This is a communications disaster!

[Tomice]

Assumption:
PDX wanted to repair IR after the bad start to avoid leaving a stain on their reputation. They kept financing 2 years of development to be able to return to this era at some point in the future without having to fight bad memories and negative opinions from the very start.

Result 1:
Arheo and his team deliver impressive work and turn IR into a secret jewel. Steam reviews shift, the game becomes something to be proud of. The community is grateful to PDX for not having dropped the game after a few months.

Result 2:
After the initial roadmap that was intended to calm down the raging community, communications regarding the future are reduced to a need-to-know basis. The devs are only allowed to talk about content that is almost finished. Doomsayers in this forum are left to sour the mood within the community without interference from PDX staff.

In other words, there is a huge discrepancy between the excellent rescue performed by Arheo and his team and the abysmal communications surrounding it.
Had we known a bit earlier that 2.0 was the last patch, we would have been stunned by the amount of work put into it (even a new UI - who would have imagined!?).
We would have seen all this effort as a great example of customer service. We would have praised PDX for finally delivering the game we had hoped for when we bought it. We would have understood that the limited player numbers don't allow eternal development, but we would have seen 2.0 as a decent state to leave the game.

But instead of open communications that would have prepared us and would have allowed us to enjoy 2.0 as what it is (a farewell with fireworks and flying colours) we were left in the dark.

And the result?
PDX got what it could have had more than a year ago - disappointed fans, a ruined brand name, and a whole era that is tainted in terms of pubic reception. Even in 10 years, the sudden and shocking abandonment ("the lead dev is already gone") will haunt any release of a game set in antiquity. It will probably also taint the reputation of PDX as a whole.

2.0 could have been associated with so much more positive emotions had you only warned us in a timely fashion.
I feel bad for Arheo, Snow Crystal, Jiroro and all the devs, because they fought admirably, just to see how marketing spoiled it all.

 

[maurot12]

I agree, in part this is the fault of the fanboys. They literally said that they are looking for a new team and aim to continue development past 2021. Yet people be like "the game is dead", "they abandoned us", "f*** pdx", "they only care about money", "i am never buying anything ever again", "give me a refund". They completely ignore the 2years of development this game got despite having a ridiculously tiny amount of active players, they should be grateful. I mean how cheap they think it is to develop a game? They think that people work for free?

Furthermore there are a lot of games with no development that are well and alive. If IR can't survive with no constant patches then maybe all the praises were empty, and the fanboys were fake IR fans, just forum dwellers, now comes the true test for IR if it can maintain and increase its playerbase with no development.

 

[IsaacCAT]

Who knows what would have happened?

Your results are over simplistic. They would have happened one after the other as they have now, but eight months ago.

For me, the matter is not how they communicate their decision. The important thing is the ability to make a wrong right.

Your result 1 was not granted. Now that we have it, can we make the best of the current situation?

I honestly believe that there is a problem of shortage of programmers. With COVID out of the way hopefully in six months, the situation may improve. And we need people motivated and with good ideas.

If big companies are useful for something is to make procedures and standardization to tackle big projects. That allows that if one key person is lost, or the whole team for that matter, the company can continue the project. I believe PDX is going this direction.

If I:R is a hidden jewel as we think, they will pick it up. They know genius cannot be replicated and when you strike it, you have to take care of it.

 

[gianlucad]

PDX wanted to repair IR after the bad start to avoid leaving a stain on their reputation. They kept financing 2 years of development to be able to return to this era at some point in the future without having to fight bad memories and negative opinions from the very start.

That's an incorrect assumption to make IMO.
Their current business strategy revolves around slowly growing their roster of "active" games (i.e. games with DLCs in development), which provides them with a scaling and long-term source of revenue. As a publicly traded company, they will also seek to maximize profits. That's why their DLC prices have "slowly" gone up ($30 will be the default price for CK3 content) as they reach market saturation.

They gave I:R an adrenaline shot with 2.0 to see if they could restart the stable source of revenue from the game. Since the stable playerbase for I:R has only grown by 300-400 players (check steamcharts data pre- and post- 2.0), that is simply not enough to justify further development on imperator rome, at least not with a full team of developers.

