FFS the EU4 DLC I want is now 2 years old, you can go lower than 50% for crying out loud.

**** Paradox

They used to go -75%, then -66%, now they never seem to go "below" -50%.

Yeah, they seemed to cap the discounts around the same time they did that currency price revision.

No **** you! pdox GOAT

Enjoy your 5 year old 200$ game, gl

I have always been a paradox fanboy, but lately I'm just not feeling it anymore, since i have to pay more attention to my expenses. There is no way I can keep 3 games up to date for a reasonable sum, so I dropped HOI4. Then I dropped CK2 and never bought Stellaris even if I really wanted to try it. Now I'm going back to EU4 but some parts are obviously missing, but at these prices I just can't justify 3 expansions for 30€.

At 1,400 hours (of logged playtime, not offline) and counting, that's about 14 cents per hour. Or it would be, but I haven't even purchased all the DLC.

June 2013: extreme edition pre-order, $40.50
January 2014: Conquest of Paradise, $15
October 2014: Art of War, $20
June 2015: Wealth of Nations, $2.50
June 2015: Res Publica, $1.25
June 2015: El Dorado, $3.75
December 2015: Common Sense, $5
June 2016: The Cossacks, $6.80
September 2017: Rights of Man, $10
September 2017: Mandate of Heaven, $10
September 2017: Third Rome, $9

Total: $123.80
Hours played: 370
cost/hour: $0.33

idk, I'm pretty happy about that investment and I'm probably on the low end of hours played compared to lots of people here!

No goofy, you should feel BAD. There's NO WAY you could spend $120 on some OLDY POLDY game and be happy about it!!!!!!!

Screencheat

https://www.humblebundle.com/gift?key=kTqfVX7qnmV4Yacr

I'm not a big fan of paradox's DLC strategy either. I got Cities:Skylines and I'll be damned if there's not already 4 DLCs for $15 each already. I just wanted a SimCity clone!

Also been disappointed by C:S DLC. Mostly been overpriced, gimmicky graphical add-ons and little new functionality.

I just love how the fact that a single person spent 1400 hours in the game justifies horrible pricing strategy.

Actually just checked and it's 1545.

In the hallowed words of the little girl on the My Pillow commercial, "It just works for me, and I love it."

It's a different pricing strategy, but Paradox also makes games that tend to have a different audience than most other games. There are very few "casual" EU4 or CK2 players. I would imagine most people who are regularly playing these games, it is the "main" game they play meaning that more than 50% of their total gaming time is spent playing that game.

Paradox games are ridiculously complex w/ a huge learning curve that will turn off a lot of players, but also creates a hardcore loyal following. This obviously limits the player pool, meaning Paradox has to limit the sales they can offer on DLC in order to make them profitable.

Also, how many other 5 year old games can you think of that are still actively supported by the devs? Most companies would rather cut off support after a year or 2 and develop a sequel game which forces people to pay full price for essentially just minor upgrades to the original game. Instead, they offer their loyal players an "a la carte" menu of upgrades to the vanilla game.

You don't have to buy the C:S DLC!

lol the game is pretty much designed for people that will play it hundreds of hours. I have 12 Steam friends who have the game; for 4 of them it seems like it's not really their thing (under 2 hours), but of the remaining 8, 5 have played for over 200 hours! One has whatthejish's 1400 hours beat!

I'm glad they do things the way they do; EU4 was a fantastic game on release, and it's only gotten better and better since then with both DLC and free patches that often have wide-ranging gameplay changes and improvements.

Topically, Paradox just started a sale and almost every DLC is at least 50% off, seems like a great time to stock up!

I mean you can say all that but there is a huge outcry from Paradox players over their DLC strategy as well. All Paradox games were down to Mostly Negative ratings on Steam over the summer and these were reviews from people with hundreds/thousands of hours played.

So **** Paradox. At least when the DLC use to go on sale for 75% off it was somewhat bearable.

I seriously don't understand the whining about Paradox DLC. They put tons of development time into their games for years and years after release. Obviously they're not going to do that for free. If you want a more traditional experience, just don't buy the DLC that doesn't interest you and enjoy the game you paid $40 for and got a mountain of free content with.

From a business perspective, I would guess the main problem with their approach is that it puts a significant barrier to people who want to return to the game after a year or something and have to catch up on a lot of DLC. Not sure what a better answer is though.

This is a good post. I personally didn't even get past the tutorial for EU4, but there are a few games that I spend a lot of time on that I am more than happy to spend good money on (binding of Isaac, eternal cards game)

Or even worse, completely new players. I think PDX should bundle some of the older DLCs into the main game (increase the base game price, if you have to) if those are crucial. (Looking at you, Art of War and Common Sense.)

Paradox should just introduce lootboxes. You can unlock playing as austria at a 1% drop rate.

You bet they will.

I put enough time into CK2,EU4 and HOI3 to get my money's worth. Paying $15 to get another 50h+ out of the game is still a good deal. I am not a fan of the cosmetic DLCs and lately (HOI4?) the criticism seems to be that some DLCs provide content that should have been in the base game. Don't know if that is accurate.

Stellaris was/is a very incomplete game at launch and it seems they are "completing" it via DLC.