forum.paradoxplaza.com

arudesalad, do games w The Way Forward, an update from the team behind Cities: Skylines

This was too late. Paradox’s in house development studio did the same thing with Victoria 3. Do something way too greedy (lock historical characters behind a preorder for a dlc that was already bad). Waited to see the backlash, and when it was too much, they make the bonuses free.

At least they’re doing something, but the dlc should have been pushed back at launch.

FooBarrington,

It’s not just greedy, at this point it’s blatant. The release itself was already bonkers, but they could have saved things by working hard on the base game and releasing additional free content. But this? How many “sowwy we fucked up, we promise to do better, buy our new 132 DLCs” will they pull before people stop giving them the benefit of the doubt?

arudesalad,

I am actually planning on not buying anything more from paradox if they fuck up the launch of eu5, only dlc from current games (if they’re worth it/required)

MrScottyTay,

Dlc should never feel required

arudesalad,

But it does, sadly.

Moneo,

This is why I stopped buying Paradox games and just pirate them if I’m curious. No way I’m getting trapped in a fomo cycle everytime they release a minor feature for $5.

CosmoNova,

I’m not hopeful at all. If Bethesda or Blizzard are anything to go by, they can keep messing up big time for years, maybe decades to come and consumers will keep coming back, begging to be disappointed once more. You’ll have more luck looking for alternatives out there in the ocean of indie games.

A_Random_Idiot,

Yep. It will never change As long as gamers continue to buy from shitty companies, the companies have no incentive to change in any direction but worse. Bethesda is a brilliant example of it, how every game is more simplistic and devoid, and more reliant on randomly generated content than the previous.

Ubisoft is another example, with the outright hostility, hatred and downright contempt they have towards their own customers.

and they are both still multi-billion dollar companies, cause idiots keep throwing them tons of money.

These updates from C:SL team mean nothing, cause they keep doing stupid shit despite of their sweet words. Like they did with trying to sell DLC for a broken game. Their actions and focus speak far louder than any of their honeyed words.

Moneo,

I’ve hated Paradox ever since I bought CK2 and then realized how many minor features were locked behind $5 DLCs. I later pirated the game to play all the DLC and there is absolutely no fucking way that shit was worth what they are charging. Decided then never to buy a Paradox game again.

Compare that to the Factorio devs Wube. They released their game as a beta and then just kept updating it and adding features until it was done. Then they spent years fixing basically every bug in the game. As far as I know they never decreased the price or put the game on sale, and at one point they increased the price of their game because of inflation. Which honestly is fine, they made a great game and they are continuing to support the game, why decrease the price?

I know I’m coming off as a Wube shill but in my eyes they are ideal devs. Paradox in theory make really interesting games but in practice they poison them with shitty monetization strategies. If they just made games and added free updates for a while afterwards if they wanted to I probably would have spent a shit load on their games.

I’m ranting but as a side note, Paradox definitely abuses fomo. They make games that basically require you to watch videos of how to play and those videos inevitably mention DLCs which you then start wondering what you’re missing out on. That’s definitely what made me want to buy their DLC.

Fuck paradox

arudesalad,

It is a shame they’re such a greedy company because, similarly to what you said in your 3rd paragraph, they make good games, some can be as good as games like factorio at times, but it’s always ruined by their dlc.

You mentioned free updates at the end, I believe they are doing that for victoria 3, but their first big expansion for the game, spheres of influence, comes out in June so we’ll see if they stick to that.

I love paradox games and have the money to by their dlc most the time and will keep buying the ones I want (because the beach dlc was too far even for the largest paradox shills) as long as the game’s stability and the free players are prioritised, unlike the way they have been treated in cities: skylines 2.

And yes, fuck paradox, shame their games are ruined by their greed.

31337,

CK2 was a complete game at launch IIRC. They just kept releasing new DLC for it for many years, much of which was outside the scope of the original game (playing as Arabic rulers, vikings, Indians, etc). I think that’s fine. Them selling music, portraits, and new models separately was kinda shitty though.

cobysev, do games w The Way Forward, an update from the team behind Cities: Skylines
@cobysev@lemmy.world avatar

Remember when games used to be a finished product on a cartridge/CD? You just bought it at the store for a base price of a video game and that was it. Any bugs found in the game became widely accepted, and maybe even exploited by competitive gamers. But there was no patching, no updates, no DLC. You paid for a game up front and that was it.

I miss those days.

simple,

I remember a few cases where a rare bug softlocked my game and I had to reset my entire progress. It wasn’t all that good I would say. They definitely had some standard of quality on release though.

TrousersMcPants,

A lot of games were significantly more expensive bc back then too

expr,

It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. I remember losing hundreds of hours of progress on games due to memory card corruption. Or game cartridges/CDs no longer working, requiring you to buy a new copy. Or consoles getting straight-up bricked.

