About DLCs and cashcows

[Xandukhan]

Heya all,

I wanted to post about my grievances about the way paradox has been releasing its games lately.
More specifically the endless DLC's for 10-20 euros (in my case).
If you look on the steam store CK II with all dlc and portraits DLCs etc costs 144.90, for EU4 full pack its 92.99.
Now i don't mind a developer charging more when they bring out extra content and demanding fair pay for a fair product but the scales are totally unbalanced from my viewpoint.
Some of the DLC in CKII and EU4 are vital to have a good game and some of them were already on the drawing board before release, according to me these should be free as they are important to the core value of the game.
DLC that bring completly new content and features, not talking about features that have to be added to improve the core game after having feedback in the first few months, i have no problem paying a little extra.

I posted this now because stellaris was released recently, and to me, and others, it is clear that paradox is going on the same marketing/profit model as EU4 and CKII with DLC's every few months for 10-20 bucks. While the first DLC should be PATCHES NOT PAID DLC, from what i saw during EU4 and CKII.

Now i wanted to make this grievance clear to paradox because although i love their complex grand strategy games, i believe they are shooting themselves in the foot with this kind of strategy, i played stellaris on a friends acc but i would pirate this game in the state it is right now and only buy it when the first 4-5 DLC's are out and hope for a steam sale, in order to get a fair price for the game. I believe that paradox would have a better reputation in the sector if they stopped this strategy, this would also decrease the pirating of their games not all but quite alot i'm sure.

Please dont take the EA road and make cashcows out of your games that i have enjoyed for hours, as an example i suggest paradox take a look at CD projekt RED(Witcher 3), they gave away their 16 first DLC for free to everyone, which were dlc not adding main features and that were not vital to the core game. After this they charged 20 bucks for a larger, true expansion to the game with extra story.

To end this, you deserve to be paid for your good work but this is becoming a cashcow strategy now, this isnt a threat or something but i pirate games that i want to play that utilise this kind of profit strategy. I have no problem paying a little bit more for a game, that does not come around asking for another fee every few months when they have a supposed ''completly brand new DLC that changes the entire game and was totally not actually needed to improve the core game'' Thus ends my rant

(Not native english)

 

[Shireknight]

Hearts of Iron III was released in 2009 Hearts of Iron IV in 2016 and I'm willing to bet that the same Paradox team made both games, this is only possible because of DLC, if DLC in some form didn't exist then in order for the franchise to remain profitable Hearts of Iron IV would probably have had to had been released in around 2012/13 purely because games need to show a consistent profit in order to make it worth developing them.

Thanks to a nice long development period we will get a much superior game than one that would have been released in 2012/13 -that's the beauty of DLC.

 

[Xandukhan]

I believe you missed the point, dlc is fine as long as they are not neccasary updates for the core game, look at EU4 they have 7-8?? Not sure. Dlc all going for 10 to 20 bucks, more than a 100 bucks for a game is ridiculous. The first 3-4 dlc of EU4 should be free according to me the latter 2-3 yes i believe they do deserve an extra charge

 

[Shireknight]

Purchasable DLC are never core updates to games they are extensions or added content to games, if a DLC says that it contains a patch then there will always be a free patch that runs alongside it that everyone gets, even people who don't purchase the DLC, you may not notice the patch/download but believe me it does happen and that goes for all companies not just Paradox.

 

[Xandukhan]

+ it has already been proven by others in the buisness that this is an achievable goal for a company that needs a profit for future projects, they even have an advantage that they used the same engine for their last few big titles, which means less work.
And i must disagree with your last point the first dlc in especially EU4 are needed to have a better core game experience, these were features that were lacking at release and were definitely needed

 

[CookieMonk]

I am a Paradox fanboy, but let me tell you a very short story. I am 60yo, i have diabetes, i am on a very small fixed monthly income and on a scale of 1 to 10 my health is a 8. The DLC policy is hard on me, i don`t buy "music & ebooks, but i do buy all other DLC and all the games "Paradox" releases at launch, i do buy some other games by other developers and the way i do this is, i buy 4 cases of ramen noodles and eat off them all month and i only cook full course meals on sundays, not good for a diabetic. I don`t go out for fun or travel. Now i say all this to say, this is the choice i make to play "Paradox" games, life requires us to make choices, lets face it "Paradox" is a for profit company, they don`t make anyone buy their games or DLC and if you want to play, you have to choose when money is tight or don`t buy their products. That is my humble opinion. I love "Paradox" games this much. THANK YOU!!!

 

[skynet464]

You're a bit late to the party. People have been complaining about the new DLC policy for years, but that doesn't stop most people from buying them

 

[AlfredMV]

They have an insanely fair dlc policy.

 

[Knut Skallagrim]

I'm a paradox fan and i hate dlcs, now you can see how miserable is my condition

 

[Daddl]

Start up, lets be generous, EU4 version 1.3. Thats the game you would have without expansions.

