Well I must say, Paradox Interactive sure knows how to make money. They'll give you the base game bundled... and then you find out that if you want the complete game, you'll have to buy the DLC at about as much as you would for the base game. And good luck figuring out all the ways they've cut up the DLC into various editions and upgrades and bundles if you don't want to overpay! Should've waited those 3 long years for the Definitive Edition, fool.
Of course, it's their right to sell their products as they wish, but I think it's scummy. I wish I could say that means I won't give Paradox my money, but my urge to make one of you happy with the DLC is stronger, so... thanks for reading this rant and enjoy your Definitive Edition upgrade.
As always, given the site's difficulties with checking for DLC: enter only if you own Pillars of Eternity - Hero Edition, without The White March Part I and The White March Part II, or a reroll is inevitable. You cannot enter only for the Royal Edition upgrade (which is just extras, not game content).
Edit: the above means you can own neither Part I nor Part II. Sorry if that wasn't clear. If you only own Part I, you can't enter this for Part II. (If you only own Part II, I don't know what to tell you -- you're weird.)
Have it, yet still able to enter... Just a heads up, before i hide it =)
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah, that's not unexpected, which is why I put in the disclaimer. Fortunately I can check ownership manually.
Comment has been collapsed.
How can you check that manually?
Comment has been collapsed.
If you buy a bundle as a gift in Steam, you can see what parts of the bundle they already own just before you send over the gift (and then you can cancel, if necessary). The only drawback is that you have to have to be friends already.
Comment has been collapsed.
Ohh, that sounds clever :)
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah, same with CK2 and EU4......idk paradox had changed since they went public.
Comment has been collapsed.
What makes it even more insulting is that they're applying the methods that work "well" for them in their strategy games (i.e. keep pumping out DLC of new civilizations/mechanics) to games that aren't designed to be sliced up that way (like, you know Pillars of Eternity, and Tyranny). They've obviously just clumsily cut out/deferred parts that should have been part of the game from the start (and require a new game to properly enjoy) and packaged them as new content.
I mean, you're getting shafted on the price for CK2/EU4, but at least there's no story experience to complete there, and you're expected to start many games. It's one thing to be expensive, another to be so overtly greedy.
Comment has been collapsed.
Given how half-developed their (DLC-based) strategy game releases initially are, and how very little content each individual DLC provides, it's arguable that any of Paradox's games are designed to be sliced up "that way".
It's not just Paradox, of course- SEGA, Bethesda, EA/Bioware, Borderlands 2, Payday 2.. we see far too much DLC manipulation with modern publishers. Nevermind that they also all ascribe to the habit of discounting things in such a way that you end up having to rebuy the base game an additional one or two times if you were unfortunate enough to try and get it outside of the definitive/complete edition to begin with.
But yeah, you're right, these are the worst- with strategy games you'll feel you're getting a shallow, half-baked experience, but at least it's an experience you don't have to stress over. With RPGs, you feel actively prohibited from playing them.
On that note, appreciate you giving us the chance at White March. :)
Comment has been collapsed.
At least the DLC's used to go up to 80% on discount. Now they are all capped at 50% discount, and there's no decrease in base price over the years.
Comment has been collapsed.
Well, at least this time they've warned us about future DLCs beforehand, I'm definitely not buying Deadfire until these 3 expansions are released.
Comment has been collapsed.
Cool, did just pick this up in the paradox bundle.
Comment has been collapsed.
Thanks for a chance to complete the game. I'm always torn if I can get an incomplete game cheap in a bundle.
Comment has been collapsed.
Kudos! ^__^
Comment has been collapsed.
Thank you yet again for a great giveaway Nudiustertian <3 Love Pillars, can't wait to get more.
Comment has been collapsed.
Thanks for a great giveaway.
Comment has been collapsed.
Wow thanks! I really want this expansion pass.
Comment has been collapsed.
Thanks for the chance!
Comment has been collapsed.
Thanks! (^_^)
Comment has been collapsed.
tell me about it... I hate their dlc policy. but their games are so good! its like crack. still I always wait for discounts, never gonna buy their games full price
Comment has been collapsed.
Thanks for lining the pockets of those scummy bitches so I don’t have to.