Hell, a ton of people have memories of blowing into N64/SNES cartridges to get them to work since they had notoriously unreliable connectors. But even though it was something that didn’t work great, everybody has fond memories of doing it since there wasn’t this amalgamation of voices from every direction telling you to be upset about it and clamoring for retribution. If something was broken, you got frustrated about it, complained to your friends, and then moved on with your life since there wasn’t anything else you could do.

slumberlust,

Want the blowing for NES?

Moneo,

idk if this is a stupid opinion but I feel like us, the consumers are to blame. If everyone just waited a week and read reviews before buying games then publishers wouldn’t be able to get away with this shit.

Konraddo,

To be precise, the new generation is to blame, who constantly preorders a game, and spends a lot on mobile games. Companies realize that bad products sell, so why would they improve?

bigmclargehuge,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

“The new generation”

So there are no 40 year olds who blindly pre order the 15th CoD game because that’s all they play? This is a general issue in the gaming community as a whole.

CosmicCleric,
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

Instead of getting hung up on an actual age number, consider it as older society versus the current newer society.

We can all argue the details, but today’s consumer who purchase games seem to be a lot more willing to accept an inferior product, than those of the past.

UndercoverUlrikHD,
@UndercoverUlrikHD@programming.dev avatar

The new generation? I remember this stuff happening 15 years ago. People were camping outside before big game releases and had an incentive to ensure they got a copy of the game. The new generation that only buys digital is not to blame for the practice taking hold.

Konraddo,

Yeah, that’s what I meant. I didn’t define the new generation, but in my mind people since the 80s are the new generation to me (I’m old). And you’re right, camping a store to buy something you never saw is of course the issue. And in my country, people buy a house before it’s even built, and that’s also an issue that is common in this ‘new generation’. So, this new generation tends to accept that buying something without seeing it is alright, and the gaming industry reflects that.

CosmicCleric,
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

The new generation?

In relation to who you were replying to, I think ‘new’ is in the eye of the beholder. Time is relative.

shinratdr,
@shinratdr@lemmy.ca avatar

lol new generation. It’s millennials, gen x and boomers that spend $500 on Candy Crush without noticing, not Gen Z & Alpha.

cobysev,
@cobysev@lemmy.world avatar

Honestly, I always felt the $60 price tag for games (now $70+ for AAA titles!) was way too much, so I usually wait about a year or more, then buy it on sale.

So I get to sit back and watch the shitshow when people pre-order games and then get screwed when the game is garbage.

Dragon’s Dogma II was super hyped up recently, and even I got the free character customization demo to pre-build a character. Then it announced day-one microtransactions the day before release and pissed off the gaming community.

Cocodapuf,

I do wait, and the publishers don’t get away with selling me unfinished games. It’s great.

I wait at least a month for any game, 8 months for a Bethesda game.

Klear,

I waited a year for cyberpunk, until everyone was saying it was all fixed, and I hated all the bugs and some bad design decisions. Nothing major, but it felt like death of a thousand cuts.

I shudder to imagine how that game looked at release that this feels like a polished product to people.

Cocodapuf,

Hah, yeah I also played cyberpunk quite recently. I really liked it for the most part, I’m considering playing it again with a totally different build.

Yeah, I saw some early gameplay videos from cyberpunk… I think it has indeed come a very long way.

Klear,

I can’t say I didn’t like it. Quite the opposite, but for a supposedly fixed game, there were still too many annoyances.

cmhe,

No, the consumers are never to blame for stuff like this!

This is something that is just that we get told by the people that are lying about and hyping up a product, putting up manipulative incentives for buying it before letting us inspect it. Then releasing trash, but still appealing on our empathic nature and promising that it might get fixed later. And when things turn to shit, then it is our trust and empathy, willingness to support them, that is to blame for it. No!

If the industry exploits our good and trusting nature, then we need to fight them with regulation and laws. Our civilization and the human nature is built on trust, and that should not be undermined by short profit oriented, exploitative companies or business practices.

KingThrillgore,
@KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml avatar

It’s preorders. Stop preordering, and either the products will improve or studios will collapse.

johannesvanderwhales,

Games were also significantly less complex then. It takes teams of 100s of people to make a AAA game now. But don’t kid yourself, there were definitely game-breaking bugs back then. And in the pc world, patches arrived much, much earlier than in the console world.

gens,

FF7 and supreme commander were complex. And devs then didn’t have the tools we have today, not to mention game engines (there were, but not like today). And ps3 was a pain to program for. And, and…

HeyJoe,

Speaking of FF7, I am just about finished with Rebirth and all I thought was wow I didn’t see a single update and it played flawlessly. Just shows it can still happen, just super rare.

