy about.

But I guess I shouldn't hate Paradox, should just hate humans for lapping this shit up like it's great. Damn fools.

you know... you don't have to buy it right? you can just get the base version and buy expansions after seeing if they are worth it.

if its other people buying something and being happy with it, how does that make them fools?

 

[Matray79]

We got some interesting metrics on why the community *LOVES* our expansion passes.

1) We know how much our deluxe editions of pre-orders sell compared to regular editions.
2) For HoI4, the difference is enormous, in a positive ratio for the deluxe edition.

It seems that the average HoI4 fan wants to get 55-65$ value of expansions and dlc for far cheaper, and paying it now in one payment.

Its funny but I actually asked about this getting expansions etc all in one go at the release, as PDS are now doing and was shot down for even asking.

My concern now is does the expansion pass include the unit models that are released with each expansion pass or with each expansion will I need to have several micro transactions as well even though I already have the expansion pass. Because that would really piss me right off.

 

[Peter Wass]

While the expansion pass annoys me, I'm more upset about the day 1 DLC. If the 3D tank models are done, why not put them in the base game?

Because they aren't part of the base game.

When you say 'far cheaper' you mean $10 cheaper, right?

Which on a notional value of $50 is 20%.

selling theoretical non-existent future content with a slight possible discount?

Has anyone actually suggested that you won't be able to buy the expansions after they've been released? It would certainly be an interesting business model.

It's just rude.

No, rude is dismissing those who disagree as damn fools. Offering a product that you don't wish to buy is not.

that still means they were using resources that could've went into developing the game and making it better on something to milk money out of those 'DLC completionists'.

You do realise that the people who draw sprites and the people who program are different people?

I don't think comparing a major nation's playability to cosmetic DLC is a fair comparison.
If ANY nation were unplayable (not unbalanced or boring, but locked from the user), it would be a reason for many people not to purchase; I'll probably never play as Bhutan or Albania (not my cup of tea), but in my opinion, that's completely different than a bit of flavor.

Quite, but it is also worth noting that the vast majority of WWII games don't give the option to play as Albania or Bhutan, and aren't criticised for that. Of course, this being Paradox, I'm sure it's only a matter of time until somebody is on here denouncing them for screwing over the customers by not including a custom national focus tree for Liechtenstein.

Okay, you want to argue semantics? That's fine.

I'm not buying a house ... otherwise they wouldn't do it.

When you buy a house, you buy pictures for the walls (if you want them) separately.

 

[Gamer_1745]

Things change and we might not like the changes. Social changes people can rightly fight/protest/disagree with. Technological changes happen and they are something we have to get used to (for better or worse). Software delivery methods change (I remember the days when you had to buy copies at the store) and it changes the market place. This changes how/why we buy things. It also changes when to start selling a game like HOI IV. Do you wait until it is fully ready & complete with no farther work planed for it? Or start selling it when it is good & playable but the developers know that with more time they can add more to the game? The Expansion Pass shows they know they have more in mind they can do with this game if given time and they plan on doing it.

Some people don't like the Expansion Pass (I think I read one good reason for that in the above thread) and it is bundled with a few things they may want. These things are are really just club membership patches and are not part of the game. So don't like the Expansion Pass? Don't buy it. Paradox will get the message. And even if it is just 10 or 20% of the people buy the Expansion Pass how does that hurt the ones that don't? Conversely if 80 or 90% do buy it how does that hurt the ones waiting to see if they want the expansions? I know if I am a causal player of a game (including a Paradox one) I will often wait for a very good sale to buy things. Now something like HoI which I mod I know I will want/need them so an Expansion Pass would be a good thing.

I was interested in hearing the reason for the change in thought/policy by Paradox is why I started to read this thread. After reading it I am amazed how much passion in is this topic. I am much more concerned about what is in the game than which purchasing plans to buy the game.

 

[griffor]

I would be interested on where Paradox is getting these metrics and determining that people want Season Passes and Tiered systems? If you are using sales, that is an incredibly flawed argument. Here is why.

TLDR: Capitalism is amoral (Didn't say immoral). If you understand this concept and apply it to Johans explanation, there is no need to read the rest of my post.

If you assert that people WANT something by what they are willing to pay, your argument is fundamentally flawed. People are willing to do many things that they don't want. Many people, myself included want this game very much. We've watched let's plays, it clearly looks very fleshed out for the depth of strategy it provides. There are many reasons to want the game. After raging a bit, I'm debating on whether or not I'm going to purchase this title still because of the amoral decisions being made pushing this company ever closer to E.A. land. I may decide to cave, I may not. This does not mean I WANT to pay for a season pass, or for content which is finished and should be in the base price of the game, but, for amoral reasons, aren't.

People don't WANT these amoral (debatably anti-consumer) options. They are WILLING to deal with them. Conduct a poll, ask everyone on the forum if they would prefer one game with all the content finished at release time, or if they would prefer this tiered system with season passes. Take a wild guess what that outcome would be.

I understand you can never actually say this, you're going to be a public company soon, so garbage business lingo is going to be spewing left and right, but don't misrepresent statistical models. That's just beneath you. Change your WANT to a WILLING in your statement and it is far more accurate, but sounds a lot worse. That's because you're now making Capitalistic Amoral decisions. Which I assume will be the norm after your IPO.

Many people will say, well yea, they need to make money. That is correct, they need enough money to run their business, and they've long since had that kind of money. They are trying to expand, expand, expand now. Squeak out as much revenue as possible. This is when unethical, and amoral decision making processes happen.

Expect it to get worse. They are obligated to their share holders to make amoral decisions to expand and increase revenue (depending on dividend offerings or not). These are not fundamentally immoral decisions, because they are making them in the vacuum of capital. These decisions have no morals, good or bad. Generally, and statistically, this ends badly for us.

They will exploit what people are WILLING to do, at the expense of the people who made them who they are in the first place, us, the community. We become statistically irrelevant to their goal (expanding), because so many people are WILLING to let them empty their pockets for them.

E.A. is a terrible company, and yet they do very well because so many sheep are WILLING to let them take their money. So E.A. says EXACTLY what Johan said. Our metrics indicate this is what people want.

B.S. You are turning into E.A., deal with it. The company you work for is turning into E.A. deal with it.

I'm still debating on whether or not to buy this, as from a moral standpoint I haven't purchased an E.A. or Ubisoft title in longer than I can remember. I don't want to give Paradox a free pass for this. I know I'm statistically irrelevant (hurr metrics Johan), but it matters to me. If I do buy it, it will be the last one I purchase. With the announcement of IPO and the handling of HOI4 and Stellaris, it's clear where Paradox is headed, and I'm not following.

this is where you and i differ i would gladly pay for paradox to make season pass or expansion credit i guess is how they state it, because i trust them. and at the end of the day

now when it comes to Activision, or Ubisoft ill pass on anything they make usually till it is on sale as i don't trust the companies after rome 2, and last few assassin creeds.

ea on the other hand is kinda mixed blessing i know eventually they fix whatever people hated with the game, its just frustrating that on release no one enjoys the game because of either bugs or bad game mechanics.