DLC prices from the perspective of an outsider

[DiamondLead]

I saw a few clips of Stellaris online and thought it looked pretty cool, but... $300+ for all the dlc? I get that they made a lot of DLC in the past and the there is no real drive to buy all of it, but that price point is a bit intimidating. Even if I just wanted to get a better quarter of the DLC or something, that $100-$75 would be too much for just addons. Why not bring the price of older species DLCs down to $1-$2 and maybe $2-$5 for the other ones? That would feel more reasonable for new players, where new DLCs can be kept a bit more expensive for the time being if people like them.

Not factoring sales into this because sales in my mind should be there to encourage people to spend on a whim, not bring things down to a decent looking price (neither of which are accomplished for me for this spring sale).

P.S. Could be good to bring the price of the subscription down too.

[chorion]

You would have more success asking APPLE to lower their prices

[leigh]

Base game is often on sale for about $10, and older DLCs are $5-$10 on sale, which happens often.

[Elitewrecker PT]

There's a sale going on right now, you can grab most stuff for 50%, less if you go outside Steam. But as a new player it's hard to decide what to get without just asking people for opinions.
The subscription was introduced two weeks ago as a potential starting point for players in your situation, but having it would prevent you from buying the DLCs on steam during the sale.
Alternatively you can start with just the base game since, IMO, if you don't end up enjoying the base game then the DLCs wouldn't make a difference.

[Dark3nedDragon]

Originally posted by Elitewrecker PT:

There's a sale going on right now, you can grab most stuff for 50%, less if you go outside Steam. But as a new player it's hard to decide what to get without just asking people for opinions.
The subscription was introduced two weeks ago as a potential starting point for players in your situation, but having it would prevent you from buying the DLCs on steam during the sale.
Alternatively you can start with just the base game since, IMO, if you don't end up enjoying the base game then the DLCs wouldn't make a difference.

Or you could get the DLC outside of Steam, and then redeem them once the subscription ends. Granted you'd have to trust the issuer that the keys are legit, and not being double sold.

Yeah the subscription model is probably the best for new players. I own every DLC, yet I play maybe every 4 to 6 months, usually for 20-40 hours or more, but still, a subscription would probably be better value for my money.

[EleventhStar]

Originally posted by DiamondLead:

P.S. Could be good to bring the price of the subscription down too.

yeah $10 a month for just this game is insane when you compare it to xbox, ea, ubi, etc subscrriptions where you get hundreds of games.

even compared to a mmo subscription the value proposition is not that great.

[Elitewrecker PT]

If you routinely make use of more than a handful of the games in their passes sure. And you'll still be hit by the fact that in none of those situations are you gaining long term access to them either.

[Cinnamoon_dragon]

Paradox increased regional prices way too much (probably to make subscription look like a better deal). Unfortunately I don’t think that the subscription will be popular in my country, because this is approximately the amount that is enough to pay for high-speed Internet for a month

[tilarium]

Try asking EA to do that with their various Sims games. You think $300 is bad to get all the DLCs? Try closer to $800, or by this point. EA craps out DLCs for which ever Sims is the current one, a couple a year.

[DiamondLead]

Originally posted by EleventhStar:

Originally posted by DiamondLead:

P.S. Could be good to bring the price of the subscription down too.

yeah $10 a month for just this game is insane when you compare it to xbox, ea, ubi, etc subscrriptions where you get hundreds of games.

even compared to a mmo subscription the value proposition is not that great.

Thing is, I was even thinking of a semi-old MMO I played when I was younger that did a more liberal version of what I was proposing.
DC Universe Online had tons of content DLCs released for it throughout its lifespan but made them all free since no new player would want to invest their time into buying and playing all of them. Other DLCs, meanwhile, were still given a price.
Not saying they should make it free in Stallaris, but it goes to show that something like this is viable to get newer players more willing to join.

[Chaos]

Your asking Paradox of all companies to lower their prices or potentially making it free? No dice. If you have gotten the taste of the DLC, or an urge to make your galaxy more lively and not limited and hampered, your going to have to fork over a decent penny.