It's not about their reputation per se, as paradox has never really had a stellar reputation to begin with.

 

[Bovrick]

They gave I:R an adrenaline shot with 2.0 to see if they could restart the stable source of revenue from the game. Since the stable playerbase for I:R has only grown by 300-400 players (check steamcharts data pre- and post- 2.0), that is simply not enough to justify further development in imperator rome, at least not with a full team of developers.

They have said that the team was scheduled to move on (if not actually moved on) prior to the release of 2.0, so barring a massive turnaround to force them to undo their plans, the result wasn't really relevant. Cross that with not giving 2.0 marketing funds, they assured that there wouldn't be any chance for a massive uptick in players - not bothering to market now makes sense if they had already closed shop.

 

[Bovrick]

I tried the game post 2.0, but honestly whenever I boot up I:R I just think "why bother".
I'm not sure why, but it just feels so generic and formulistic that it does not push me to explore the game.

That's completely fair, you dont have to like it. I don't like quite a few PDX titles: EU4 is a suffocated mess, and CK3 is an event-driven game (lacking strategic elements) that I can essentially experience all of by spending an hour or two watching a stream, so I never bothered with it myself. We all have our own tastes.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

I honestly believe that there is a problem of shortage of programmers. With COVID out of the way hopefully in six months, the situation may improve.

Wouldn't COVID make life easier for both the act of coding and hiring of programmers (as they'd be apt to be staying home). Did Paradox management fail to order the "Click here in case of question" Hotkey? Or is it something else? Like not paying enough to attract said programmers? Or is that just an excuse?

Spoiler: CLICK HERE IN CASE OF QUESTION

 

[Ixtli613]

If I:R is a secret jewel as we think, they will pick it up. They know genius cannot be replicated and when you struck it, you have to take care of it.

I am also staying cautiously optimistic that they will return to Imperator, but certainly not in this way. I don't think the management in charge of assigning teams, or anyone in upper management for that matter' actually can recognize genius(though genius is a bit of an exaggeration).

 

[Kyoumen]

They have said that the team was scheduled to move on (if not actually moved on) prior to the release of 2.0, so barring a massive turnaround to force them to undo their plans, the result wasn't really relevant. Cross that with not giving 2.0 marketing funds, they assured that there wouldn't be any chance for a massive uptick in players - not bothering to market now makes sense if they had already closed shop.

That's an incorrect assumption to make IMO.
Their current business strategy revolves around slowly growing their roster of "active" games (i.e. games with DLCs in development), which provides them with a scaling and long-term source of revenue. As a publicly traded company, they will also seek to maximize profits. That's why their DLC prices have "slowly" gone up ($30 will be the default price for CK3 content) as they reach market saturation.

They gave I:R an adrenaline shot with 2.0 to see if they could restart the stable source of revenue from the game. Since the stable playerbase for I:R has only grown by 300-400 players (check steamcharts data pre- and post- 2.0), that is simply not enough to justify further development in imperator rome, at least not with a full team of developers.

It's not about their reputation per se, as paradox has never really had a stellar reputation to begin with.

Why are people so addicted to these inane conspiracy theories?

Is it really so hard to believe that you are basically being told the truth about what happened and why and the devs don't actually have a Secret Master Plan to kill Imperator that for some reason involved spending a lot of money on it for two years first?

 

[Jays298]

Why is everyone over analyzing the statement they put out and reading something into it that's akin to cancellation. The game's not done. They just put their work into it for 2021. 2022 is another year.

There are other games to play. Actually in a HOI4 mood now anyway and haven't even tried I:R 2.0 yet much. It will be there when I get to it.

Tldr version : IR isn't dead. It just got it's work done already for the year. ISO Barbarossa and hopefully Italy DLCs DLC for HOI IV.

 

[Bovrick]

Why are people so addicted to these inane conspiracy theories?

