Stellaris, Age of Wonders 4, Crusader Kings 3, Harts of Iron 4, Pillers of Eternity series, Imperator: Rome, Shadowrun series, Europa Universalis IV, Surviving Mars, Surviving the Aftermath, Tyranny. Paradox is a great publisher from where I'm sitting. I only buy DLC for Stellaris though. The next DLC looks to be awesome for us Machine empires...lol

Paradox is one of those studios... they have produced some great games. But, they have also suffered from small studio problems. A game I used to really enjoy, Magicka: Wizard Wars, a pvp only, micro transaction led Free to Play Moba-like, was shut down by Paradox after not building enough of a player base. Even with F2P and micro transactions, Magcka stood out as a stellar entry into the pvp space of Magicka. Featuring true balance, skill-based, hot-key game play, there isn't another game that has done pvp better. Simply put, they struck gold with the design of their game, but failed to attract enough players to Get Rich Quickly. Line wasn't going up, game development saw updates and additions, even going so far as to release themed sets and cosmetics with 'power' tied to them. The problem? When Paradox shut down Magicka: Wizard Wars, they didn't leave it in a playable state. All the money players spent on items, the items themselves, and the game, shut down for good. Today, you can play Magicka: Wizard Wars by installing a user maintained client and playing online through steam. All of the items have been made available for free, players can customize their wizards fully and there isn't anything to pay anymore. Check out the Magicka: Wizard Wars Reborn discord for more info.

Not always. Even just 5 years ago they initial game was just fine. Imperator was the first warning sign and it has been downhill from there. Curiosly most of the games before that started development before they went public...

@@XMysticHerox Believe me. The initial releases of Hearts of Iron 3 oder Victoria 2 were everything but fine. Sengoku or March of the Eagles were even worse, barely falling into the definition of a game, being more similiar to a tech demo. Paradox releases nowadays are far better than fifteen years ago. I think the main difference between now and then is just, that the Paradox fanbase has grown far larger than before and Paradox old buisness model has reached a breaking point. Monetizing every feature of your game in smaller and smaller portions while people being obviously tired by sequels releasing with less content than there predecessors (Looking at you CK 3, CS 2 and ESPECIALLY Victoria 3) can't be a model for the future.

@@MrJenkins222 Neither HoI3 nor Victoria 2 had PDXs modern DLC policy so this does not fit your narrative at all. As for CK3. I'd say it had more content than CK2 on release. Significantly so even. CS2 as well. It's issues were more on a technical level. That a game is not going to release with years worth of DLC should be obvious.

@@XMysticHerox CK3 also has CK2 to pull from though and the additional features are minimal if you consider that fact. Sure, its got a reskin also, but really it is barebones intentionally for the sake of expansions.

A.K.A. Minimum Viable Product

Oh, no, the shareholders will be fine. They'll cash out, walk away, and invest in the next company willing to run itself into the ground in the pursuit of quarterly growth. That is the problem with going public, you end up catering to people with no loyalty to your company and no interest in your long term success.

Shareholders ARE the customers.

@@panmajin6895 No they're the owners.

@@sig9779 That's not the way it works. The value of the stock goes down as the company starts to fail.

That's very very very long term. Unfortunately most gamers don't have any self respect. They are vocal when something bad releases, but still play it anyway

I remember when they announced it and they did a Stellaris stream before it came out, The CEO was there and said it will not impact on how they work. everyone in the stream was calling them BS back than too

i dont understand the logic. why would i agree to a contract that secures me stock options than ruin its worth? and wasnt Frederik Wester a founding member of paradox? im pretty sure he is the founder. with 33% Westerinvest, of which Frederik Wester is also CEO, holds by far the biggest share of the company. why would he want to ruin his lifeproject in which he is heavily invested?

​@@MrDschiesusmoney now is always a compelling argument.

This is a huge part of why everyone's pissed at Cities Skylines II, yeah. People would have been happy if they'd just copied the popular mods, but no, they couldn't even copy things properly.