Paradox have been milking this game for years, and while they imporved prior DLC in the past, recent events such as the DLC subscription model, the new DLC essentially being Synthetic dawn update it goes to show that your down to either forking over cash on sale, full price or trust a grey market vendor like "G.2.A", etc.

Alternatively, you can always just ask someone else to sell their soul and host for you, but MP stellaris is a whole another experience, a fun but highly broken and unoptimized experience which sadly is falling off due to paradox's neglect. Either this or take a 50/50 shot on injecting R.A.Ts and malware on your PC and pirate the DLC.

My advice is either to choose the above or just purchase what your intersted in, within reason. But honestly with how paradox are treating the game, I'd rather just not support their practices with your wallet. 3000 hours on this game and seeing how things have gone, I doubt they'll change.

Originally posted by DiamondLead:

Originally posted by EleventhStar:

yeah $10 a month for just this game is insane when you compare it to xbox, ea, ubi, etc subscrriptions where you get hundreds of games.

even compared to a mmo subscription the value proposition is not that great.

Thing is, I was even thinking of a semi-old MMO I played when I was younger that did a more liberal version of what I was proposing.
DC Universe Online had tons of content DLCs released for it throughout its lifespan but made them all free since no new player would want to invest their time into buying and playing all of them. Other DLCs, meanwhile, were still given a price.
Not saying they should make it free in Stallaris, but it goes to show that something like this is viable to get newer players more willing to join.

[Helicopter200]

Originally posted by tilarium:

Try asking EA to do that with their various Sims games. You think $300 is bad to get all the DLCs? Try closer to $800, or by this point. EA craps out DLCs for which ever Sims is the current one, a couple a year.

EA is very greedy like release a broken DLC that is 40 USD and adds few stuff in that DLC

[Elitewrecker PT]

Originally posted by Combine Gaming:

Your asking Paradox of all companies to lower their prices or potentially making it free? No dice. If you have gotten the taste of the DLC, or an urge to make your galaxy more lively and not limited and hampered, your going to have to fork over a decent penny.

Paradox have been milking this game for years, and while they imporved prior DLC in the past, recent events such as the DLC subscription model, the new DLC essentially being Synthetic dawn update it goes to show that your down to either forking over cash on sale, full price or trust a grey market vendor like "G.2.A", etc.

You can also use legit third party stores. You save some more money compared to Steam (and occasionally grey stores when the legit ones have sales), but have 0 worries about the legitimacy of the key.

[DiamondLead]

Originally posted by Combine Gaming:

But honestly with how paradox are treating the game, I'd rather just not support their practices with your wallet.

With what I have heard about recent DLCs, you might be right there, even if a large part of the complaints I heard had to do with the price not being worth it.

[EleventhStar]

Originally posted by Elitewrecker PT:

And you'll still be hit by the fact that in none of those situations are you gaining long term access to them either.

i used to care about that.

but now i don't have a CD drive anymore so the disks in the basement are useless.

even if i get one and install them, many of them just wont work on modern PCs and at the time i didn't think to keep an old pc/windows around.

heck there are games in my steam library that don't work anymore, both because technically outdated and because the devs pulled the plug on them. the latter is a real concern with the many modern games that require servers.

in practical terms i also play more remasters/remakes than actual 15+ year old games.

there are also fewer games that i emotionally invest in the older i get.

[EleventhStar]

Originally posted by DiamondLead:

Thing is, I was even thinking of a semi-old MMO I played when I was younger that did a more liberal version of what I was proposing.
DC Universe Online had tons of content DLCs released for it throughout its lifespan but made them all free since no new player would want to invest their time into buying and playing all of them. Other DLCs, meanwhile, were still given a price.
Not saying they should make it free in Stallaris, but it goes to show that something like this is viable to get newer players more willing to join.

people have been saying for years paradox should bundle old DLC, lower its price or make it free with the basegame in order to lower the barrier of entry. some of the DLC for this game is almost obsolete by now because it's features are also unlocked by other DLCs, yet they still want full price for them.

going for a subscription to double dip on your high price model is just... well lets just keep it simple and say they are publicly traded now