Will Paradox consider streamlining their DLC business model for future games?

[Shams]

Season passes sound like a great idea.

Would people prefer a subscription. Just sign up and don't be bothered with the hassle of having to manually buy each DLC - for those that know they'll be getting every single one? subscribing might give you a discount or other special bonus?

/shams

 

[Shams]

This is not about people who are certain to buy all the DLCs or even regular fans of paradox that follow the news, read the DDs and so on. They will buy DLCs no matter what, a season pass (don't do subscriptions for a mainly solo game, ever, it's a terrible idea), might enable you to squeeze a bit more from this target audience, but it's not really relevant IMO.

It's about the new customers that hear about the games two year laters (or old customers that returns to the game after two years)

And they see this :

This would put off anyone from buying any game. The DLC list is larger than the game description ...


This is just telling people "you're not actually buying the full game for 40€, the full game will actually cost you 145€"

Also even though there are sales quite often, the price tag of the game or its older DLCs never changed.

Do people feel this is a problem that we need to fix - or Steam? I mean sure we can go about creating smart ways of presenting dozens of DLC - but ultimately it's a presentation issue on Steams end.

/shams

 

[Darkrenown]

While I agree the lists on Steam really need to be sorted or separated better, it always confuses me when people say lots of DLC is a turn off. "Oh hey, I heard this game is good, I sure hope there's little or no additional content for it! I really hate being able to get more of a game I enjoy!". If I enjoy a game I want more of it, and it's normally pretty easy to check if its DLCs are more content or just horse armour.

The "I told my friend to try this game but the number of DLCs made them avoid it" story is also really strange to me, as it implies the teller has friends who happily accept their game recommendations normally but at the same time refuse to believe their explanation that the base game is fun without it and the DLC is just optional fun extra content. It's such an oddly specific level of trust.

 

[Darkrenown]

DLC is universally infamous in the industry.

It's not though? Bad DLC being bad doesn't mean all DLC is bad. Yes, there's a subset of people who complain, but when I finished, say, Shadow of Mordor I thought to myself "Damn, that was a good game, I hope they make some more content for it soon!". When I played Fall of Cybertron I happily bought the retro weapons pack because it had a gun that made the "Pew pew!" laser sound from the original cartoon. When I got Tomb raider (the reboot), after playing for a while I scanned the DLC list, saw there was a bunch of stuff I wasn't interesting in but one additional Tomb to raid, and so I got only that. I didn't actually like the Daud DLCs for Dishonored, but they seem to be widely regarded as just as good if not better than the main campaign.

More content for games you enjoy is an entirely good thing, although not all DLC is good and even good DLC is not for everyone. The key thing is to be in informed consumer and not blindly reject, or indeed accept, all DLC. People who hates all DLCs will miss out on good DLCs, much as people who hate Steam will miss out on Steam games, but this doesn't mean it's bad to make DLCs or put your games on Steam - in fact they can be great moves for both game developers and game players.

For now people watching the unupdated CK2 store page would think : why would I pay 40€ for a 3 year old game and then have to buy 100€ worth of DLC for the "full game" ?

Why would anyone do this, except to be an outraged hypothetical? It would seem far more reasonable, and this is what I do when buying games, to first check where it's cheapest to buy it then evaluate if I want it enough to spend $X on it. If so: Buy. If not: Add to wishlist and get it on sale. Once I have the game, if I enjoy it I'll check out what the DLCs add and follow a similar process. If the game has been recommended to me by a friend/reviewer/guy on an interwebs forum then they might have mentioned which DLCs are nice to have and what they do, so they might be included in the initial buying evaluation, but it seems pretty strange to stumble upon a game you have never heard of and conclude "WELL I EITHER BUY THIS NOW, FULL PRICE, AND EVERY BIT OF DLC IT HAS OR I IGNORE IT FOREVER!".

Well i guess traditional rules of the market doesn't apply to PDS

I'm fairly sure it's a normal market rule that people are more likely to buy something that's on sale than they are to buy something that is just cheap normally. A $40 game at 75% off screams "Bargain! Buy me!", but a $10 game says "I am probably cheap because I am low quality".

 

[Groogy]

SNIP

I agree, my personal shopping behavior always looked at the base game and didn't consider any expansions/DLC until I was done with the game. For instance I did not consider that in order for me to have a complete game of Diablo II, I also had to buy the expansion known as "Lord of Destruction". I bought the expansion because I wanted more of that game I just played but for all intents and purposes I was paying for an extension of the already base game already there(also because I wanted the latest patches which was behind this paywall but that's a separate issue). But then I am not every person in existence and if people want to view it as "You won't have a full game unless you buy everything available", then its their loss. I want more content for the games I play and I will pay to get more content so I hope the games I love do get more DLC's and Expansions. I actually know that at several occasions I have looked if a game that I am very interested in (tested friends copy) had more content before I actually bought the base and it actually motivated me to buy the game knowing there was an extension of the story that I could purchase to increase my play hours with that specific game.

Now I do not like the Steam interface when it comes to DLC's its not only an issue with Crusader Kings II but a lot of other games. It becomes a bit difficult and harder when I want to buy expansions and skim through to see what I want to add to my cart. But it would never stop me from actually buying a game. People who do are essentially handicapping themselves because the increased availability of games and with this new way of handling expansions which doesn't block updates behind a paywall gives much more power to the consumer himself. So by setting up a justification to yourself that you shouldn't buy games with a lot of expansions and DLC is only hurting you as a consumer instead of actually utilizing this new way of expanding your gameplay and fun in a much cheaper and dynamic way.

Edit: As a way to compare, buying the "full" Europa Universalis 3 would have cost you about ~120 bucks and all together would have provided about as much features as CK2 + Sword of Islam, The Republic, The Old Gods for what? 60 bucks? Without even counting the free patches as well. I'm sorry but I am having problems understanding the logic behind "There's too many DLC's so I won't buy this game". Because if I saw more companies go with this model I would be much much happier gamer.

 

[Groogy]

I think you misunderstood. Me and Darkrenown were talking about our own purchase behavior which is in very much contrast to what is described in regards to the stories about convince a friend. Just like you no data involved just "this is my thought process when I buy a game" where more content available for a game is a good thing. I think whoever you try to persuade and they rejected it because of the amount of extra content are probably not rejecting it because of extra content but because those people most probably think we deliberately cut out features to sell later and as such don't get the "full experience ". Most probably we'll never be able to persuade people with that train of thought because in their eyes we are the ones that did cut out features as such anything we say is instantly rejected.

We also buy games and play stuff from time to time all I'm saying is that making informed decisions when being a customer of anything will leave you happier and you might even get off it cheaper.

 

[Johan]

It would be nice if they made bigger DLCs instead of tons of small ones.


And i would buy season pass if it was possible

I really dislike season passes. Expansions slip, change in scope etc..