I do understand the price tag is a bit much on the first glance, but:
-half the price are cosmetics, if you don't care, don't buy them
-you get 50-80% off frequently on various shops. Just wait for a few weeks.
-these expansions had to finance Paradox (~200 employees?) for the last 3 years

That reduces the price to almost ridiculous levels if you remember these games easily entertain you for more than 500 hours, if not up to a few thousand. Your average 60$ yearly shooter certainly doesn't do that.

 

[Xandukhan]

But would we deserve EU4 1.3 with the base price that has been paid? i think we deserve more. Especially the first 3-4 dlc were mainly perfecting the game based on feedback and some added features that should have been in the game in the first place

 

[Caspoi]

If Paradox works on improving the game after launch then it seems reasonable that they would charge money for it, they are running a business and not a charity after all and should have a motivation to do so. Even so a lot of the improvements they do are in the form of free patches with DLC being completely optional, that does not seem like an unreasonable policy. As for the first DLC specifically they are not "core features" that have been removed from the game so I don't really see why they should be free of charge.

 

[Xandukhan]

But it's very clear the game needed these features in order to supplement the core game where it was lacking in some areas

 

[Caspoi]

But it's very clear the game needed these features in order to supplement the core game where it was lacking in some areas

Yes but what are you arguing for? Useless DLC rather than ones made to improve the game where needed?

 

[Jak9090]

according to steam stats, i pay 0.02 cent per hour of ck2 play time, that's the best bargain i've EVER gotten in my whole life

 

[cloudwasher]

In this world, if you don't financially support the things you like then they go away. Did I think Mare Nostrum was necessarily worth $15? Probably not. But I've put in over 2000 hours on EU4 and I liked a lot of the things in the free patch. Even if I had paid full price for every DLC (which I didn't... wait for a Paradox developer weekend on steam and most will be 33-75% off except for the newest DLC usually) then paying $200 for something that has entertained me for more than 2000 hours works out to about 10 cents for every hour of gameplay, which is a pretty damn good bargain.

 

[CookieMonk]

In this world, if you don't financially support the things you like then they go away. Did I think Mare Nostrum was necessarily worth $15? Probably not. But I've put in over 2000 hours on EU4 and I liked a lot of the things in the free patch. Even if I had paid full price for every DLC (which I didn't... wait for a Paradox developer weekend on steam and most will be 33-75% off except for the newest DLC usually) then paying $200 for something that has entertained me for more than 2000 hours works out to about 10 cents for every hour of gameplay, which is a pretty damn good bargain.

I agree 100%

 

[Mike1984]

I believe you missed the point, dlc is fine as long as they are not neccasary updates for the core game, look at EU4 they have 7-8?? Not sure. Dlc all going for 10 to 20 bucks, more than a 100 bucks for a game is ridiculous. The first 3-4 dlc of EU4 should be free according to me the latter 2-3 yes i believe they do deserve an extra charge

The problem with this argument is that, for Paradox, a DLC is by definition something you pay for. Paradox releases plenty of improvements which are not paid for, if you look at the version number history for EU you'll see that not every "major version" coincides with a DLC, and even those which do have plenty of free content attached. Paradox just chooses not to call that extra content "DLC", because it's an improvement to the game which everyone gets rather than something "optional" which can be added if you choose to pay for it.

They're also doing the same for Stellaris now. The first two or three patches will be entirely free content containing significant improvements to the gameplay (and not simply bug fixes). That is, in effect, a free DLC, it's just that Paradox doesn't call it a DLC. DLCs are optional extra content which you can usually play the game fairly well without. There are a few examples I would say somewhat go against that (the implementation of the development system in EU, for example, which is a backwards step compared to the old building system for those who do not have the DLC which gives you the ability to increase development of a province), but generally it's not the case.

 

[Xandukhan]

Yes but what are you arguing for? Useless DLC rather than ones made to improve the game where needed?

No i argue for DLC that truely add to the game, without this DLC being needed to improve upon the existing core game where some features were really lacking.
If i happily pay for a DLC it has to be full of content that was brand new, not on the drawing board even before release(this might be debateble in some cases), and content that does not patch up things where the core game was lacking

 

[Caspoi]

No i argue for DLC that truely add to the game, without this DLC being needed to improve upon the existing core game where some features were really lacking.
If i happily pay for a DLC it has to be full of content that was brand new, not on the drawing board even before release(this might be debateble in some cases), and content that does not patch up things where the core game was lacking

First, most of the "patching up" is done via free patches. Second, what constitutes as being necessarily required to the game is not objective. Third, being "on the drawing board" (not that it would be easy to prove it one way or another) does not mean that it should automatically be in the game. I am pretty certain that paradox already have for instance robot races for Stellaris "on the drawing board" but as that would simply be a new add-on which would also require a lot of work to function properly I am perfectly ready to accept that they were not in the game at release.