SuperSaiyanSwag,

At the end of the day it’s apples to oranges. The behind the scene development is so different that we can’t really judge them properly, we just have other modern games to compare them to.

AEsheron,

Arguably, patches started even earlier. It wasn’t uncommon to release another whole title that was basically a bug/balance patch. See Japanese Pokemon Blue, and all the various Street Fighter 2 versions.

johannesvanderwhales,

Cart version revisions weren’t uncommon either. But they would only be for new purchases.

intensely_human,

Yes but this comment is generic to the game industry overall, and has been made thousands of times with slightly different wording. I’d rather use this thread to celebrate the rare event of a company admitting a mistake and actually making customers whole.

ZeroPoke,

Actually there were update still cause the games were only little less broken. It’s updates were so much harder for everyone. Hosting them, finding them, knowing there were updates, having to apply updates in specific orders.

Steam has been a good send for that.

Maybe I’m just old

Ashtear,

Not old enough, heh. The cartridges/CDs this commenter are talking about had to have rock-solid code because patching wasn’t possible. You’d have to make an entire new print run, and very few games of that era ever had those.

shaggymatt,
@shaggymatt@midwest.social avatar

And guess what? They still had multiple versions! Ask any Link to the Past speedrunner. 1.0 is broken as hell!

Ashtear,

Ya, Nintendo first-party was certainly one of the exceptions. Benefits of your games having ridiculously long tails.

EatATaco,

You don’t miss those days.

You don’t have to! Pretty much all of those games are available, and you can play them for free if you’re willing to pirate.

But let’s be honest, modern games are better which is why you won’t do this instead.

viking,
@viking@infosec.pub avatar

I’ve tried time and time again to enjoy “modern” games, but nothing released after Oblivion or The Witcher 3 was worth my time.

Plenty of old games however have an extremely high replay value, thanks to their immersive missions and bugfree gameplay. Recently played Thief: The Dark Project again (from 1999), and it’s a bloody masterpiece.

EatATaco,

You’re one of the few. Pretty much everyone else complaining about how modern games are bad and the time you speak of was some magical time for gaming, are at the same time only be playing games from the last decade or so.

Having been a game since the early 80s, I would argue gaming is better now than it has ever been. It has its own set of problems, but nothing better than throwing a game I’m interested in into my wishlist, waiting for it to go on deep sale (which happens long after most of those annoying first bugs have been ironed out), checking the reviews at that point, and then downloading if it still looks good.

Generally speaking, games are so much better looking and have the ability to be far more intricate and interesting. Like I played hundreds of hours of civ I. But if I’m going to play civ now, it will be 5 or 6.

yildolw,

Why do you miss things being permanently broken and unfixable?

toddestan,

The thing is, it forced the people making games to release them as a finished, working product, with the bugs (mostly) stamped out.

Today it’s just push something out the door now, and we’ll patch it soak them for more money with DLC later.

wowwoweowza,

Yeah. Good ol’ Pong.

sukhmel, do games w Cities Skylines 2: "Beach properties assets are all gone and my city is screwed. Thanks a lot."
FooBarrington,

God, how can someone be so blind?

But this was such an edge case, removing assets resulting in the unavailability of said assets in game, that this interruption simply couldn’t have been for foreseen.

They couldn’t foresee issues created by removing assets, in a game that is supposed to support user mods, which can be added/removed at any time? Really?

The explanation I’ve seen is that they wanted to pull the DLC as soon as possible, since it was - literally - the worst-rated product on Steam. I’m 99% sure the bean counters responsible for all of the terrible decisions (release the game, no matter what state! Release the DLC, no matter the amount of content!) pulled the lever on this one again - no chance they’ll see any responsibility with themselves.

lanolinoil,
@lanolinoil@lemmy.world avatar

surely this is satire no?

FooBarrington,

You’re probably right, especially considering this sentence:

It’s difficult to see in advance that removing game assets from the game will result in the unavailability of said assets in game.

I’ve seen this kind of defense meant honestly before, so I’m not 100% sure, but by god - I hope you’re right.

sukhmel,
Summzashi,

Wooooooooooooooosh

FooBarrington,

God, I hope so!

Caligvla,
@Caligvla@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Wait, but if they pulled the game from Steam shouldn’t the owners still keep the game (DLC in this case) on their libraries?

FooBarrington,

They refunded people, which probably removed the DLC from their libraries. People who bought the ultimate edition kept it.

Caligvla,
@Caligvla@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

That can happen? I wasn’t aware developers could literally remove a game from your Steam library, if so that’s really shitty and scummy.

FooBarrington,

Well, they refunded it, so people got their money back. But it sucks that it breaks peoples save files.

