Fixing Paradox's DLC Policy

[@Corey_Brandt]

When your business model gets more complicated than your game

[@dryaldibread2327]

That says a lot when its paradox

[@destroyer2496]

When your business model gets more complicated than the fort rules

[@AftermathRV]

BUT BRO BUSINESS MODELS DONT HAVE MANA D:

[@SapphicAshley]

other than, you know, the fort system

[@Kaiserboo1871]

There business model is outdated, that’s the main problem.

[@TransItAuthority]

"Development is only possible if you have common sense"

[@ingratus8160]

he means developing you damn nitpicker xD

[@TransItAuthority]

I'm not nitpicking, I know what he means, I'm just making a joke by taking what he said out of context

[@ingratus8160]

now i understand it. sry but some things get across slower if your not a native speaker. although this case i was pretty much dumb

[@GastonBoucher]

*Comet sense

[@mrnathan9634]

19te_UnicornPrincess ikr

[@R.Ratkus]

as a modder i can say that the expansions have so few content that even modders could do in 3 months, they clearly seem to be not really effectively working

[@ΙάκωβοςΤσιδαρίδης]

Yeah !!! Just look at keiserreich for hoi4. A single upgrade to that mode provides more of a change than death or dishonour

[@BologneseBucket]

It's not really about the programming time. It's about testing a lot of different options in their new mechanics and finally choosing the few that seem like the best abstractions.

[@RaidsEpicly]

@@BologneseBucket Do you think they actually do that? They don't even test the mechanics they add in the first place (at all apparently, based on imperator launch) so that level of iteration seems unlikely to me

[@BologneseBucket]

@@RaidsEpicly I would expect they do, yes. I doubt there's much else to do so I expect they would. Can't be sure of course

[@1293ST]

1$ per hour played.. with that money I could buy the full game with all dlcs three times.

[@Tanesis]

I'd be paying almost £2000. For that I could buy 10EU4's and all the DLCs...Prolly 20 on sale. thats a bad move.

[@Spacemarine658]

Blank I pay 20 cents per hour lol

[@styot]

I could buy my whole PC twice.

[@colinmerritt7645]

Then you have a really crap PC, friend

[@styot]

lol how do you know? You don't even know how many hours I've played?

[@taube9668]

to be honest their dlc policy just promotes pirating the game. the 3 friends I did tell to buy the game, pirated it because the dlc's are WAY too expensive for a game mechanic

[@lordironhidex]

Bought the game, magically pirate the DLCs, but will buy as soon as I have enough money.

[@archdukefranzferdinand567]

@GamersOnVideos how do you pirate DLC's?

[@archdukefranzferdinand567]

@GamersOnVideos isn't there some steam check that can ban you? I might be misinformed

[@superdudeman666]

Actually, I ended up buying EU3 and CK2 back in the day because it was so fucking hard to get the DLCs installed properly with pirated versions.

[@SIPEROTH]

@@superdudeman666 i bought EU3 with expansions for 9 euro on sale on GOG. I am fine playing that until i find EU4 on the cheap.

[@StormUndBlackbird]

13:42 Mad Reman is scary Reman

[@samsid3701]

Call that mad?

[@StormUndBlackbird]

In an anger level of 1 to 10, it's a 1.1. But Reman never goes THAT far D:

[@mastersake11]

he's always at -5 unrest

[@CommunistLlama]

Bringer of Death, Destruction, and Cupcakes, "Herald From Reman, They tell us of Internal Conflicts..."

[@lequinow]

It came from so deep it awakened all of my tourmoils for a second.

[@andrewkynaston7599]

Hold up. Did he just sneak a full Ryazan playthrough in there?

[@CaptainCore993]

Andrew Kynaston Yes he just did.

[@joeismexyz]

a fucking God-tier game aswell

[@SuperCompany007]

*Casually kicks late-game Ming's ass*

[@gar4206]

*Casually conquers all of mainland asia*

[@jeroen3657]

All Paradox needs is some Common Sense.

[@kemixxx7]

Ba dum tsss

[@koldonn1111]

Lol

[@Taureor]

You made your points very well. I'm pretty sure they will take it under consideration, though Fred and the guys would have some very difficult decisions to make. If no changes are made by the time I meet them again (that is if they invite me again :) ), then I will try to discuss the subject personally and see what their take on it is.

[@altaraiser1054]

Taureor 😮 never thought see you here.

[@beaub152]

Taureor! Love your challenges man. (And katyusha).

[@cagangultekin8469]

never thought that i would see you here,but im happy about seeing you here

[@janekk8833]

O, ty tutaj?

[@LoganMega]

Nothing changed at allllllll

[@Jan-rq8mo]

Fans: Make countless National focus trees for free Paradox: Wants 15 Euro for 4 national focus trees and some features that should have been included in the main game Nice job paradox

[@isaotogashi7415]

If we consider they're asking money for production time, then I guess it's kinda fair? Maybe? Kaiserreich will always be better (free) than whatever Paradox can come up with (for money) though.

[@Mirekluk]

This is exactly when I see Modding community comming in. And why not?

[@marcelop7721]

Well, in my country, it would be equivalent a 45 euros, so I think it's cheap.

[@IdRatherNotHaveAHandleThankYou]

cool pfp

[@m.m6990]

@@IdRatherNotHaveAHandleThankYou i can only say that eaw would be at least 30 euros worrth

[@cryoshakespeare4465]

That was very reasonable, and I'm especially glad you appropriately framed this in terms of a financial proposition for Paradox. If they do gain a negative reputation from lack of action, it will only be a matter of time before another small company, perhaps similar to Paradox in its early years, creates a game that people convert to.

[@seiban8455]

Was it scummy for me to immediately change my review from good to bad on steam because everyone else was? Yeah. Was it more effective? Yeah. Honestly, EU4 taught me one thing; band wagon wars against larger foes are sure to result in victory.

[@CommanderShit]

Would you say that.... "Forming coalitions is a great way to defeat a superior foe" -EU4 loading screen

[@seiban8455]

Yes. :)

[@yoloswaggins372]

clearly you aren't a fan of eu4 go back to playing civ

[@seiban8455]

peterisbetterthanyou Yang I really hope you're joking. First off, it's perfectly reasonable to love a game and hate the developmental shit around it. Second of all, even if I didn't like EU4, wouldn't mean that I like Civ. I happen to love both games very much.

[@ArtSio443]

@@yoloswaggins372 what an asshat you are

[@marcelodcs1]

you should post this video in the forums as well. pretty spot on.

[@ricardosilva8317]

És tuga ou br?

[@user-tl4fi6oy8d]

Brilliant suggestions. Paradox will follow none of them. Guaranteed.

[@cedrickohlisch2121]

Because, money.

[@justinheads5751]

@@cedrickohlisch2121 yes, but not because of reasonable, workable, and fair profit margins, because of making exorbitant profit margins requisite to your business model.

[@colbyraynor3401]

Damn this aged like milk. Development is now part of the base game, estates are part of the base game and are getting a massive rework, province transfer is now base game, DLC's got packaged into easily understandable ways and got price drops, basically all that shit got fixed now.

[@justinheads5751]

@@colbyraynor3401 so in other words, the suggestions didn't age like milk, they aged like fine wine. You realize when you formulate an array of suggestions, and many of them are heeded, the suggestions did not age badly, but well, right? You do understand that ultra basic logical concept, right? lol

[@colbyraynor3401]

​@@justinheads5751 The video aged like fine wine, the comment by Shane M aged like milk. You do understand the ultra basic youtube commenting system, right? lol

[@darkfireslide]

Proud of you, Reman.

[@wm3483]

darkfireslide you quite literally dont need every dlc they make , you wont die if you dont have it . The game is perfectly playable in vanilla . Also people dont have to pay 200$ for a more complete experience , there are huge steam sales all the time and when a new expansion comes out for the game , all of the other dlcs usually have a discount . Now complaining about the price of something is just childish , grow up... get a job dont beg your mom for dlc money .