The mod had the advantage of an entire games worth of assets and coding they could repurpose. Making a complete game is a lot of work!

@@Satook Doesn't matter, if you can't compete with what's already out, then you shouldn't aim for that audience then.

@@Satook you know who also had a whole game of assets and code to reuse? The people making CS2!

@@pfeilspitze I doubt you will find a mod maker for CS1 that would not want their mod copied and added to the main game. Why the hell do you think they add those features via the mod? They want it in the game. The problem with CS2 is that if feels like it just got kicked out 3/4 done. So many things feel like another year or two they would of been cleaned up and fixed, but they just barely got things "working" and had to shove it out the door. Maybe one day we will find out why, maybe the devs couldn't hack it or maybe Paradox had a fixed deadline and refused to budge.

Mi Amigo, they've been doing that shit for the last 6 years at least. Probably longer. I know Crusader's Kings has 9 million DLC's and at a certain point you gotta start to wonder how much of this was probably in the base game at some point.

Paradox thinks it can get double the pay for half the work. They just lost a life time customer this year.

@@Vaniity_Velvet They've been doing it since at least 2014 when _Stellaris_ came out.

$40 dlc? More like 10 of those.

Cities skylines is a prime example

Crazy I tried it on game pass and it was pretty fun, but it crashed constantly.

Empire of Sin is a pretty fun game but has so many bugs that I just had to stop playing it. Played it for free basically so don't feel ripped off but it is a shame.

I doubt those who bought cs2 expanded will get their dlc's. And even they get the dlc's it likely going to be like the latest asset pack, 'sunset crash' something of a tiny value.

preordered it because the Romero couple was at the helm, and I thought Romero is a good enough name to bet on turns out... the Romero name aint worth a damn.

​​@@ChemyShwe've known this since daikatana xD

Oh boy, you just went out and said it, didn't you. Let people just have their hopes and dreams, man.

@@TheMrDewil "hopes and dreams" 🔫 Paradox

Yeah, just can't wait for that. /s It's such a shame too, considering that I'm literally halfway through of yet another playthrough of the original and the 20 y.o. game is still super enjoyable. Sure, the graphics feel a bit like Wolfenstein 3D did when VtMB came out, but once again I'm honestly way too immersed in the story to care.

It saddens me so much... VTM:BL was a masterpiece... But - seems it is as cursed as the vampires it depicts. :/ I have ZERO faith that the sequel will offer ANYTHING of value to anyone... ...except perhaps to journalists at VICE.

Paradox has a team doing that one? What I have seen of it is a complete garbage game that is essentially shovelware wearing the name of a beloved game.

For me was Imperator, and a few Dlcs for CK3 and Stellaris.... i have always been a Paradox fanboy, now i go into their games with the thought they will fail and be shit.

​@@Drakiren Imperator was the one for me as well. Game finally got to a good point annnd they abandoned it. I think they abandoned it around when Total War abandoned Three Kingdoms as well? Let me tell you as a strategy gaming fan it really fucking sucks to see the two main strategy game studios left shooting themselves so consistently.

Never played but I saw it was super dumb down compared to 2, in a Strategy nerd review

@@Drakiren Honestly Battletech was the last game they published that I actually liked on release. Maybe Planetfall. But pretty much everything else that started development after they went public has been atrocious on release and not much better post release.

@@XMysticHeroxthat they dismantled that studio after Battletech was a crime

Interesting never knew that

I wasn't aware of this internal shift but my favorite patches have been from around 2017. Which I now keep permanently that way. EU4 on patch 1.18, Stellaris on patch 1.5 and Hoi4 on 1.3.

Their published games are not really the issue. Honestly CS2 is the only true disasters on that list. It's the in-house stuff thats an actual trashfire.