Caligvla,
@Caligvla@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I guess, but so the owner chose to get a refund, right? If so then that’s to be expected, if that’s the case then I don’t see what the fuzz is about. Unless the refund was forced onto the customer.

FooBarrington, (edited )

The refund was forced. Players didn’t choose it.

Caligvla,
@Caligvla@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Well then my opinion stands, that’s pretty shitty. The choice to refund should ultimately lie with the customer not with the company.

FooBarrington,

I think the refund would have been right to do from the company side once everything was prepared - it wouldn’t be right for them to keep any money from customers after the content has been integrated into the base game. But only once they are sure nothing will break due to the refund.

FalseMyrmidon,

Not everything needs a change management procedure, calm down there Satan.

originalfrozenbanana,

But…but software development absolutely does

fishpen0,

Yeah, via automated testing. Old school change management with a group of random managers who don’t know shit sitting in a room once a week running up a really expensive meeting never has and never will actually prevent issues from going to prod.

I devops for startups going through high tiers of compliance and basically half my job is killing change management boards/change control boards/release managers in organizations and replacing them with actual working processes that aren’t just smoke and mirrors for people with no critical thinking skills

FalseMyrmidon,

Yeah, the industry as a whole has been moving away from these types of processes for the last 15 years. There are exceptions where it can still make sense but they have significantly higher risk profiles than video games do.

FalseMyrmidon,

You can keep your grubby ITIL process far away from me.

dinckelman,

Truth be told, i don’t have an ounce of care in me about this community council. I want them to make a product that was advertised, because so far it’s just a scam of colossal orders of magnitude (ha)

Mechanize, do games w Prison Architect 2 Has Been Delayed Indefinitely, Pre-Orders Are Being Refunded

The (IMHO) important bits:

TLDR:

Our continuous internal reviews and beta test groups have highlighted areas that we need to focus on more, mainly performance and content

From the FAQ:

Is the game canceled?
No, the game is not canceled.

What happens to pre-orders?
All pre-orders will be refunded in the upcoming weeks. The option to pre-order the game will be removed and the bonus will instead be added to the base game for all

Is there going to be Early Access or Beta Access to the game?
There will not be an early access or extra beta access right now

In the blog there are the steps to how to get the refunds, I’m not copying them in case they change.

As they say, A Delayed Game Is Eventually Good, But a Bad Game Is Bad Forever ^/s?^

imPastaSyndrome,

mainly performance and content

Oh so everything?

bionicjoey,

All of this could have been said about PDX’s Sims competitor Life By You when it got “delayed indefinitely” too. But then a week later it was cancelled. And then a week after that the lead dev came out and said there was no reason for it to have been cancelled because they had been on track for release before Paradox pulled the plug.

BananaTrifleViolin, do games w Cities Skylines 2: "Beach properties assets are all gone and my city is screwed. Thanks a lot."

I loved Cities 1, I was massively looking forward to 2 but it’s been nothing but a shitshow.

I’ve also had a enough of the gaslighting around this game that somehow it’s the angry customers that are the problem.

loobkoob,

The angry customers and the state of the game are problems.

  • it's hard to feel sorry for people who pre-ordered because they got exactly what they paid for - a game of unknown quality and quantity of content
  • it's hard to feel sorry for people who bought post-release because they also got exactly what they paid for - a game where reviews detailed poor quality and quantity of content
  • customers being disappointed and/or wanting a refund is perfectly reasonable
  • people wanting the game to be better is also reasonable
  • people abusing the devs is not reasonable

I'm not going to defend the poor quality of the game because it's obviously bad (from what I gather, anyway - I've not played it myself) and should be improved. But I do think gamers could learn to be a little more responsible with their purchases and inform themselves before buying a game.

I'm pretty over the whole cycle of games coming out and not meeting expectations, people buying them anyway (through pre-orders or day-one purchases), people being unnecessarily rude/hostile/sending death threats to developers as if they were forced to buy the game as gunpoint. Yes, developers should try to do better, yes publishers should often give developers more time to polish up games rather than announcing the release date two years in advance and refusing to delay, but also consumers could really take some responsibility for what they decide to give money to.

systemglitch,

Your opinion is stupid, because these people SHOULD be putting this negative pressure on them. It’s deserved and the louder they are the better.

loobkoob,

these people SHOULD be putting this negative pressure on them. It’s deserved

Was it not implied I agree with that when I said:

The angry customers and the state of the game are problems.

and;

  • customers being disappointed and/or wanting a refund is perfectly reasonable
  • people wanting the game to be better is also reasonable

I'm not going to defend the poor quality of the game because it's obviously bad (from what I gather, anyway - I've not played it myself) and should be improved.

?