Is it really so hard to believe that you are basically being told the truth about what happened and why and the devs don't actually have a Secret Master Plan to kill Imperator that for some reason involved spending a lot of money on it for two years first?

How is repeating what they told us a conspiracy theory? They have been open in saying that the team moved on months ago. There's no leap in logic to suggest that a decision made prior to 2.0 being released was not in response to the reception to 2.0 - that's just how time works.

We also know that they didn't allocate funds to marketing to try to bring it back...because there wasn't any marketing. Knowing that they had already decided to dissolve the team, it makes plenty of sense.

 

[Darthvegeta800]

I haven't posted on these forums in a long, long time. I just take a peek on steam nowadays.
I've been around since my days at uni studying history. Europa Universalis III was the game that made me fall in love with Paradox. Europa Universalis: Rome might have been played even more by me. March of the Eagles, Sengoku, Crusader Kings I&II I all loved greatly.
Over the years though I've bought less games from Paradox due to the insane pace of dlcs and some choices I didn't agree with.
And Imperator really filled me with hope.
But I skipped buying on release as the past has taught me that is a very bad idea in general.
After the overhauls I did jump in and picked up the dlcs with the idea it would support further development.
And wheareas my first review was negative by 2.0 I changed it fully positive.
And that good will is gone now.
Maybe it can be regained but the game is only on a good trajectory... not in a truly good place yet.
At least to me.

I think for now i'll stick with the old Paradox games I got. I have been tempted by CK3. But given the way Paradox tackles things and the 'toxicity' comment which seems corporate speak for 'too many people are negative/critical' my faith in Paradox is at an all time low.

 

[Kyoumen]

How is repeating what they told us a conspiracy theory? They have been open in saying that the team moved on months ago. There's no leap in logic to suggest that a decision made prior to 2.0 being released was not in response to the reception to 2.0 - that's just how time works.

We also know that they didn't allocate funds to marketing to try to bring it back...because there wasn't any marketing. Knowing that they had already decided to dissolve the team, it makes plenty of sense.

Because we don't know when and how the decision to market or not 2.0 was made. There are a multitude of possible answers and you're leaping to guess at one that implies an intent that may not have been there ("they assured there wouldn't be any chance for a massive uptick of players") so you can assert a conclusion we have no way of knowing ("the result wasn't really relevent").

Like, it seems equally plausible that Paradox planned to do a relaunch once they were satisfied Imperator was in a pretty good state (so no marketing was planned until after 2.0 landed to see how it went), that marketing was planned but then cancelled upon the reorganisation, or that they were planning on a word of mouth strategy to popularise the game as a "hidden gem" through youtubers, twitch, etc. Or something else entirely. We just don't know, and that's precisely why those of us who don't work in Paradox marketing probably shouldn't assume we know how or why decisions were made.

 

[Bovrick]

Because we don't know when and how the decision to market or not 2.0 was made. There are a multitude of possible answers and you're leaping to guess at one that implies an intent that may not have been there ("they assured there wouldn't be any chance for a massive uptick of players") so you can assert a conclusion we have no way of knowing ("the result wasn't really relevent").

Like, it seems equally plausible that Paradox planned to do a relaunch once they were satisfied Imperator was in a pretty good state (so no marketing was planned until after 2.0 landed to see how it went), that marketing was planned but then cancelled upon the reorganisation, or that they were planning on a word of mouth strategy to popularise the game as a "hidden gem" through youtubers, twitch, etc. Or something else entirely. We just don't know, and that's precisely why those of us who don't work in Paradox marketing probably shouldn't assume we know how or why decisions were made.

I can only assume that you're misunderstanding me? I'm not saying "They wanted to end Imperator, therefore they didn't market it"; I'm saying they had already stopped work on Imperator, which makes it totally rational not to market it.

earlier this year, PDS has split into three distinct studios

You might have noticed that Imperator: Rome isn’t assigned to any of the studios mentioned above. The reason for this is that on a regular basis we analyze the projects we have in development, where they are at, what they are trying to do and also what people and resources we have working on them. As part of this analysis we realized that there was a need to bring reinforcement for a couple of the projects at PDS, and given where Imperator was at in the run up to 2.0’s launch, we decided that after the launch of the update we would move people from Imperator to these other projects.