[@osmowen]

I love you dark fire slide

[@nestooooor]

I know this is comment is 10 months old, but did you even watch the video before commenting? +William Mills

[@justinheads5751]

@@wm3483 You couldn't be any more childish, while complaining about something that's not childish, being childish. Fuck off moron. Go give out some more fanboy BJ's to some more scam artists.

[@ArtSio443]

@@wm3483 watch the video fool

[@andrew-channel]

I agree basically on every single word. Thumbs up for you!

[@andreacantarello2895]

Andrew Channel What? Your holiness also follow Reman's Paradox?

[@imperatorodaenathus9329]

Nice reef.

[@Maxjeix01]

Andrew Channel Hey!

[@trantor2135]

Andrew Channel ma ciao

[@nanore5116]

ti seguo da un sacco di tempo non sapevo che tu segui youtuber inglesi ho un canale mio e tu sei uno dei miei youtuber preferiti grazie per avermi ispirato

[@Astorus_]

Is producing DLC for game like EU4 that expansive? We have mods like Kaiserreich for HoI4 which are waaaay more better than latest expansions, it's not made by Paradox and it's also completely free. I understand that people from Paradox want to make some money but in my mind paying 20$ for few MB of data isn't fair.

[@NnormPR]

Or MEIOU for EU IV - it changes game like no Paradox DLC does.

[@josephrohrbach1588]

NnormPR I think the HoI modding scene looks worse on PDX - it was £10 for 4 focus trees when we have myriad mods adding many more trees. Damn that was a lot of alliteration.

[@alexanderkot3151]

Communism effectiveness after all

[@guntherdoesaliltrolling5757]

The Virgin Hoi4 base game Vs the Chad Kaisereich/Road to 56 Modded Hoi4 game.

[@RomanumChristum]

NnormPR The only problem is to do most achievements you need DLCs I can only get around 25 achievements before running into a wall of "You don't need DLC for this, you just need to spend a hundred hours and 10 different saves"

[@gmofftarki]

Any mechanic that affects 100% of countries, directly, should be rolled into the base game as a patch. Anything that improves or affects a subset of countries (for the sake of argument, 99% or fewer) can be included in a DLC. Have "more" DLCs, at a significantly lower price, so that someone can decide on a whim "Hmm, those republic mechanics look pretty fun... guess I'll grab the $4 DLC".

[@sol2544]

I agree! Expansions should affect specific nations

[@Somebodi346]

I'm glad that many other KZbinr's are also getting in on this topic now, and acknowledging this issue. I've long been a fan of Reman here since he launched his Caddo video, and honestly this guy deserves every sub he's gotten. Cheer's man, and good work!

[@jack-oj4iu]

Look reman, I agree with most of your points however, I absolutely refute paradox's flimsy excuse for their money printing scheme. When they say it would take years longer, I do not believe them. Look at all of the mods which are basically expansions to base game, imperium universalis, ioponia universalis and most importantly MEIOU. All of these have fleshed out the game almost into split off games. How much do those cost? Nothing. Meanwhile, paradox releases a dlc with a couple hours of enjoyment for ten dollars. What a waste.

[@Tutorp]

Yeah, it's quite amazing what you can do with dedicated hobbyists throwing thousands of free hours into their hobby.

[@rafaelpun]

well they cost nothing because someone did it as a hobby or for his own enjoyment. It did cost something, hundred of hours of developement.

[@Shiraori999]

I gave suggestions to this "issue" in another thread on the forum and it goes as the following: 1. Add whatever "immersion packs" the devs feel needed and finalize EU4(that includes fixing all bugs etc.) to give the game some type of "ending" 2. Make a fairly cheap compilation(compared to the actual price) of Expansions so that anyone buy it without going bankrupt. 3. Start work on EU5. Can be done before point 1 though. What I want to see in a potential EU5 is: Integration of essential game features from EU4 to the base game, Removal of some paid mechanics(that couldn't be removed in EU4 because people had already paid for them, I think you can imagine which ones I'm talking about), add new/rework old things that would make EU5 stand out from it's predecessors and combine them all into a nicely working game of Europa Universalis. 4. Rework the DLC policy for EU5 that would be something along with what you suggested. Have Major mechanics be it's own and later integrated to the base game, DLC and have smaller ones be in it's own. Customers needs to know that this is going to happen before buying the game to make it fair. as well as improving communication. I'd imagine the price tag after all that would be high but I think it's worth it in the long run. It would solve the problems that you mentioned It makes it easier to get all expansions for EU4 and easier for customers to know which expansions you want and which ones you don't want for EU5. Makes it easier to further develop when major mechanics gets integrated to it's core for everyone after a while It makes it easier for new players to get into the game. Makes sure that the base game of EU5 is just as playable as a fully fledged EU5 at one given moment. I believe that another evolution of Europa Universalis is needed solve today's issues. Be it EU4 2.0 or EU5 or something else.

[@ddshocktrooper5604]

Think you're right on this. EU4 is pretty much a dead horse by now. They've got good ideas but they seem completely disjointed from the rest of gameplay, like the age mechanics. The age objectives should tie in with the mission system, where it should be giving you missions that work towards completing the age objectives, rather than the random garbage they've currently got. But that's the thing, they're in some mindset like there needs to be a gigantic wall between anything in a DLC and the rest of the game, so each feature seems to only have a single specific connection to gameplay, it's not properly integrated across all levels. He mentioned estates, but it's nothing new, every dlc religion mechanic is identical in that respect. You do some things, you get the bonuses. To put it in simply terms, EU4 is horrendously overextended and they desperately need to core their features ASAP as they're getting separatist sentiment events every month.

[@fredricknoe3114]

Unlucky_kat maybe a sequel every few years that includes the last games DLCs features and some more stuff and put the expansions on that and repeat the cycle for as long as it sells.

[@zdhim2714]

dD ShockTrooper In Eu4 language : they haven't paid enough attention to their AE and now Rebels are sprouting everywhere.

[@CricketStyleJ]

Or, they could avert the entire problem by starting from scratch with EU5, rather than continuing to prop up EU4 with endless DLC.

[@josephrohrbach1588]

Technocracy *Victoria 3

[@potato-hj9nm]

Its probably too late too fix the DLC with EU4.

[@ddshocktrooper5604]

Yeah, EU4 is a dead fish. That said, looking at HoI4, starting over with EU5 is not going to solve the problem...

[@justinheads5751]

"starting over", but using the same heuristics, standards, methodology, presuppositions, etc, as you did the last time, means you're essentially not "starting over", but just running a replay of what you did the first time. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting to get different results.

[@justinheads5751]

@Danzard no one is asserting the standard that every aspect of it should be novel each time, so your comment is irrelevant. saying there's nothing wrong with doing EVERYTHING the same every time because its impossible to do EVERYTHING different EVERY time is idiotic and fallacious.

[@HarbingerOfTruth1]

The easiest way to fix the DLC policy is to drastically drop the price of the game itself and on all old dlcs, then you can pump out dlcs and the ones that enjoy eu4 can either purchase dlc when it drops or wait a couple of dlcs until price drop. Let's be real, there's a massive price wall for new eu4 players and those who want to get the dlcs and the only ones who doesn't have the old dlcs are either new players or just can't afford it.

[@ingratus8160]

actually there is always a sale on the old dlc's when a new dlc comes out so it's possible to buy them in a couple of months

[@CrapeCraft]

HarbingerOfTruth1 Customer: Hey, EU4 is a 4 year old game, should it be cheaper? Paradox: WE MUST RAISE THE PRICE TO KEEP UP WITH "INFLATION"!

[@gametips8339]

+CaptainCrape why do you put inflation in brackets?