I don't see why that would make my opinion stupid. Yes, the studio/publisher should be held to account for the crappy release. But a big part of holding them to account should be not giving them money for it in the first place; not just handing over money and then complaining afterwards. Complaining afterwards is reasonable for the people who did hand over money, but they should also hold themselves accountable for financially rewarding a company that puts out a crappy product - they're part of the problem.

systemglitch,

Yeah I knee jerk reacted, sorry.

loobkoob,

It's okay; I appreciate the apology! :)

I think it's important to look for the nuance in situations and not treat everything as zero-sum. Both sides can have good points and be open to criticism at the same time (this isn't an "enlightened centrist" take, I promise!). I think a lot of discussion online does tend to strip away nuance and take the position that if you show any empathy with one side then it means you must hate the other - I do my best to avoid that!

systemglitch,

You are absolutely right, and clearly a person of wisdom. Have a great day. :)

ArumiOrnaught,

The last time I believed trailers was dead island.

The only reason why I played cs1 so much was because of the mods. I like to play the vanilla game before modding. I bought the game knowing that I would like it for a month or two, then I would wait for mods to come out and I'd hop back into it. I knew what I was getting and I didn't have a problem with the game. I don't need a city builder to be high frames. I didn't have a lot of bugs. I'm totally fine with the game, as long as the modding scene stays with the game.

My worry is that all the negativity around the game will make less modders appear for cs2.

Looking back at other city builders releases cs2 release is fine. I don't understand the extent of negativity. Just ask for a refund. If the game gets better with age then buy it when it is cheaper. I'm sure these people have other games to play. CS1 seems to be popular still. Nothing happened to that game.

Psythik,

That said, I just fired up the game yesterday for the first time since launch and was surprised by how much progress was being made. I was surprised to find that mod support is already available; I thought it was still a work in progress cause I didn’t hear anything about it. You think that Paradox would have been making a huge announcement about it since it’s a huge important thing, but if they did, I surely can’t find it on their website nor on the produce page in Steam.

I was also surprised to find that my performance issues were fixed too. Now getting a solid 40-60 FPS on high settings with a medium-sized city @ 4K. Not bad, given that I usually averaged 20-30 on the same machine in C:S1.

Now all they gotta do is make the economy easier to understand. I still don’t get how I can be losing money every month, yet my balance keeps going up. But other than that, all of my complaints with the game have been fixed. If anyone reading this hasn’t played the game in several months, I suggest you give it a try again. You might be pleasantly surprised.

nekusoul, do games w The Way Forward, an update from the team behind Cities: Skylines
@nekusoul@lemmy.nekusoul.de avatar

They’ve basically perfected keeping the community mostly happy by toeing the line between putting out solid base games and putting out greedy DLC.

What we’re now seeing is what happens when you don’t immediately change course after you skimp on making a good base game.

Ashtear,

It’s all sheer greed, too. Paradox has fully embraced the model of releasing sequels with less content than their DLC-enhanced previous games after 2K showed the market had tolerance for it with Civilization. Considering how that already puts them ahead of the curve, it’s amazing that Paradox let this game come out in this state.

SuperSpruce,

To be fair, I don’t expect the sequel’s base game to have more content than the previous game with all its DLCs, but I do expect the base game to have at least as much content as the previous game’s base game.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

That doesn’t make it sheer greed; it’s what’s feasible to develop. A systems driven game like a city builder or a 4X game mean that you can’t just drag and drop old content in the new systems and expect it to work and look cohesive. Every fighting game launches with fewer characters than the previous version, and it’s not because it’s some conspiracy to delay dropping the SFV characters in SF6; it’s because swapping out the V system for the Drive system is a massive change, and the old characters take a lot of work to port over. Even the art style in Civ 6 is very different from Civ V. When you try to just copy and paste content between two different styles of art direction, you end up with nightmare fuel Chun-Li in Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite.

TwanHE,

Save for Smash Ultimate

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

Sure, but that was iterative, like Super Street Fighter II Turbo, as opposed to making Street Fighter III. Wherever they go with Smash from here, it will involve a systems rework and fewer characters.

TwanHE,

Wouldn’t say it’s that iterative since most characters play differently from their past versions.

But honestly, I wouldn’t mind less characters in the next game, melee is old as fuck and the meta is still changing with the few characters it has.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

The ways that they play differently are a few numbers tweaks and occasionally a new animation. It’s not the difference between Melee and Brawl or 64 and Melee.

Ashtear,

The base game having less content than its predecessor isn’t the greedy part. It’s the fact that taking advantage of that market inelasticity wasn’t enough for Paradox and judging it acceptable to release a product in this state on top of that.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

It’s the kind of decision you make when you run out of cash to keep funding development.

Ashtear,

Paradox and Colossal Order have said they literally ran out of cash?