Comment has been collapsed.
Thanks for the chance :o)
A little security measure would help against the autojoiners that now joins too and make you unneeded work.
Comment has been collapsed.
The only restriction possible on public GAs is level, and I don't see how that would restrict autojoiners.
Comment has been collapsed.
With each higher level it give lesser Autojoiners.
Comment has been collapsed.
My primary concern with this GA is to make it available to as many people as possible who own Pillars of Eternity (and to a lesser extent get them to read my rant :-)). That this will inevitably include autojoiners is unfortunate but acceptable.
Most of my GAs are not public, so this is a bit of an exception. I feel the nature of a DLC giveaway poses enough of an entry barrier.
Comment has been collapsed.
Thank you very much !
I bought Pillars of Eternity on SteamTrades the day before the release of Paradox Bundle (thanks to the "leak", I assumed the next bundle would be a Rockstar one, unless I would have waited for the revelation of the next bundle). For 6$ in CSGO keys, the same price than the Tier 2.
"Well, that's the game", I thought. And that avoided me to use my credit card, which is kinda better. Plus I don't care about the other games, not my genre (perhaps only Magicka 2). But still, a little bit pissed off, that's normal.
I also thought it would have been the perfect time to buy The White March expansion on Humble Store, with the Winter Sale + the 10% discount of the Monthly (which I don't buy very often). But noooo, no current sale for the expansion...
Note to myself : If there will be another Paradox Bundle (high chance) that you'll buy (probably zero chance), give 0% to Paradox.
Comment has been collapsed.
Thanks for the chance at this! Definitely want the complete game.
Comment has been collapsed.
I haven't played Pillars yet, so this will work for me. :D
Comment has been collapsed.
Thank you so much for the awesome chance m8!!!! :)
Comment has been collapsed.
I was very sad/upset/angry when I found out that Crusader Kings 2 was raised in price, right before the big winter sale... it is indeed very scummy... and I would say let's all just BOYCOTT them all. Right after this giveaway ends xD
Anyway thanks for the rant, and making me feel like I am not the only person who thinks it is utterly annoying. And thanks for the giveaway <3
Comment has been collapsed.
I mean, they milked CK2 with DLCs to hell and back, but hardly anything to complain about regarding PoE. It's a proper expansion (split into 2 smaller DLCs for whatever reason) at a decent price. It's a bit greedy to expect them to not only sell a bunch of games for dirt cheap, but include all the DLC with them. You did get the whole COMPLETE game just like it was released, you just didn't get the expansion that adds new content. Not trying to defend Paradox, they have plenty of shitty practices under their belt (like that raising prices before a sale debacle), but any company that gives us bundles. We get great deals with the bundles that we wouldn't be getting otherwise, there's absolutelly no reason to complain about the quantity of stuff we get, even if theh are trying to get us to spring for DLC.
Comment has been collapsed.
"For whatever reason"? I think we can all take an informed guess at the reason: money. I'd say an expansion split in two is exactly what a proper expansion isn't.
My main beef is not that they're not selling the whole game in a bundle. That's fine. What rankles is that they sell the DLC at prices (and a lack of sales) that means you're coughing up full price anyway, or even slightly worse, if you want the full experience. Of course, getting the full experience is your own choice and entirely optional -- it's not like you can't have fun with the base game, or that it doesn't contain enough content -- but it's still rank psychological manipulation to increase their bottom line. I don't have to appreciate that.
Comment has been collapsed.
The two parts of "white march" add up to 30€ which is pretty normal for an expansion. Splitting it was just odd. I don't really know how packed each half is, but price wise it's... strangely normal.
And they're selling the DLCs (just talking about the PoE ones in this case, not the miriad of DLC for their gran-strategy games, most of those are insulting and should be free updates) at their normal price. So if you were to get the expansions after buying the bundle, it would cost you, what, 36€, not taking into account the other games included? It's silly because that's the price of the definitive edition but at least you get more games. And I'm sure there will be sales for the expansions down the line so that we can get a decent deal instead of giving those dicks the asking price.
I'm with you in thinking it's manipulation to try to get us to pay up for the DLC and it's a bit scummy at the very least, but I'm also not gonna get mad at them for not giving us everything they sell for next to nothing.