[@colinmerritt7645]

Why lower the price of a game people enjoy? Supply and demand.

[@cortanax1407]

i think they are justified in raising the price of the game, but they should drop some old dlcs.

[@djshumoomoo4075]

"A subscription based service where you pay $1 per hour played." Oh god... please God, no.

[@brothir]

That would be the worst, and also horrendous value. You can quite comfortably put 1k hours into just base EU4, so having to pay 1$ for each of those hours is outrageously expensive compared to just buying the game normally.

[@SIPEROTH]

Whoever suggested that should be escorted outside of the room and be shot. Such thing not only is a money nightmare but also it means you can't play offline.

[@borisceranic6484]

HoI4 features are still locked behind DLCs!

[@averagejacobinsubscriber]

Wow, what a surprise, it is like they want to get paid to work!

[@borisceranic6484]

Country dlc such as Yugoalavia is all right but locking ESSENTIAL faetures like spearhead and request land lease is just fucking awful. The guys at respawn did it without paid dlc anyway (tho that is an fps)!

[@pira707]

wao a simple fucking command that probably costed 2$ to create fuck you evan

[@lepruk86]

EU IV is both making me so happy and so sad. As a new player, I picked up the game and a couple of the 'necessary' dlcs for an okay price. The issue? I watch tutorials and streamers etc and like you said, wind up getting frustrated about so many features I am missing, despite investing a normal game price amount into a 5 year old game... The favours / promise land system being one I personally noticed, I really want help in a war, I'm literally 2 points away from inviting my biggest alley, I have my relations maxed and am maxed trustfulness. There's literally nothing more I can do to boost their willingness to fight for me, and I feel a bit 'cheated' by not having those systems that would turn the situation immediately. I love the game, but I'm firmly in the 'wait for a sale' camp before I play much more of it in a stripped down format.

[@1201951000]

Just make DLC better and more expansive. I don't see why i should pay $20 but a slider or a new button.

[@TristanBomber]

Great video, but you were too fast to simply dismiss "the DLC is overpriced." Because IT IS. Base EU4 is $40, yet Common Sense is $20. Tell me, do you think Common Sense had half the development time of the base game behind it? Of course not - and Common Sense is one of the more important DLCs! There is absolutely no way to justify Third Rome being 25% of the content of the base game. DLCs have a vastly reduced value per dollar behind them compared to the base game, and that's simply not acceptable. Paradox is using their base game (which I think is priced very reasonably - I'd actually be willing to pay more for the base if the DLC was substantially cheaper) as a platform to sell DLC for exorbitant prices, and it shows. I'm not even going to bother picking up HoI4. It looks fairly decent, but I know buying the full game will eventually cost hundreds of dollars. No game should EVER cost that much, and I simply won't give Paradox any more of my money until they revise their business decisions. (Of course, your solution would make this a non-issue.)

[@pira707]

Don't buy hoi4 they even make you pay for a blitzkrieg button..

[@adamsandle4569]

how tho?

[@Splax77]

I'm in much the same boat - I love EU4 and I'd love to get into other Paradox games, but I simply can't justify throwing any more money at a company that has such vile contempt for their customers.

[@Alex-0597]

I don't know, that feels like a simplistic way of looking at DLC. I mean, Shivering Isles for Oblivion cost about 30$ when it was first released, but you can't honestly tell me Bethesda spent half as much time on it as they did the main game.

[@vallergergo737]

Also, the price incerase would be understandable, for say... half a year and younger content. But the thing is, they incerased prices, of a FUCKTON of expansions and content packs that are 4 or 6 fuckin years old! Hell, even the HOI 3 prices incerased. And this is annoying because you as adeveloper are supposed to LOWER your prices, if those things start to get old, even if you still support them as a game... Edit: About HOI 4... yeah, I can already see how they will try to suck up every potential meaningfull content from patches to lock them behind pay walls. And the thing is that the blitzkrieg button is not even the worst. That one goes to the trade licenses, which they slapped in to a COUNTRY PACK, not even an expansion. At the same time HOI 3 also had that feature for free, in the base game. HOI 4 is just terrible without mods. If it weren't for say Modern Day, Kaiserreic, The Great War, The Road to 56, (and I could continue) I would have uninstalled a long time ago.

[@dylanzawila6722]

The saddest thing for one of the greatest games

[@DensetsuVII]

More or less in line with the video (and I don't know whether this was proposed on the forum), I strongly feel that Paradox should consider making ALL gameplay changes included in every new free patch, but make all regional flavor changes priced DLCs. I would totally have paid money for the new ideas for the Japanese minors that came free with the patch that came alongside Mandate of Heaven, and yet getting the state tab without edicts just feels weird and pointless - same with ages. It also carries the advantage of being easy to understand for new players; if you like this part of the world, buy the regional DLC. (This in addition to the point about 'design over programming Reman makes in the video'). With the backlash against Third Rome, it might seem like a terrible idea, but honestly, I feel like that comes mostly from the pricing and the difference between it and the other previous DLCs (people expected more and got less). Structuring DLCs (probably for the next game) around regions like Third Rome did, would make the DLCs less imposed upon players who dont care, more valuable for players who do, and by keeping gameplay unified and free, everyone doesn't feel ripped off for not having something (see Common Sense). Looking forward to seeing where it all goes, because I love trying to get new people into EU4 (3 converts so far!) and it's just a little sad to have to put caveats into a recommendation for what really is one of the best strategy games of all time.

[@josephrohrbach1588]

Densetsu Productions That is exactly how I'd like it done: non-essential immersion and cosmetics should be optional paid extras, but core mechanics and large changes shouldn't. Thanks for writing this out so that I don't have to!

[@vitorcafe9102]

The devs should definitely see this!

[@Lowezar]

Bet ya anything the devs have been talking about it for ages. Management or ownership or wherever these decisions come from needs to change.

[@dyhall]

vitor café I'm not sure the devs have much to do with actual pricing and business strategy.

[@Iason29]

I don't even think they did watch the whole video or were told about it by some informant probably. All companies are the same that's what they've taught me. They've probably marked down his name on their forums and keep a mind on him. That's what CA did on their forums with Rome II, which is why pretty much everybody stopped using their forums as a center for serious open discussion.

[@mokies7811]

paradox really need to sub you or hire you

[@VikingTheEpic]

so calm and informative

[@Freezezonian]

What they need is some kind of community contributor program like what Wargamming and a few other companies have. And then get Reman into it.

[@Dsingis]

I somehow think that people that matter at Paradox already watch him, but that's just a assumption.

[@caijones156]

well, a few of the devs were hired because of being on the forums

[@CommunistLlama]

Dsingis you're probably correct there. I've seen paradox's official account comment on some of the more viral eu4 vids.

[@helenaprimera516]

Hello, I was interested in acquiring Europe Universalis 4, but the price for the base game was distributed by distributors around 1,400 rubles during the price increase, which is actually 1/5 of my salary. I do not understand how to play the base game, most of the tutorials are done on versions with all active DLCs, which in the end is very confusing and repels me from investing time in all this. The game is released in 2012, if my memory serves me well, and the last expansion, the heavenly mandate, is really worth less than in the US, but if you add 200-300 rubles, you can buy a full game for this money, for example Witcher 3 (relatively recently the Witcher 3 cost 899 rubles for the base game). With expansion, you can not play without acquiring a basic game, let's say if I want to play the heavenly mandate, because I really like the mechanics of changing the era, plus the automated diplomacy, the mechanics of the mandate, in order to play all this, I need to pay 1,400 and 699 rubles, 2099 rubles for the base game with one extension out of eight, if I'm not mistaken. Our country is in deep crisis, so I can not afford such pleasure as spending 1/3 of my salary. Even if you look at higher incomes in Russia, this is a too big price for the game of 2012 with a bunch of extensions, each of which costs the same as a full-value game of another developer. Where is the fair purchasing power? Russians, no matter how bashfully it sounded, can not freely enter the paradox community. It's too expensive.