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

No, but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…

Everyone ran out of cash in this industry. Investment dried up, and they knew what state their game was shipping in. That doesn’t mean you’re wrong to be upset as a consumer either.

Ashtear,

Paradox is https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/investors/financial-reports/year-end-report-january-december-2023.

If we’re both going to be speculating here, I’m going with the more likely consideration for a publisher with record performance. In early August, they saw an early access game get its full release in an unfinished state to massive acclaim and sales (along with similar, larger trends) and decided to test their market with the same.

I don’t even have a dog in this fight; I’m not a city management sim fan. I’m just calling it like it is.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

And perhaps that health is because by that point they already started releasing multiple games far too early for a cash injection, one of which ended with them cutting Harebrained Schemes loose. I’m also calling it like it is. I don’t see healthy companies sacrifice their long term fan base and development throughput for short term gains. It smells a whole lot like trying to stop the bleeding. As for assigning The Chinese Room to sequel a beloved RPG, I don’t even know where to start there.

CosmicCleric,
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

I don’t see healthy companies sacrifice their long term fan base and development throughput for short term gains.

New to Capitalism?

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

No, hence my conclusions.

CosmicCleric,
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

I don’t see healthy companies sacrifice their long term fan base and development throughput for short term gains.

New to Capitalism?

No, hence my conclusions.

You’ve never seen a corporation sacrifice its long-term health to report short-term profits, to meet an upcoming quarterly report?

Ever?

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

I’ve never seen one I would call healthy.

CosmicCleric,
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

I don’t see healthy companies sacrifice their long term fan base and development throughput for short term gains.

New to Capitalism?

No, hence my conclusions.

You’ve never seen a corporation sacrifice its long-term health to report short-term profits, to meet an upcoming quarterly report?

Ever?

I’ve never seen one I would call healthy.

Well, most people believe that all publicly traded corporations, healthy or otherwise, only focus on their next quarterly report profits, and that long-term strategy and growth goals are rarely if ever considered.

Granted, I’d much rather live in your world than mine, but I don’t think you’re correct on this one.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

You don’t see Take Two shoving GTA6 and Judas out the door for profits now, for instance. Paradox abiding by the same MO to burn good will for multiple games and then getting developers off their books is a move you make when you’re out of better options.

CosmicCleric,
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

You don’t see Take Two shoving GTA6 and Judas out the door for profits now, for instance.

And all the other corporations out there?

Remember your stance was that all healthy corporations would never sacrifice long-term health for short-term profits.

Paradox abiding by the same MO to burn good will for multiple games and then getting developers off their books is a move you make when you’re out of better options.

You’re not really addressing my point, but instead skirting around it…

Well, most people believe that all publicly traded corporations, healthy or otherwise, only focus on their next quarterly report profits, and that long-term strategy and growth goals are rarely if ever considered.

Our original disagreement was on if a healthy corporation would focus on the quarterly profits over long-term goals in the same way that an unhealthy corporation would. Your stance was that any healthy corporation would not.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

Correct. We’ve seen tons of layoffs in this industry because their business models weren’t healthy. So they’ll make cuts, or push out games like Cities: Skylines II or Skull and Bones when they’re not ready or will do long-term damage to their brand because they need to take the least bad option, but meanwhile, Take Two and Nintendo can push back marquis products another few quarters because they’ve got a moat of security around themselves. At times, those companies were not, and one day will not be, healthy, but then they sacrificed or will sacrifice something or other in order to survive to be healthy another day.

CosmicCleric,
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

So, just to confirm, your opinion is that no healthy corporation in any industry on this planet would ever focus on short-term quarterly reports and financial gain to satisfy their shareholders, over long-term goals and stability, yes? That only unhealthy corporations would do so?

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

I’d say it’s a sign of an unhealthy company, since their reports must be truthful but can present the rosiest picture possible. You don’t have to force this to be some absolutism. The rest of the industry came on hard times simultaneously to these games releasing unfinished, as well as games from their peers doing the same. I don’t think my conclusion is farfetched.

CosmicCleric,
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

I’d say it’s a sign of an unhealthy company

Not all corporations on the planet are unhealthy, but all focus on the quarterly report more so than long-term, if they’re publicly traded.

You keep focusing on a few game companies, where my original comment, and my recurring comments, are about corporations in general, as a discussion on Capitalism as a whole.

It’s well known and believed that all corporations that are public and that have shareholders focused primarily on the next quarterly earnings report and returns, and not long term results, regardless of their health.

I don’t think my conclusion is farfetched.

Your conclusion is purposely not answering the point I’m asking you, which is what this conversation is about.