Comment has been collapsed.
I suppose 2 x 15 could be seen as an "expansion pack on installments" -- for only half the price you can start playing now. Of course you're not going to leave part 2 on the table, so ultimately you still pay the same amount. This gives Paradox more money in the end by lowering the initial threshold for buying, so more people will spend (and also gives you another bundle/pass opportunity to be confused by). You're right that 30 bucks in total is par for the course, though. It's still getting the hooks into you by splitting up stuff just to mask the total cost of ownership, but since the total cost isn't outrageous and the manipulation is fairly transparent (they did call it "part 1", after all) I guess it's "not so bad".
Well me neither, but that's because that's an obvious straw man. :-P
Again, the TCO isn't bothering me so much -- at least in this case; I pity the strategy game players who want to have it all. It's the splitting, cutting, reshuffling, extra editions, base bundling, foot-in-the-door techniques they use to make the whole process of purchase feel like less of buying something good and more like being preyed upon by marketeers.
Of course Paradox is by far not the only one to do this (or even the worst), and lots of people have already accepted most of this as "the new normal" anyway, but having seen both PoE and Tyranny succumb to this in short order (both games I happen to be interested in myself) it prodded me to speak out.
Comment has been collapsed.
Having it split in my opinion makes it easier for people to not waste as much money since if people buy the first part and don't like it they can safely save money by not buying the second. Different strokes i suppose.
Paradox is actually very aggressive with DLC since most of their games have plenty of them and not all of them very good or providing actual content. EU4 and CK2 have over 200€ of DLC each for instance. Stellaris and Cities Skylines have over 100.
The different versions of PoE and Tyranny stems from them being Kickstarter games so the different versions are just correspondent to the different tiers during the fund raising. At least they just add little bits and pieces that don't affect the games, so there's that, could be much worse. Hell, the only reason those two aren't filled to the brim with DLC might be because they are actually Obsidian's games.
Comment has been collapsed.
Them being Obsidian's games is partially what makes it so annoying -- it's obviously Paradox not knowing quite what to do with games that aren't naturally huge piles of DLCs (like their, ahem, most "successful" model) and trying to make something out of it anyway, the best way they know how. It's so ham-fisted. I guess this is where we put in the mandatory "could be worse, could have been EA" disclaimer...
Comment has been collapsed.
To support your perspective:
--
One unique issue to Pillars is that White March integrates into the main campaign (rather than simply extends it, like typical RPG expansions do), meaning a gamer is forced to wait on it if they want to play the base game (and don't intend to repeat-play it). Add in that White March never gets discounted..
Yeah- at first it doesn't seem as inherently distasteful in approach as many of the modern DLC/Lootbox elements we have to deal with. Even off that fact alone, however, we've an experience frustrating in its own way, as we're basically having to buy a single game experience in three parts. Imagine if Starcraft had released Broodwar so that it added content to the original campaigns instead of adding new ones, and only let you play with the new units in multiplayer if you'd unlocked them in campaign first. This sort of cutting up of core RPG content we've seen in recent games is annoying enough in its own right to complain about.
While Obsidian likely didn't take that deliberate of an approach on the matter, the end result is still rather dissatisfying- due to the fact that, yes, Paradox is engaging in their usual terrible publishing approach on top of how that factor above. Paradox offers no meaningful sales on White March, and offers no bundle option on Steam to upgrade to the Definitive Edition.
However, the Definitive Edition is only $10 more than the base game- easy choice for people who haven't purchased the base game yet, right? But for those of us with it, regardless of if we got it from a bundle or not, it's an inexplicable $70 - $75 to upgrade to the Definitive Edition ($45 for Royal Upgrade + $25-30 for White March). Even if we disregard the (inexplicably priced) Royal Upgrade, we're still paying $15-$20 more (let's say $10-15 after removing what we saved by getting the game in a bundle) than people buying the Definitive Edition.
No, Paradox is definitely up to their usual shitty DLC practices here and, as far as getting a deal from a bundle goes? Whatever handful of dollars we saved off the $9 recorded low on sale price that Pillars' base game has by getting it in a bundle, it certainly doesn't make up for the $15 - $60 more we're paying for DLCs.
