Gather round, map painting addicts!
Your new and improved quarterly/monthly DLC payment plan is almost ready!
I don’t really have a problem with the business model, it seems like a decent way to build complex games over the years.
The Hoi4 ‘Ultimate Pack’ is currently about 50% off on steam… and costs about $90.
Were it not on sale, it would be almost $170.
… Paradox reported a 57% profit margin in Q4 2024.
The whole year of 2024, they reported a profit margin of about 34%.
https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/investors/financial-reports/year-end-report-january-december-2024
They could knock a quarter (25%) off of all their game/dlc base prices and still be quite profitable.
… And Hoi4 AI … just recently, finally, 10 years later, got an actual overhaul to its actual strategic/tactical warfighting AI, that makes it almost as competent as an average player.
I dunno about you, but for me, every paradox game is … you climb a vertical wall of understanding how all those complex systems interface with each other, and then after you get over the top of that wall, there is basically no challenege whatsoever beyond the pure tedium of micromanaging everything… because the AI fundamentally cannot strategize better than a human that actually understands the game it is playing.
Sure, but I don’t really think you need all dlc to enjoy the games. I see them as pretty optional.
I don’t know about the quality of the AI, I tend to play them as sandboxes with my own little goals along the way. Like, colonizing with the Knights, recreating the baltic empire with Denmark, or… Whatever. I still find that challenging after 20 years playing their games.
I mean, if you enjoy the games, that’s great!
Personally, I find them to be… as I said, boring, after you fully climb that wall of groking all the systems… not worth the price imo.
Also… its a bit if having your cake and eating it too, to originally say that consistent dlc releases are a good funding model, and then also say ‘well they are optional’.
Like, yes, you are strictly correct… but the whole idea of the business model doesn’t work if you don’t have a large number of people regularly buying the dlc…
It would be nice to see a more thorough breakdown of Paradox’s user and revenue numbers to see how dependant their cashflow is on ‘buy all dlc’ types, who would be called whales if it was a gacha game.
There are lots of games where I don’t like the game or the business model, and I don’t buy those games 🙂
Now, don’t take this the wrong way, but what is it about paradox that makes people annoyed enough to not just… Steer clear of the games, but comment about DLC policy for decades after a game has been released?
I’m not sure I get it. If I don’t like something and or don’t think the business model is ethical I just don’t buy the games, I don’t hang out on forums or subreddit oe communities for the game and complain about it.
@EvilCartyen poke @Erdrokan
@Erdrokan c’est parti pour march of the eagles 2
13:00 UTC
Really hope they’ve done a good job with it. I would love to play it day 1, but after Vic3, I’m gonna wait and look at reviews.
Ooh, the TotallyNotEU5 game finally gets a release date? :)
Looks like it 🙂 I am really looking forward to it, but I wonder of they’ll call it something else.
“A New Era” sounds like something different, but Tinto is the EU4 company…
Didn’t they already do a Rome EU game?
This is not a Rome game. It is suspiciously similar to EU4 if you look at all the pre-announcement dev diaries they have done.
So, 99% of people assume it is going to be EU5.
Many years ago, yes, it wasn’t very good. And then they did a remake which also didn’t do well and has been dropped.
it wasn’t very good
Was it ? It’s been a while so I have forgotten a lot about the situation, but my vague recollection is that Imperator had potential (good mechanics) but just wasn’t allowed to reach it for some reason (they stopped giving it content).
Well, partially. It had pops and so on, and could have been a good game with a revamp, in fact v 2.0 was a lot of fun, but then they dropped support for it because no one was playing it. Makes sense but still a shame.