I was moved to Stellaris some weeks back, and it's not like that stopped me.

They haven't announced that they're going to move people, they've announced that they have already moved people, and that the decision was made a while ago.

Saying x assured y does not imply that x was aiming to achieve y, just that x would lead to y.

 

[Lamisatr]

It's clear they killed shortly it after 2.0. So when people were saying it was fishy it was not on the marketing fluff, or at PDXCON they were correct. The signs were all there.

 

[Iosue Yu]

Whether this game ever would return is a complete speculation. It's the same plausible to that it is under some conspiracy theories: that both lacks gounds.

Imperator is finished, unless Paradox suddenly has expanded a whole new team and they have nothing to work on, then maybe they will come to Imperator to work like "Interns".

What does 1 year mean?

It means by the time you actually have got a new team, the new team would not be able to trace back to what had been done over a year ago. It means there will be no seniors to ask, no records to read and no fellow teammates to continue existing works. The new team is going to spend 3 if not 6 months to just get back into the mood of the game's environment because you have got a whole vacuum of 1 year there. Old devs would have forgotten how something went by, and probably they would have new works preventing them from transferring knowledge.

So a pause of 1 year is as good as dead in normal circumstances.

That is... Rome 2: Total War is an exception. They have a pause for quite a few years (perhaps 8?) and now have resumed it.

So Imperator is dead in normal circumstances. And it would lack the popularity like Rome 2: Total War to get a revival some times later. But if there are sudden miracles, like people suddenly love Rome, then perhaps we may see a chance of this game getting a revival.

 

[Lamisatr]

I keep saying it, this is actually the best thing for the game. PDS are not and never will be committed to IR. even if we take them at their word it's just a shelving for a year, then we're supposed to believe they're going to restart development afresh on a game with a very low player base (and likely lower) in 2022?

On top of that the Arheo led team is no more anyway...

PDS should stick to their obvious plan and leave the game alone, so we can get committed people to work on the game in their absence. It's in a good place as is, let modders and the community take over.

PDS are just a hindrance at this point, lurking in the background, but contributing nothing.

"Yeah well, we're kinda committed, but not now, maybe next year ummm...I mean Imperator is important to us...so y'know...if you just wait another year...then uh maybe we restart development...."


Here's my prediction by the time 2022 rolls around, the community will have taken the game over anyway, and PDS input won't be required or wanted. There will be some overhauls mods, and many tweaks and balance mods, and a stable base is best for those things to happen, and we will have that.

"Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’" - Dylan.

 

[Iosue Yu]

Ah... on a bright note...

If Paradox actually wants to restart development of this game.

It's likely all the files get copied to a new title with a new name and marketing. Then the first release will be a hybrid of Imperator and the new contents, with likely 30 to 50% cut to existing contents.

The prae-2.0 brand simply isn't good enough to restart in 2022.

 

[Tomice]

Ah... on a bright note...

If Paradox actually wants to restart development of this game.

It's likely all the files get copied to a new title with a new name and marketing. Then the first release will be a hybrid of Imperator and the new contents, with likely 30 to 50% cut to existing contents.

The prae-2.0 brand simply isn't good enough to restart in 2022.

You are almost certainly right!
Imperator's code is most likely gonna be salvaged by various teams and we'll probably see some of Arheo's best ideas in some future games.

When the dust has settled, they'll probably create a new antiquity game in 3-5 years.
They might have angered a few thousand fans now, but few of those will still be around and still angry in 2025.
Some might be angry now, but will still be eager to see IR2 due to their love for the era and the enjoyment of the previous game.

The suits know that our anger will fade soon enough.
I'll probably still check out PDXCON and the new content shown there. My bad experience with Imperator will probably keep me from preordering anything, but in the end, there ain't too many grand strategy games around, and most come from PDX...

 

[Tue_p3]

I'm going to mention the bass12 scale in this thread, just for old times sake