You definitely have every right to include Pillars in your considerations of scummy Paradox practices.
Comment has been collapsed.
This DLC makes me regret having kickstarted the game. Not so much because I'm angry or whatever, but there's no way I'm replaying this mediocre game just for some DLC, but I would have liked to play with all the patches and extra content from the get-go. I'm sure I'll live though. The game wasn't very memorable, in my opinion.
Paradox, however, always does this. Tons of DLC with all their games. Which is mostly fine I think. If they keep adding to the games, and provide new content, then I'm cool with it, as it's a good way to get people to keep playing, and it extends the support for the game, which is always great. I can see how it can come off as greedy, but hey, at least they're not putting in loot boxes or micro transactions (yet).
Comment has been collapsed.
The most notable issue with Paradox is in that they make it prohibitively expensive to buy the DLCs/expansions (see my comment above), forcing you to buy the Complete/Definitive editions (and thus, rebuy the base game) if you want the DLCs- thus punishing early purchasers far beyond the usual inflation in price that you usually'd get by buying a game part by part.
With SEGA, Paradox, and Bethesda games, you always want to make certain to buy complete editions, unless you're fine with repurchasing the base game again in the future [or don't care about DLCs/expansions at all].
Paradox also has a bad habit of stripping out core features from their base strategy games and releasing them piecemeal at exaggerated pricing- but that wasn't really an issue with Pillars, as they only had expansion-type DLCs; of course, as noted in my comment above, that ended up with its own issues due to how it integrates with the game.
In short, they give us half-done games and then make us rebuy those base games later on, with the alternative of us paying far more for the DLCs which correct core game issues than the DLCs are worth; that is the issue people have with Paradox, not simply the fact that they release a lot of DLCs.
Pillars may be avoiding the overpriced DLC spam issue typical to Paradox games, but it fully embraces the other issues common to them.
Comment has been collapsed.
So true. Each times there are sales I hesitate to buy it because of that. Paradox is really one of the worse company for DLC. Nearly each game published by this company is followed by wagons of DLC. And here there are only 2, in one pack (which would have the been the proper way to sell it at beginning), it seems nearly great for a Paradox game if only the DLC weren't more expensive than the base game.
When it is for their RTS games, it's an endless wagon of overpriced DLC. For Europa Universalis there are (currently, who knows tomorrow) more than 230€ of DLC when the game cost 40€. And lot of these DLC could be added as update instead of being sold.
But if they do that it's because it works :/
Comment has been collapsed.
I agree with your sentiment. I try to always check and see what the DLC costs, and if the total starts to look ridiculous I don't buy the core game, even if it's deeply discounted. Thanks for this offer!
Comment has been collapsed.
If we consider that consumers are mostly logical, it could well hurt them in the long run. As soon as you have a reputation for this, people start to wait for a complete edition instead of purchasing your vanilla product, likely forgetting about it or finding something new and shiny in the meantime more worth their dollars.
Comment has been collapsed.
They're actually mostly illogical, unfortunately. This is especially true for the wealthy/impulse shoppers these tactics cater to. As an example of that, look at how popular EA and SEGA yearly sports games are, and how well they sell each year on launch, despite the fact that they may drop to a sixth of their retail price (or, for PC sports games, get [monthly] bundled) within a year. Those have been around decades, and their practices are well-known, but they've a dedicated fanbase that still continues to buy the games on launch.
Mind also the spending habits of those used to playing lootbox and microtransaction games, and consider how familiar Paradox's release approach would seem to them.
Consumers typically adapt to tactics like this due to financial necessity or by the experience of age; the consumers out there who respectively have and lack those traits are a pretty consistent number. If one person starts managing money better, perhaps another starts managing it worse. If one person gains the patience of age, then another youth will come forward with their shiny new credit card. In fact, given how slow experience comes to most and how experience doesn't necessarily develop patience, it's likely that two youths will have replaced them within that time.
The degree of change required for a company to change their practices on something like this is pretty significant, and the current paradigm doesn't create much momentum in that regard.
Comment has been collapsed.
ty for creating this giveaway
Comment has been collapsed.