Waking the Tiger - Flipping Expensive!

[Nats]

Why is this expansion so expensive? It doesn't seem to have all that much in it to warrant more than £5? Am I missing something substantial that would have taken the developer a lot of time and effort to do for that sort of price? I dont mind paying a fair amount for a good expansion but cannot see the value in this.

[Belgian Problem]

It's "expensive" to make the company money.

[Nats]

Originally posted by Belgian Problem:

It's "expensive" to make the company money.

Yes but ok other than greed why is it so expensive? I mean over £15 for a few features, it's not as if the focus trees will have taken much work to do either. I could understand the price if it was reworked focus trees for ten factions - but three? And then a few minor features on top? Where is the work to make £15 a decent price? I will have to wait for this to drop signifcantly in price before I buy it.

[Belgian Problem]

Originally posted by Nats:

Originally posted by Belgian Problem:

It's "expensive" to make the company money.

Yes but ok other than greed why is it so expensive? I mean over £15 for a few features, it's not as if the focus trees will have taken much work to do either. I could understand the price if it was reworked focus trees for ten factions - but three? And then a few minor features on top? Where is the work to make £15 a decent price? I will have to wait for this to drop signifcantly in price before I buy it.

Ok, you think it's not worth it, then don't buy it. Paradox believes it is worth the price, and enough people buy it at this price to justify it.

[Captain of the 4th Company]

Basically the price for the DLC is for the stuff in the DLC plus the "free" updates released... They don't work for free. If they didn't release the DLC at that price they wouldn't be working on the other updates. This is just something I thought about, not an endorsement of the pratice.

[GoldenTalon]

You have to wait for a sale. There's one every few weeks. In any case, this DLC isn't worth it regardless of price.

[Belgian Problem]

Originally posted by avantech:

Originally posted by Captain of the 4th Company:

They don't work for free.

The base game wasn't free either. And while the updates are laudable, fixing and updating their own product should be mandatory. It certainly shouldn't require overpriced DLC.

The fixes and a number of features come with free patches. You don't have to purchase the patches.

[Nats]

Originally posted by avantech:

Originally posted by Belgian Problem:

The fixes and a number of features come with free patches.

Always reminding that "devs don't work for free" is, apart from a lapalissade, a rather deceptive way of ignoring what customers have already paid.

Indeed, considering I have already spent about £50 on this game. I shouldnt be taken to the cleaners over minor dlc. The fact is I only want two bits of it - the Chinese focuses and the removal of old tech, don't care about the rest. So for me even much more than £5 would be an excessive price.

I have a game I dont want to play by Paradox yet again because its missing basic things that most other devs would have included for free to finish off their game that wasnt complete on release. Sure they include the odd free stuff but its all pretty rubbish tbh.

[spike2071]

Originally posted by Nats:

I have a game I dont want to play by Paradox yet again...

Emphasis added.

Stop buying their products. If enough people stop, they will adapt or die.

Originally posted by avantech:

Always reminding that "devs don't work for free" is, apart from a lapalissade, a rather deceptive way of ignoring what customers have already paid.

While I don't think it needed the italics, I did have to look up that word. Thanks for expanding my vocabulary. :)

[soldier6661111]

Originally posted by Nats:

Originally posted by Belgian Problem:

It's "expensive" to make the company money.

Yes but ok other than greed why is it so expensive? I mean over £15 for a few features, it's not as if the focus trees will have taken much work to do either. I could understand the price if it was reworked focus trees for ten factions - but three? And then a few minor features on top? Where is the work to make £15 a decent price? I will have to wait for this to drop signifcantly in price before I buy it.

Because wanting to make money is "greedy".... Don't buy it then.

[Nats]

Originally posted by spike2071:

Originally posted by Nats:

I have a game I dont want to play by Paradox yet again...

Emphasis added.
Stop buying their products. If enough people stop, they will adapt or die.

Yes I think I am having to finally face up to the fact that I have to stop buying their products. I lost a lot of money on Stellaris, EU4 and CK2 - probably the three worst purchases I've ever made in fact. I guess I should learn from my past mistakes ... such a shame really because they have some good ideas, but its the implementation that is the problem.

I guess Paradox have become niche developers for the few gamers who can afford to pay £100+ for a single game.