[@helenaprimera516]

Now the prices are reduced to the previous values, but nevertheless, the discontent of buyers from Russia is justified.

[@williamdean4581]

I've got to agree with your points pretty much completely here Reman, although I will somewhat argue with you over the whole "It costs $270" though. Yes, it doesnt cost that much, because who needs content packs/songs, but the game plus all dlc with features (including Rome) costs around £170 (too lazy to find out what that is in $'s). That is an exorbitant amount of money that could buy multiple triple A games or whatever, and as they all contain many features, some mandatory (and as you said, its hard to tell which ones are essential for new players), which is just a ridiculous thing for new players as combined with many people having reservations about this game because of the steep learning curve, will put off the vast majority of people. Im lucky that I got the dlcs on major sales after taking the plunge, and some of the recent dlc that never (or barely ever) go on sale have been bought for me by friends for my birthday etc and I love it very much, however if I were looking at the game now through fresh eyes there is no way Id buy it. What I find the most upsetting from Paradox's dlc however isn't even anything to do with EUIV. The dlc strategy annoys me, costing over 4 times the base game for all the dlc (again, including only stuff with features), however I feel deep down that it's somewhat worth it, as they all include mechanics and features of some sort that I can use every game, even Mandate of heaven gives me ages and other large features I can use every game, and Third Rome (the only expansion I dont have), still doesnt feel that much of a rip off a it expands large region which is A: played a lot by people and B: is a major contender most games and of you play anywhere in the old world you're likely to be affected by them in some way or another. Now this is where I get disgusted. The Hoi iv dlc... Now I can appreciate it takes time and effort to make these dlc, but it's literally a few nations national policies (when most if not all nations should have been in the base game) and 1-2 very small features that are barely used by people. The autonomy control in Together for victory was alright (though it feels very much like it should be in the base game), and other than that its 5 nations national focusses, if you play as any other nation than them youre unlikely to feel their effects, exactly like the same with Death or dishonour, I've wanted to play a proper game as the Balkan nations for a while, but after four games (which last nowhere near as long as an EUIV game), thats it, dlc done. Thanks. What really annoys me about it is looking at mods like Kaiserreich or Road to 56, and seeing most/all nations have national focusses and many other things the game lacks, which has been done in half the time its taken them for two dlc, and for free. While I feel Paradox can justify EUIV's dlc in some way what with mechanics and changes and tweaking, I feel they're absolutely shafting the fans with their Hoi iv dlc. I mean come on guys...

[@mandu9520]

Paradox also sells a Thomas Paine common sense e-book for 2$ when the book itself is public domain. I can't remember if they had the decency to say that it was public domain (looking at the store page for the ebook I don't see it anywhere) but that was the final straw that made me leave a negative review on their steam page about their DLC policy. Comes off as real scummy to me.

[@Iannar]

Crusader King's II Full DLC Pack (excluding cosmetic stuff) on sale price is similar to my yearly electricty bill! This is a wall that im not going to climb. Paradox is simply loosing new clients. Someone (maybe guys from Meiou and Taxes) will make a similar game some day and crush them with price.

If the guys from MEIOU&Taxes make their own game Paradox is essentially fucked. They implemented many of the DLC features on their own, made devastation a thing before Paradox did. There are no DLC requirements to the mod Paradox cannot even keep its standards high enough to beat the people modding their game. If modders do more work then them with smaller teams I think it's time to fire some "designers" and replace them with a more capable bunch

[@ZanathKariashi]

M&T for all it's good ideas also pushes the limits of the engine far beyond what is acceptable which is the reason paradox hasn't. They have to make a product that will actually run for a wide spectrum of people AND be a good experience while doing so. The engine overhauls as well as some behind the scenes optimizations have made M&T2 run a lot better than the old version did, but it's still completely sub-par compared to base game even with all DLCs active.

[@brenokrug7775]

Your videos are very well structured and well written. Not only that, but you've made a great point, congrats! Now talking about my personal experience, I often fell played by Paradox. I own CK2 and EU4, having played pirate versions of HOI3 and 4. CK2 is the only PDX game I've ever bought a DLC, and that's because I bought it when I got the base game. After I realised how much money I would have to spend to have the full experience in any of their games I came to a decision: I will buy the CK2 DLCs since I've got most of them already, but for every other game I will pirate it. It is WAY TOO MUCH of an investment for the time I spend playing their games, but it doesn't mean i want to have a cut-down version of it when I do play. The more DLCs they release I feel less encouraged to buy their products in the first place. It came as far as me not buying HOI4 because I felt like it was so shallow that they didn't even deserve my money, even if I only bought the base game and pirated the rest. If I ever were to recommend a Paradox game to somebody I would tell them to pirate it. For many people their games are way too complicated, and the investment the person would make risking being blown away by the game's complexity would certainly make them mad af at me for making them spend so much money at a videogame they hated.

[@Konterfeit]

Regarding HoI4 "death or dishonor" - isorrows said everything there is to say about it. I stopped buying DLC and HoI4 vanilla was the last of these games I bought from Paradox. I even consider it a mistake now. I also finally decided to completely freeze my EUIV installation in patch 1.18. No more patches for me! I have been frustrated with their policy on that for years and I am done with their DLC spam that always go along with making your vanilla experience worse than before, and I am done with their patch policy. Every DLC patch introduced "Features" that made the game harder in vanilla and you needed the dlc to keep it balanced. Here is an option to spam monarch points behind a paywall! Oh and it goes along with a mandatory global increase of development by adding a million new provinces. Because fuck vanilla! I've bought A LOT of the flavor DLC and also expansions because I WANT my game to have fluff and flavor and cool shit. But I'm not ok with getting cheated like that. I bought a balanced game and instead of making it better for me with patches, they make it worse. I will not buy anything anymore at this point. I wanted Stellaris from day 1 because when I looked at it I saw a revamped and expanded Master of Orion 2 which I thought was awesome. But I know they will pull the same thing there so I simply will not buy it. I removed all Paradox grand strategy products from my steam wishlist. At some point it simply needs to stop/slow down/establish a new baseline. They are just abusing the fact that people are collectors and gatherers at their core and want their game complete. So they make sure that it seems in reach but you never quite get there. You know the south park scene where Stans dad plays "heroin hero"? That is how I feel about Paradox policy.

[@Ninjastahr]

Konterfeit Stellaris actually keeps the dlc under control, it's a great game and they add new features (which don't screw you over) to the base game when they release dlc.

[@CarlosValenzuela-sx9xb]

Konterfeit You never catch the dragon.

[@Konterfeit]

No I nearly have it! Just one more 15 Euro DLC!

[@sosig6445]

Well Stellaris is not 4 years old yet soo..

[@brettwardo12]

Konterfeit I'm personally on paradox's side, but this is a really convincing comment to not be.

[@cynwraeth1943]

The frustrating thing about DLC in this game is all the redundancy. I re-bought this game recently and wanted all the DLC but I had to spend an obscene amount of time triple checking all the packs because some of the features exist multiple times in different packs, effectively you buy the same unit models twice or more.

[@Phillybilli]

If i read the Comments under the Video , i get the feeling, that half of the people didn't even listen, what Reman said.

[@gekkenhuisje]

I have read the comments, and your hypothesis is correct.

[@ingratus8160]

if they at least directed their critiscism at reman where he perhaps wasn't point on or something, but it's all just paradox bashing again. i didn't find any issues in his argumentation btw

[@MaXiMoS54]

Because most people who played the game for more than 20-50 hours already have an opinion

[@cortanax1407]

well damn in Guinea-Bissau it costs 78.9031493231% of a yearly income. how come theres no uproar about that? check you privlige?

[@GastonBoucher]

I tried to listen to him but I got really caught up on following the background gameplay lol.