It blows my mind you’re not willing to acknowledge that, which is why I keep interacting with you, trying to get you to speak specifically to that point, but you keep referring to just two game companies over and over again only.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

You’re looking for an argument that I’m not interested in, and it’s not what this conversation was about. Paradox sure looks like it released some games early, knowing that they were underbaked, because they couldn’t feasibly keep delaying them to give them the time they needed. We can agree to disagree there and go our separate ways.

CosmicCleric, (edited )
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

Going to leave it with this…

You’re looking for an argument that I’m not interested in, and it’s not what this conversation was about.

You’re purposely not answering the point of the conversation, and trying to label it otherwise is not an answer in and of itself.

The conversation was about healthy corporations focusing on short-term profits or not. Not one game company who’s unhealthy focusing on short-term profits.

I don’t see healthy companies sacrifice their long term fan base and development throughput for short term gains.

New to Capitalism?

No, hence my conclusions.

You’ve never seen a corporation sacrifice its long-term health to report short-term profits, to meet an upcoming quarterly report?

Ever?

I’ve never seen one I would call healthy.

Lizardking27, do games w Cities Skylines 2: "Beach properties assets are all gone and my city is screwed. Thanks a lot."

I think we need to admit that paradox is a shitty greedy company that cares more about selling a million DLCs than they do about making a quality product.

Paradox’s business practices have always been greedy and over monetized. Not sure why anyone is surprised their latest product sucks.

griD,

Hmm, I’ve only played Stellaris from this company and that game is great. A bit pricey with all the DLC, but the alternative of releasing a new Stellaris every few years probably amounts to the same.
Also, I’d rather play a well fleshed out 8 year old game, than getting a bare boned husk with each iteration - which sadly tends to be the norm for 4x games.

Lizardking27,

“A bit pricey”

My dude stellaris+all DLC is $350!

Furthermore, “releasing a new stellaris every few years” is not the only alternative. Look at all the games that exist that have regular free content updates.

Paradox needs to do better.

konsn,

Dont know about stellaris but I got Cities Skylines (1) with all the content DLCs at the time for under $50, which I consider a very good deal for the hours I put in. For reference, I paid roughly the same amount for BF5 which I played for about a month and then forgot about it

wahming,

Not sure whether you got it on sale, or how many DLC you actually got, but it currently costs $380 for the complete package.

Minnels,

It was in a humble bundle way back. Same with EU4 and CK2 had their own bundles iirc. All were great deals if you didn’t own it.

wahming,

300 USD… a ‘little’ pricey

ILikeBoobies,

The link suggests the opposite of what you’re claiming

you were of course supposed to keep access to the Beach Properties content until the patch that moves it to the base game arrived. Assets are replaced by the placeholder boxes, but as the waterfront zoning isn’t available in the base game yet, I recommend holding off on loading saves with a lot of those zones.

Putting dlc content into the base game doesn’t sound like they are trying to sell millions of dlc

SpacetimeMachine,

Only because there was major backlash for releasing dlc content before the base game is even in a finished state and is still missing content that players feel should be in the base game.

Maggoty,

In hearts of iron they always made sure to drop free content along with the paid content.

4am, do games w Cities Skylines 2: "Beach properties assets are all gone and my city is screwed. Thanks a lot."

CSII has been a shitshow, and the devs rightfully should be ashamed, but honestly reading the comments on that forum makes me really not feel bad for a lot of those people doing the complaining.

Like yeah the game is broken, you got an incomplete product, and it’s ok to be upset. They didn’t fucking kill your dog, there’s no need to fucking dig into them quite so hard, dude. Stop acting like your abusive parents did to you.

systemglitch,

They have every right to do exactly what you say they shouldn’t. Get off your high horse.

GBU_28,

You’re saying if someone sells you a shitty blender or toaster that’s the same as they killed your dog?

systemglitch,

Link me the quote where I said that lol

GBU_28,

If you literally said it is have quoted it. I’m making a hypothetical equivalency to prove a point.

They sold a product. It sucks. Have they really violated you beyond that transaction?

systemglitch,

Lol no, I’m just filled with my own personal disappointment fueling my outrage.

GBU_28,

So just say no

Car,

I think you need to re-read the linked thread. Nobody’s as extreme as you’re making them out to be.

The complaints are fairly level headed. I’ve seen worse in Amazon product reviews.

Woozythebear,

Found the CS2 dev

B0NK3RS, do games w Cities Skylines 2: "Beach properties assets are all gone and my city is screwed. Thanks a lot."
@B0NK3RS@lemmy.world avatar

I haven’t played it yet and every time I get reminded of the game it’s because of something like this…

Rentlar, do games w The Way Forward, an update from the team behind Cities: Skylines

The Beach DLC was distasteful, you still can’t even make convincing beaches with the terrain.