[PuttBlug]

The DLC are good but they are all overpriced. Yes they shouldn't work for free, but charging that much for each DLC is not a good practice. WTT for example would be fairly priced somewhere at 12.5 euros.

[spike2071]

Originally posted by Nats:

I guess Paradox have become niche developers for the few gamers who can afford to pay £100+ for a single game.

Whether something is too expensive is up to the individual. Obviously, Paradox feels that X is the right price point for whatever DLC, and their sales will back it up (or not).

I would just like to point out that each DLC is continuing development on the game. Everyone groans about how terrible/greedy/evil it is and how better it used to be before DLC. But think about how it used to be before DLC. Companies released a game, a few patches, and then moved on to the next iteration, which cost just as much and had the same amount of bugs, issues, etc.

Assuming you bought everything for HOI4 at full price, that's $85 over the span of 2 years. If they released a new game every 2-3 years, you'd still be paying $80-90 every 2-3 years. And that new game would have way more AI problems, bugs, balance issues, etc than improving current game over the course of X years.

If you have patience, then the DLC method is superior. You can pick and choose what you want when it goes on sale, and you get free updates on the core game.

The main problem with this method is that they're keeping the Clauswitz engine around a little too long, imo. Vicky 3 needs to be on something new. And we need Vicky 3.

[Nats]

Originally posted by spike2071:

I would just like to point out that each DLC is continuing development on the game. Everyone groans about how terrible/greedy/evil it is and how better it used to be before DLC. But think about how it used to be before DLC. Companies released a game, a few patches, and then moved on to the next iteration, which cost just as much and had the same amount of bugs, issues, etc.

Assuming you bought everything for HOI4 at full price, that's $85 over the span of 2 years. If they released a new game every 2-3 years, you'd still be paying $80-90 every 2-3 years. And that new game would have way more AI problems, bugs, balance issues, etc than improving current game over the course of X years

I would rather have a new game every half year than ten loads of rubbish dlc packs. The fact is its a great money earner for them and it seems to be keeping them in business. Fine for them, not with my money though.

No Ive realised that every Paradox game now requires a load of dlc in order to function well because they just dont play very well as vanilla versions. And that means every game requires an outlay of at least £80-100. Thats not for me. I'm not going there anymore.

If I am still interested in HOI4 in a years time I may pick up some dlc on sale then but this is the main problem - I have now 4 or 5 Paradox games that are all out of date, I am not interested in playing the vanilla versions because they're pants, and yet for me to get back into them, even with a sale, its going to cost me another £50 for all the dlc I havent bought. Thats more than a full games worth! I would rather much buy a new game elsewhere. So no - not any more. Thats it. I'm out.

I was thinking about Battletech. But forget it. If it had been by another publisher I would buy it because I could be reasonably certain the game would be fairly compete. But no not any more with Paradox.

I'm putting Paradox on my black list along with Kalypso and a few others that I dont buy games from anymore. If gaming keeps going like this I will have to get another hobby!

[spike2071]

Originally posted by Nats:

If I am still interested in HOI4 in a years time I may pick up some dlc on sale then but this is the main problem - I have now 4 or 5 Paradox games that are all out of date, I am not interested in playing the vanilla versions because they're pants, and yet for me to get back into them, even with a sale, its going to cost me another £50 for all the dlc I havent bought. Thats more than a full games worth! I would rather much buy a new game elsewhere. So no - not any more. Thats it. I'm out.

The base game is improved without buying the DLC. New features, AI tweaks, bug fixes, etc. Those are all free. Vanilla HOI4 now is a much improved game over vanilla HOI4 in 2016. But if you feel like you're being ripped off because you don't have all the stuff that somone else who spent more money does...well, ok.

Originally posted by Nats:

I was thinking about Battletech. But forget it. If it had been by another publisher I would buy it because I could be reasonably certain the game would be fairly compete. But no not any more with Paradox.

Different dev, same publisher. I don't know what their contract states, but it's not a given that it will be DLC heavy.

But overall, good for you. Good luck with the rest of your gaming choices.

[Nats]

Originally posted by spike2071:

But overall, good for you. Good luck with the rest of your gaming choices.

Same to you cheers.