[@DMSBrian24]

Purchasing was taken into account but only to a really small degree, sticking to Russia as an example - they'd need to pay over half of what the americans do for the DLC and their purchasing power is not nearly as high as half of what the american one is. Then take a look at central and eastern europe, people in the countries east of Germany earn at most 1/4 to 1/3 of what people do in germany and their purchasing power is really low in comparison and yet they get to pay the same ammount for said DLCs and most other products as well. Prices are already adjusted to the american and western european standards and people in the less developed regions are already struggling to afford those games, the difference in purchasing power is way higher than the price difference and trying to further decrease the latter will only result in hate towards paradox and rise of piracy

[@MFMegaZeroX7]

Yay, an actual reasonable discussion about the DLC policy that isn't "it costs 270 dollars to play because Paradox is EEEVVVVIIIILLLL."

[@TheArhive]

"it costs 270 dollars to pay" Shit, now we have to pay that amount in order to pay to play? THE GREEDINESS HAS GONE TOO FAR!

[@MFMegaZeroX7]

Oops, I'm correcting the typo now.

[@TristanBomber]

To be fair, $270 on a game is ridiculous, even if most of it is cosmetic and unnecessary. And even if you exclude the cosmetic stuff, the game still costs well over $100.

[@MrHoeBow]

TristanBomb without sales, still about 200 I think.

[@cortanax1407]

don't buy it all then.. its not neccisary.

[@bcordone]

14:15 Art of War is still $20 like 7 years later.

[@PadHicks]

4 years later, subscription model is brilliant. So glad to be able to catch up with my friends with no fuss!

[@KasparOrange]

Paradox, PLEASE listen to this guy. Give ppl a 60 euro or dollar version that has all gameplay relevant dlc, and ppl(I) will be willing to buy your game instead of pirating it.

[@TheSpearkan]

the lion doesn't concern themselves with the opinions of sheep /s

[@SIPEROTH]

They really just promote pirating their game. And btw as a guy that never played UE4 but loved previous versions i was absolutely shocked when i saw the thing on STEAM. You get the usual "You don't have to buy everything". Well fine, maybe some of that are useless shit but i don't even know what is what in that complicated mess. I bought the previous games cheap on GOG with everything. Seeing that am like "Hell no". I am not interested in pirating it personally because am not that thirsty to play it immediately. I am a patient guy. But if i was i would have pirated that shit and just buy it later when is massively cheaper. I am sitting hear thinking. Well hit me in some years when is on GOG and i can buy all things for like 40-60 euro. You will get some money from me then. Sure you might need better customers than me to make profits BUT when almost everyone that was to pay the big bucks has payed, is not a bad idea to get some extra money from me instead of just leaving it to pirates.

[@Ash-uk4mq]

I'm honored to appear in your video! Well, my image anyway. The one at 00:56 is from when I compiled all the negative review rates and posted them on the different Paradox subreddits. I'm glad you liked it enough to put it in a video. Keep up the great work.

[@Alorand]

Personally, the DLC pricing model drove me away from playing EUIV, and towards watching Let's Plays. When I watch a good let's play, I want to go and try doing it myself, but I don't, because it would require all the new content, and I don't play the game enough to justify buying all the new content at full price. I used to buy all the DLCs when they went on sale for 75%, just to have them in case I was in the mood to play some EUIV, but I don't bother with it any more, since I can never have the freshest version of the game that way.

[@CaptainZlex]

This DLC policy isn't even limited to Paradox games any more. The most recent Total War games are doing the same thing.

[@OrnluWolfjarl]

So your plan is more DLC? I had my disagreements with how you represented some of the arguments, but your plan is kind of self-defeating. Yes, it's great that the DLCs would be folded in the base game after some time, but it wouldn't really solve much. Feature bloat would still be a thing. Paradox wouldn't really have an incentive to dedicate time in reworking those mechanics. The answer is simple: Global base mechanics should come as free patches. Specialized country mechanics should come as DLC. That way you still expand the game and balance it appropriately, giving it depth. You then use DLC to give it width by making each country or group of countries play out very differently. The customer doesn't feel obligated to buy any DLCs, but is happy to give you money each time they start a playthrough with a new country, just so they can experience that extra immersion. You also didn't mention a thing about how so many mods have been abandoned simply because their creators didn't have the time to keep up with Paradox's ridiculous development cycle.

[@RomanumChristum]

Recently hours of work by the Elder Scrolls Universalis team of thousands of years was wiped except for the beginning 2 earns only 5 years apart, because Paradox never gave heads up to anybody in a bunch of mods, only a few were able to be prepared.

[@hashtagrex]

the most recent DLC, emperor, i think has been one of the fairest DLCs produced for eu4, but it's also evident that paradox does not give a shit about its player base because they didn't even bother testing the 1.3 update (as evidenced by the ai being completely broken even 5 minutes into a new game). The DLC added different mechanics to the way the HRE works, added mission trees to less important countries, and several new events. None of these were necessary, and they did not take away from the experience of the game without emperor. Without emperor the HRE is still fun and playable, what emperor does is give more variety to how you can play *as* the emperor. The free update created massive changes in europe but also the entire world, adding countries and provinces to europe, while making it fairer to play outside it because of, for instance, trade companies being able to be established anywhere. Meanwhile if we go back to the base game, its apparent how much DLC takes away from it. Updates are made to the game with the assumption that the player has all the DLC. As above, i said trade companies could be made anywhere in the new update, making it fairer to play outside europe. But trade companies are locked in a different DLC, and theyre incredibly powerful, allowing you to roll in money without a problem. Other examples include missions for navies, which without DLC everything has to be done manually and navies will take attrition that has to be micromanaged; the ability to ask for independence support, which without makes several countries basically a waiting game with no content; the ability to barrage coastal forts, which is obviously a massive bonus to sieging in certain places; and so much more that could be listed. But theres many DLC features that are completely fair to be DLC, which i want to also mention. Examples are Government reforms, which arent necessary for gameplay, but add an extra thing to manage and a different way to have government bonuses; privateering and pirate nations, where privateering is a way to earn some money where you dont have trade power but doesnt mean you can roll in money just because youre privateering, as trade nodes are useless if not supported properly, and obviously pirate nations are just a new type of nation that you dont *have* to play; the anglican faith; mission trees and new government types for nations such as added in emperor and third rome; etc. The simple thing is, paradox's DLC policy is grotesquely greedy because theres a shit tonne of features that make the game *significantly* easier. That is not a DLC, that is the strategy which pay-to-win games employ. A DLC should be something that adds variety, flavour and more content, not something that makes the game easier if you buy it.

[@Terra-Antares]

~3:53 $10 for that DLC? You serious brother? Because as far as I know, *terraria,* the game worth thousands and thousands of hours without any DLC literally costs the same! It also has a *FREE* DLC in the form of mod support! Edit: It actually costs the equivalent of $6 in my country so...

[@letroll8954]

- expansion-only ck2 is roughly $180 mathed out, but that's only due to the base game being free - All dlc stellaris is about $194, but you NEED most of that shit for mods - I'm not even gonna try to crunch numbers on expansion only eu4 but about $240 For 200 bucks you can get - terraria for $10 - factorio for $30 - rimworld with royalty dlc for $47 - witcher 3 GOTY edition for $50 - skyrim (oldrim specifically) for $15 - monster hunter world digital deluxe for $50 If any paradox simps see this then enlighten me as to why the fuck paradox can get away with a single half-a-decade-old game and it's dlc costing the same as three AAA games and three indie games combined, each of which can give you just as much fun as the paradox game

[@MarshalN]

Lots of good points. I put in a couple hundred hours in EU4 like 4 years ago.... and honestly, the game is now completely unrecognizable. I thought about jumping back in, but then I realized I have to buy all these new DLCs... and it's not even obvious which DLCs are necessary, gameplay wise. So, instead, I just played something else. They need to bundle older DLCs together and they need to give steeper discount. Some of these DLCs I bought 4 years ago are STILL at the same price - who does that? They should either be free or virtually free, as you said. Sell it for a couple dollars or something. It's crazy.