I’m very glad Paradox reversed course here. It sounds like they are starting to take seriously what it means to make a finished, solid game. Cities:Skylines fans are tired of half-baked shit.

TipRing,

I’m not convinced Paradox knows what they are doing as publisher. Millenia was similarly pushed out the door before it was ready (though in a better state than Cities: Skylines 2). And both games pushed out the door in the last week of the quarter in a transparent effort to boost their earnings. The shortsightedness of the publisher is now impacting their reputation in ways that will be hard to recover. I no longer consider buying Paradox published titles until they are at least a year old or have at least a few months of reviews showing they are solid (like AoW4).

Dark_Arc,
@Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

I feel like maybe Paradox expanded too much too fast.

ours,

Smells like stock-price-driven short-term decisions.

carl_dungeon, do games w Prison Architect 2 Has Been Delayed Indefinitely, Pre-Orders Are Being Refunded

I loved 1 - but 2 didn’t make any sense to me. Slapping 3D on it didn’t seem like something it needed, and it makes it a very different game. Plus, it’s not made by introversion - that’s where 95% of the humor and novel game mechanics came from.

Unforeseen,

Yeah I thought the same. I played 1 from the very beginning up until release. When I heard about 2 I wasn’t even interested, it seemed to me it would be doomed from the start.

DarkThoughts,

Yeah. Introversion makes The Last Starship at the moment.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1857080/The_Last_Starship/

carl_dungeon,

Yeah, looking forward to it!!!

slazer2au,

On the bright side, with this it won’t turn into another CS2 or KSP2.

kuberoot,

Considering they supposedly cited performance as a reason, they might’ve been about to pull a Cities skylines 2 indeed

sunbytes, do games w The Way Forward, an update from the team behind Cities: Skylines

We’re riding this wave over in the Total War community too. Broken game, weak and overpriced DLC.

We kicked off (and then all their other games managed to flop at once, so they came crawling back) and now we’ve got a notable amount more effort into the DLC coming at the end of the month, as well as price cuts, refunds and redoing of the bad DLC.

Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but I’m seeing positive movements in general on legacy resting-on-laurels games.

Canadian_Cabinet, do games w Prison Architect 2 Has Been Delayed Indefinitely, Pre-Orders Are Being Refunded

Prison Architect 1 was amazing, up until Paradox bought it. I didn’t have high hopes for PA2 (not like I was going to play it anyway) but I definitely wasn’t expecting this

steal_your_face, do games w The Way Forward, an update from the team behind Cities: Skylines
@steal_your_face@lemmy.ml avatar

Take for the tldr :)

wowwoweowza, do games w The Way Forward, an update from the team behind Cities: Skylines

City Skylines Team to their fans: We’re sorry. Making good.

George R.R Martin to his fans: Go get fucked.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

What’s the scuttlebutt with GRRM?

wowwoweowza,

Refuses to finish next installment of Game Of Thrones — like ten years waiting.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

Oh, nothing more than that? Yeah, that’s just a man who hasn’t done his job. If he averaged a page a day, he’d have finished years ago.

RippleEffect,

He made his money. I wonder if he’ll ever have to do his job again.

CosmicCleric,
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

Refuses to finish next installment of Game Of Thrones — like ten years waiting.

His D&D group probably stopped meeting years ago. No new ideas.

(I kid, I kid. Er, I think.)

wowwoweowza,

Chuckled. That was unexpected.

But you should read some of this guy— he’s the most legit… except for this delay.

CosmicCleric,
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

But you should read some of this guy— he’s the most legit… except for this delay.

I know, I was just going for the comedic route (er, I think :p ). I’ve read his books.

Jimmycakes,

He did finish it we saw it on TV and hated it. So now he’s not gonna do it because he knows no matter what he does we will hate it. He wrote himself into a corner

Linkerbaan,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

He should just plagiarize a few fanfics

rickyrigatoni,

Yeah I remember some interview or something where he said the show just did a shittier version of the ending he wanted and it kind of killed his drive to finish. Imagine the adaptation being so bad it actually does ruin the source.

menemen,
@menemen@lemmy.world avatar

13 years. :)

If he’d just say “It is over, no more books.” people would just move on. But him constantly stating that he’ll publish “next year” for 10 years years or so now is really annoying.

Gabu,

HAHAHAHAHAHA

The Elder Scrolls fans: First time?

menemen,
@menemen@lemmy.world avatar

It is pretty comparable tbh. It is also the same for Elders scroll fans. Before Skyrim and before A Dance with Dragons both published constantly and both started publishing on the mid 90s, both published 5 times, both started publishing side project stuff.

Elders Scroll fans have it somewhat better though, not depending on a single person, who also isn’t the youngest.

I am also an Elder Scroll fan since Arena btw, so I am quite f…d.

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