[@JamesBideaux]

decreasing prices might actually be a way I would buy dlcs.

[@ethalydon8888]

I look into steam and I see that Eu4 even reached "mostly negative" (31%) on it's recent reviews, which is sad for such a great game. This is due to the problems you mentioned in your video, almost all of the reviews contain critic concerning the "dlc-policy". Those 31% don't even count all those, who don't buy the game because the dlc list is long and confusing af. I'm impressed by the thought you put into the problems and even into a solution! The clear presentation is also awesome. Im curious what Paradox will make of your input. While I think, your reorganization of DLCs could be done, it would, given the amount of mechanics and dlcs atm, probably be simpler (cheaper?) to make EU5. I see a second problem: The separation of fluff and mechanics in DLCs would cause kind of a marketing issue, since it's harder to make cold hard new mechanics attractive to people without the immersive local fluff carrying it.

[@LordSandwich17]

Good analysis, nice suggestions. Great video!

[@ArthurTully]

Currebt system is great for old players since its like a subscription every ~3 months but I do agree that new players have issues so any change that will introduce new players to this game and keep the old ones happy would be a welcome change. But with the current game I don't think that will be the case.

[@mackycabangon8945]

Seriously?!? I think Custom Nations should be in the base game..

[@chriswarburton-brown4028]

Great video and suggestions. But Paradox's chosen solution in 2020 is a monthly subscription. Also, remember you can get all DLC on sale. I have all DLC and unit packs, but paid a third of the total full price. And only about half the DLC are essential, plus you don't need unit packs or music. So for £45 in a sale you can get a truly great game.

[@TheMet306]

Are you kidding me? Do you seriously think that the company with a monopoly on grand strategy won't be profitable if they stop overcharging for DLCs?

[@christopherg2347]

Monopolies in game development do not last. Unless perhaps the market segment is so small, the Monopoly does not amount for much money. There are already copycat game like "Realpolitiks" out there: store.steampowered.com/app/553260/Realpolitiks/ While I am uncertain how most of the games on Steam got the "GSG" Tag, Realpolitiks looks more like a Total Conversion mod then a true game.

[@icosahedron]

I haven't bought EU4 DLC for the last couple years and the Steam sale this weekend got me wondering which DLCs were most important for game play. I found this video and fully expected to be bored to tears with rants and tangents. On the contrary, I thought you had good, well thought out points that were informative for me who hasn't been keeping up with the DLC drama as I've played EU4 in fits and starts the last several months. Bravo, Reman.

[@martinofgliwice1486]

we poor guys in Poland have to pay like those in the rest of the Europe. Steam should add support for Złoty.

[@Bayonet1809]

Here in New Zealand we got shafted in the opposite direction when a couple of years back Steam included our currency but added an extra 30% on top of the exchange rate. Now I have to buy all my games from Green Man Gaming and GamesPlanet, as they charge in USD and GBP respectively, which ends up being cheaper even after tax. So be careful what you wish for.

[@CrimsonDude_]

They should also add regional prices for Romania. Hell, they should just do it for most of eastern Europe. Russia is much richer than us but they get games 4 times cheaper than we do, that is complete fucking bullshit, and why piracy is so popular and accepted here.

[@andrzejgorczowski5513]

In Poland, EU4 with all DLC's is worth almost the lowest salary ...

[@tomaszmagierowski2166]

I agree, the prices here in Poland are crazy - I'm pretty much down to buying games for 15 euros or less now.

[@martinofgliwice1486]

Tommy Mag It's not that bad when there is a sale. But as Reman said, when something is always rather too expensive and everybody says to wait for sale, something ain't right.

[@moehrepingu]

expected a rant, got a really enlightening video. thanks a lot! PS: why did I read the comments? is this a punishment?

[@Notadruid]

I play a lot of Crusader Kings 2 as well as Europa Universalis 4. I feel that the problems you addressed in this video are a lot worse for CK2. EU4 paywalls for certain features like estates and military mechanics, but Crusader Kings 2 paywalls for 'when' you can start the game. The original start date is 1066, but two different expansions increase the amount of time you can play to 867 (Old Gods) and 769 (Charlemagne). Changing the mechanics of how long you can play the game through paid DLC is pretty silly. It would be as if you could play past Jan 2, 1821 with an industrial revolution DLC. PDX has since stated they're no longer pushing the start date back in future DLC's but keeping them locked behind DLC is still pretty scummy, in my opinion. I also agree that it's damn near impossible to balance and bugfix CK2 players who have certain DLC's to people who don't. I don't own Conclave (CK2 DLC) and I get in-game messages relating to mechanics that were introduced in that expansion that don't do anything and is kind of dumb. I'm sure a lot of people who play CK2 can provide a lot more relevant stories than I can. Thankfully they've since added the feature to select certain aspects of DLC to turn on and off (and informs you of if this affects Ironman achievements). Overall though I feel the DLC strategy you suggested seems very well-thought out and could definitely apply to CK2 (namely letting people play at 769 with the core game as time goes on). Thank you for this video, Reman. I feel your points were fair and balanced and I hope that PDX notices you, Senpai.

[@ddshocktrooper5604]

I completely disagree, 1066 is still absolutely a superior start date than the earlier ones. I got sick of CK2 a couple years back and I realised it's because I'd always been playing the absolutely unbalanced 769 and 867 start dates all the time. 1066 is extremely well fleshed out and the vanilla content of a catholic lord in 1066 is still the most enjoyable experience in that game. You absolutely do not need dlcs to play CK2.

[@ddshocktrooper5604]

In fact I think new bookmarks is actually a great way to do DLCs, not just earlier ones, just adding in a special bookmark where it makes the most use of the new mechanics that DLC adds. That's the way I understand how CK2 start dates work. They introduced 867 because it makes much more use of the mechanics they added with that dlc, rather than it just being localised to some tiny corner of the map. Additionally, playing those earlier dates without the dlcs required would be incredibly shit, and would feel like you're missing key parts of the game, because the introduced mechanics are so vital to that era. That said I see where you're coming from, before I actually bought those expansions I constantly felt like I was missing core aspects of the game. It was only afterwards I realised I actually wasn't. Basically those earlier start dates just feel more important than they actually are.

[@xxxxDuke]

Remarkable video Reman - great effort and thanks. I'm an EU4 player with 75% of it's DLC. The opening five minutes of your video explains why much of the goodwill towards Paradox has been trending downwards. Absorbing basic DLC features into the base game, after a period, is a great idea. I would have thought Paradox developers would love the idea of minimising build variation to simplify debugging and QA time. Presumably, Paradox marketers have considered it, but calculated more profit will be made in not doing so. This does seem a shame. The DLC model, as you described it, would eventually grant me simple game mechanics that I have always resented not having, despite my substantial spend. For example, the basic diplomat features in Mare Nostrum and ship mothballing features in Art of War would be great bonus for players when they are eventually absorbed into the base game. I realise Paradox make small changes to the base game with every new patch but that's typically tiny compared to the basic features of the old (and still highly priced) DLC. By the way, I foolishly got caught up in the Hearts of Iron 4 hype, but I realised after purchase that Paradox had done this DLC trick again and I uninstalled the game. I wish I had requested a refund now.

[@AlessioRomito]

the day you need a job as product manager, come see me

[@ViridianVictoria]

Well spoken and with plenty of logic and examples to back it up, I think you have some good plans in mind here and I would definitely support them.

[@zachmoser33]

Hey Reman can you go in depth about: -your unit compositions (amount and cavalry infantry and artillery ration) -witch units to prioritize when picking new units from tech Thanks

[@alkaiosvonhabsburg9613]

It's lovely to come back to this video and look at all the things fixed since it was released.

[@infrieser]

Can everyone just spam the link to this vid on the EU4 forums and subreddit? Just to make sure paradox sees this?

[@thedarklordreturns990]

that would make things worse

[@kepler4190]

Slavic Mapper why?

[@Hermit6F]

>Been mexican >Work in a McDonald's and earn $13.20 MX (1USD) at hour >Knows about EU4 when "Res Publica" was release >I inmediatly love it >Dont have enough money for buy it (or the DLC's) 'cus I pay my carrer >I download with a crack >Love it even more >It was a time ago >Now I earn a few more and I finish the college >I save some money for a few months >I save $1000 MX ($50 USD more or less) >I open steam like a kid in a Toys'R'Us >mfw see the value of EU4 and all the DLC's, expansions, etc. >more than $6000 MX (That are some $300 USD) >FuckThisShitImOut.avi >What I want was buy EU4 and some DLC's and start buy one by one when I can >After this I look in piracy bay again >Get a crack for the last patch with all the extra content >FuckUParadox.jpg I really want to buy it, and stop to get the DLC's with cracks, but gaddamit Paradox... Your crap is really hard to get in a fucking country in crisis. >Now, I get two jobs >KillMePlz.png

[@dl7096]

What DLC do I need to play this?

[@remansparadox8604]

I chuckled

[@ZanathKariashi]

not a single one. However once you've put a few hundred hours into it and mastered the base game, if you've still got a fire in your belly you can probably find a dlc that expands on mechanics to scratch your itch appropriately for another few hundred hours a piece.

[@GrillMasterXBBQ]

I don't even play EUIV yet this is one of my favorite channels on KZbin. Keep up the good work, you can really tell how much effort goes into each and every video that you release.

[@niceboi4592]

I'm just mad that game locks gameplay features behind dlc's

[@maxbreiling4929]

I love your videos, and this seems like a good idea! I would also love it if you do a video about army composition in EU4. You always seem to have a large knowledge on strategies and mechanics I've never thought about of even after hundreds of hours into the game. Thank you for your great content!

[@forthepotentates7526]

You are being way too soft and I can totally understand why but that would not be criticism for me. More like honest pandering. Without some DlCs the game is insanely harder and sometimes outright broken. I'm sitting at +150% tech cost penalty as Ethiopia because of the damn institutions that appear in Europe 100% of the time.

[@hjorth3387]

You were Ethiopia. Personally, I think institutions are too non-europe friendly right now. I use mods to compensate and I think it actually becomes more fun to play in asia.

[@Jollefjoll]

This video summarises a very rational response to this whole situation. I appreciate it immensely that you took your time Reman to offer your concrete and logical approach to all of this. Thank you.

[@James-th2oo]

On the Summer Sale, the Mandate of Heaven got 10% off. Fucking 10 percent. Summer Sale minimum is 50%.

[@preoximerias7366]

James Witteveen I was waiting for a sale on Mandate of Heaven to buy it but 10% wasn't that sale.

[@Mankorra_Gomorrah]

This is a really good strategy and i totally agree with it. But i also love the fact that you could open a thread on the forums about peoples ideas on the DLC policy and the devs not only let it stay up, but actually read through portions of it. I believe that Paradox does value it’s customers and does want to be the best company it can be but at the same time their playing on Ironman mode. If they make one bad slip up the whole thing could be over and that would be much worse for them it would be for us.

[@Toto-95]

The price needs to go down period. It's been a while since i bought any paradox game (except Tyranny) simply because i don't have 200 dollars to spend. Lower it by half and try to get double the players so you get the same amount of money.

[@ddshocktrooper5604]

There's nothing wrong with the price, the problem is the dlcs suck balls

[@NoNameAtAll2]

Anthony Mugianesi Have you... watched the video? 60-70 percent of that total sum is cosmetics made for people supporting the game, not the mechanics

[@MAD22324]

NoName if you haven't kept up with the dlc in awhile the price is at least 100 dollars to catchup and that's with the sale prices over several games.

[@alphamikeomega5728]

Once you factor in that you don't need cosmetics (and even some other DLCs), and that you can expect at least 50% off in the sales, it costs much less than that.

[@Kukakkau]

Lots of very good and thought out points in this video. For me I'd say my main issues with the approach to eu4 is the price of the base game (£35 for UK after almost 4 years of release is insane) and that super important mechanics are not being included in the free updates for non-dlc owners. I originally played the game without art of war and wanted to give up on it entirely because the lack of province transfer made it so frustrating.

[@drench1580]

world at war costs £20 on steam still, it came out when I was in primary school (9 years ago). That's the way that the market is for pc games, you buy stuff when it's on sale or you get robbed

[@manoletomol]

just [acquire the DLC legally] lmao

[@darthsavage4025]

Agree with all three of your suggestions. I would also recommend an overhaul on how DLC is displayed in the store, i.e. "Content packs" being renamed to something like "Cosmetic Skins" or "Visual Enhancements"

[@CareerKnight]

Or just simply Cosmetic packs.

[@hristokolev6016]

hahahah below 50 % now its below 8 my boy

[@essmene]

Great work! Even today all reasons you listed are valid. Today the game has 3 bundles: Starter 90, Empire 274 and Ultimate 400.-€. That is how Paradox chooses their first impression potential customers have on the game. I got it during a sale and still was put of by the bundle prices and amount of DLC stuff. It feels like they nickle and dime everything. And to contrast that I want to mention Starcraft 1. It had its time in the 90´s. No further expansion, yet there were content Patches - they included LAN TCP/IP. For FREE (or rather based on previous and current sales). You mentioned Civilisation - that game has a civiliopedia. You don´t need to leave the game to look up things like - what is my combat width - how is AE calculated. Their wiki is kinda up to date, but for some entries I belief they are lacking the mention that a DLC is required. The documentation is a mess. The UI is a mess. It seems with each DLC Something was clamped on somewhere, cards change their composistion if you click a button or an icon/picture- the price tag does not reflect how poorly it is designed. The default sue peace window in my current game is 4-5 times larger than the space available on screen - making it really hard to miss things. If you argue with time getting out of it that maybe true for people playing from the start. They might get 200 hours out of each expansion - but new players just get the game at current time. It feels like a Sims game - making lots of money and some bugs from older expansions do not get fixed. The "free ptaches" for everyone are just the "incentive" to buy the current DLC, bc certain things have change and are better, easier or required to use certain things. Like here you get Ports - "free players" may get an event for an upgrade - paid players can upgrade at their leisure. Province upgrade, etc. Next is their Achivement lock in hardmode. Why the fuck does a company hardlock the way I want to play the game - in Skylines a simple mod can solve it, but they disabled the option in EU4.

[@103035icle]

if a game "needs" dlc then it has already failed.

[@fredricknoe3114]

Robert Harris I want Ck3 with the expansions of Ck2 and then make DLCs for that game.

[@akaFuel]

Kia Ora, Reman: another outstanding video! Thank you for all your videos, the extraordinary quality of these add so much value (meaning: understanding and food for thought).

[@Gatinois]

It didn't age well.

[@trueblueclue]

I'm new to the game so I may have a limited perspective but the lack of DLC focus hits home. It seems like some of the features like transfer land to subjects were developed as paradox refined their game. It also seems like.some features such as development changes should be moved to the base game or offered as a free feature. Paradox probably needs to overhaul its content offerings or offer more bundles focused on certain mechanics like vassa management or warfare etc instead of 2 or 3 bundles. I bought the founder's pack with CS, AoW and RoM and don't feel hindered in my gameplay but there are so many QoL changes across various DLCs like Dharma (which I bought for easier vassal feeding btw) and Cossacks it would be nice to have more accessibility to those features or just make it a base feature. I'm sort of tired of selling my provinces to vassals for 10 prestige.

[@sosig6445]

To keep getting money they need the game to stay relevant. to make the game relevant after many years they need overpriced dlc's... exept they don't... Do you know how Terraria and Minecraft are still succesfull? They make free updates and patches. Those updates and patches keep the game relevant so people who haven't bought it yet will buy it and join an everexpanding community! When Terraria made a major update they trippled their sales (2mil->6mil or something) They made an update half the size of the current game and altough it was COMPLETELY free they trippled their overall income! IT'S SIMPLE don't SCAM with that damn FUCKIN' DLC'S. If you keep working on the game it stays relevant, and people will buy it! Paradox thinks it's possible to run out of costumers in world with 7 billion people... yeah they will if they continue like this...

[@benjaminrogers8875]

#SODA# Sapis Right, but those are casual games which are easy to pick up and unlimited in scope. Everything eu4 isn't.

[@Adventurer32]

I would say that they actually CAN take the terraria and minecraft approach. I personally play both terraria, minecraft, stellaris, and eu4, (although i just started eu4) and I would say that although eu4 would have to cost more baseline than say terraria, I would also argue that the principle strategy is completely doable. If they made the base game 60$ with all the DLCs, I feel like that WOULD probably increase sales, as you would no longer have to recommend to your friend to wait for a sale, and you would be able to tell him/her that yes, it is expensive, but it also has a lot of depth and it is worth it.

[@kasane1337]

13:42 Woah, that's the first time hearing Reman actually be angry. That's much scarier than I thought.

[@thalapeng]

Yeah. You can basically hear what he meant by saying "silly thing to say"

[@skyforer]

I have a solution = just pirate the game with all the DLCs, thats what I did!

[@Enseeyar]

skyforer better yet, buy the game and pirate all the dlcs

[@echillaoi451]

This is why we need an economic system where profit isn't the only motivating factor for doing something.

[@OliverCovfefe]

Cos it's the DLC PLC, where we make money sellin people things that were free

[@rjcollins5970]

Oliver Cromwell Did Nothing Wrong there is too much fire in this comment

[@mackycabangon8945]

0:48 That should be a mod. I will like to be a Historical Accuracy advisor

[@Juggernautdemon]

It would be somewhat understandable if the DLCs were even worth the price tag, but NONE of them are. The man hours put into them and how much they to the game would price them at 50 cents at best. They priced them at $10 because Paradox knows they have a bunch of fanboys that will buy their overpriced nonsense and go after anyone who says otherwise. Only recently has there been a small actual change in the zeitgeist about Paradox charging outrageous prices for what you get. People need to remember that Paradox is a company, their bottom line is money, nothing else.

[@iainhowe4561]

Here's the thing. I love EUIV and CK2 and Stellaris and I generally buy the DLC on release. It's usually about a financial quarter between releases and the DLC is generally split in half between the functionality and the fluff and frippery. The only DLC I don't own is some of the music and the e-books. Oh, and Sunset Invasion because... WTAF is that about? The structure, as is, allows those of us with the disposable monthly income to buy all the things and those of us on a shoestring can do without the music, unit packs and portraits and so on and just get the DLC. Those who have so many competing demands on their entertainment dollar that they simply can't justify spending about $15 a month can simply play the vanilla game, I guess, or just not get into the game in the first place. I'm not going to tell anyone that their choice is wrong. I get that everyone's circumstances are different, plus exchange rates and so on, and so on. If I compare the price per hour between a Paradox game and almost every other form of entertainment I enjoy, the Return on Investment is pretty awesome. I have over 800 hours on Stellaris. At $60 for the game and For comparison I'm talking about Cinema, Netflix, reading kindle books, watching cable TV, going out for a meal with friends, having a beer etc. Normal stuff. I hate to be the guy that says "Let them eat cake" but at about $120 for 800 hours of entertainment, at a cost of 15 cents per hour, I find it REALLY hard to feel ripped off...

[@koldonn1111]

Fo you have 60 dollars in your bank account?

[@AurjayGames]

Really like the video. My only suggestion I would give to them is put development and building slots per province in the game for all. I own all of the the DLC + Immersion Pack, and a good bit of the music/content packs (because as you said I love to support the company in their works to keep providing great content for all of their games, a tip, in your words.) I do have friends who do not have them all and hearing the problems they have with the game because they dont have the same DLCs, the #1 issue is the development and building slots which should have been included in the base game when they changed the base game's mechanics when Common Sense came out. For the most part I honestly think the majority of the people complaining about the DLCs and their prices do not know a damn thing about how much work they put into development and paying for their employees in the company. This is something I have said for years when I seen the very rare negative reviews for any of the Paradox games with whiny complaints about prices that made the poster seem like an entitled kid who feels everything should be just given to them for free. As I said, most, there are some who have put in as much time and/or as much money as I have into their games and their DLCs that complain about the pricing and I just disagree with them, with the exception of the first Hearts of Iron IV DLC's price is very over priced, and is only really worth maybe half of the price (without a sale.) But I go back to EU4, which is where I think a large majority of the sour taste in people's mouths stems from. Common Sense's change to the base game without getting the development feature in the base game without the DLC is a problem. The problem only gets worse and worse as each DLC comes out afterwards and adding new things that can be handled with development. It was a bad move, and that simple change could elevate the morale of their customers/fans and prevent more support for the current uprising.

[@Wimpymind]

"dont suggest a price cut, its bad business". Proceeds to suggest they put the good stuff in seperate dlcs so 90% of the playerbase can ignore the rest and get effectively a blanket discount. Its semantics, but essentially the same as a simple price cut. Dont beat around the bush on this. State as it is. They are too greedy and abusing their defacto monopoly. Dont defend it, dont make excuses for it, dont try to make a solution that lets them keep that level of profit. The only fix for this is stop being so damn greedy. Oh and for the record I do own the game. I havnt bought DLC ever, nor will I. I bought the game at release, played a few hundred hours, and went on for other things for a year or 2. When I came back the barrier to re-entry into the game was too high. Fuck em. I hope they go bankrupt. Related: Stellaris at release was one of the worst games I v ever seen from a major dev. Its an embarrasment to 4x gaming. They treat their modders terribly. Their DLC is modder-tier stuff, bundled with rules changes.

[@lusciouslucius]

wimpymind n +

[@OzixiThrill]

Frankly, a solution that allows them to keep their current profits while also making players happy is a win-win, regardless of how malicious either side is.

[@MAD22324]

wimpymind someone didn't play hoi4.

[@officialromanhours]

Paradox's strategy reminds me of Starbreeze's No to very little in-game purchases, a crap ton of dlc, with differing value of fantastic to pretty much micro-transactions offered in the DLC window

[@predraggrujic2239]

27:33 Silly Ireland, why didn't you form Great Britain?

[@TheWitlord]

As someone with 1,300 hours in EU4 I can certainly say I'd agree. Generally speaking I do find the DLC quite pricey, but I think the best way forward would be to roll (at this point) ancient DLCs into the base game, Blizzard does this with Expansions in WoW as a measure to bring players back to the game who stopped playing after a while, it effectively lowers not just the cost of entry but also the cost of Re-entry. Other than that, tiny patch DLC things are great for community moral. I don't know about other players, but I was really pleased with the minor added content in Hungary for that patch. Changes, even minor immersion ones like that can provide you with another entire play-through. For example I played Hungary after that patch because I was interested to try them out again. After I got Third Rome I played Muscovy to give it a try as well, but those changes, while much more in depth didn't make me feel like I needed to spend even more time than an average play time of say like 25-50 hours (depending on micro and how much you suck, I'd consider myself like averageish at the game) to get what I felt was a full enough experience of what was added. So in some ways I think Paradox could best move forward by focusing on the good will that got them here today, roll in old DLCs that have already been purchased well beyond their dev cost and space out payed DLC with minor bug fix and event add Free Content more so than is already done.