@@XMysticHerox Uhh, but Cities Skyline 2 was a published game, developed by Colossal Order. But yes the current problems at Paradox also involve their own developers, Victoria 3 was hot garbage at release and objectively still is. Crusader Kings 3 also lags behind in its DLC schedule and still has fewer features compared to CK2. Imperator:Rome died just after 2 years. I won't even mention Stellaris, because that game had 3 full overhauls, each next worse than the previous imo. They brought back the old lead developer for Europa Universalis 5 (technically codenamed in dev diaries as "Project Caesar" but everyone knows it's EU5) from their Barcelona studio, so there are already things happening inside to get things back on track, but otherwise it's quite bleak at Paradox.

@@55ziomal55 Wdym "but"? Yes the exception I mentioned is an exception.

You say that yet they just pushed CS2 to release in the state it released in. Which is not quite Sword of the Stars 2 level but not far off either.

@@XMysticHerox That's the point. The issue from the perspective of Paradox was less the state, bzut the cost. Sword of the Stars 2 cost them more and more and then never got that money back in. So throwing out a half-done CS2 is Paradox cutting losses, and ensuring the cost doesn't escalate. Ideal case it's profitable, worst case it is a loss, but the rest of Paradox is not dragged down with it.

Funny thing is, I've played and enjoyed Sword of the Stars 2 more, even in its abysmal release state (and it got a lot better with the patches), than I have with any modern Paradox published game. I'd rather play a broken game that has heart than a Disney-style minimum extruded product that has all the character of sandwich lettuce after twelve hours under the fridge lights.

@@XMysticHeroxDon’t forget, CS2 was being made for years, it was scheduled for initial release in 2021 and CO was so far behind it couldn’t be released. Paradox fully funded them for 2 extra years before finally forcing the release. I dislike Paradox, but in specifically the CS2 case, I am not sure it’s 100% Paradox fault. Everyone says Paradox should have gave them more time, i see people say “one more year” all the time - they already gave them 2 more years. At what point is it also equally CO’s fault?

@@mdbourne You say that is if "years" is a particularly outstanding development time. The game was scheduled to release in 2021 by PDX. I doubt that was ever a realistic deadline. Unrealistic deadlines set by the publisher are a common point between many disaster launches and I suspect this was the case here. When you push devs to release a game early then have to delay it completely messe sup the development cycle. Classic mismanagement. With how many PDX titles suffer from these same issues I find it highly unlikely Collosal order is largely responsible. From everything we have heard PDX has simply been pushing the boundary of what is acceptable to release ever since they went public.

Same here, I'm all Paradox'ed out ... their never ending DLC spam has soured me on the company and I don't even look at their products anymore.

@@Mr_Spock512 DLC spam also has an effect on game design: if you have n DLCs introducing game mechanics (as opposed to just cosmetics), then you have 2^n combinations of which mechanics might be present. This combinatioral explosion very strongly incentivises making them as self-contained and disconnected from each other as possible.

CK2 is one of my favourite games of all time but I cannot deny that their DLC model is atrocious. I thankfully have all the CK2 DLC. I did grab the free base game for CK2 on Steam though, which has saved some money. Stellaris is fun too, of course but again, lots of DLC and some of it fundamentally changes the game mechanics from the released product. I have EUIV but haven't really tried it yet as it's overwhelming. I don't have CK3. Mostly because I want to try it out once it's completed and all DLCs have been released and it's on a deep Steam sale.

i guess we are all in that spot now.

@@cmdr.jabozerstorer3968 sure but most ck2 or europa players i know have a minimum of 300h on it (and it's rooky numbers lol) i played 2500 hours on ck2 each dlc was worth. the problem is current day dlc are empty and they start to look like EA and the Sims....*sigh*. for Ck3 it's in my opinion their last great title, the game is super cool and the dlc ok but waiting for a big -50% bundle on steam is a great idea or play in mutli with just the base game if your friends have the dlc it's unlock it for you

This mentality is bizarre, we can't pick the game at launch because that is the absolute worst version, have to wait for DLCs and whatnot, paying even more money. You shouldn't be "glad", this is 100% anti-consumer

@@RRRRRRRRR33 Steam reviews showed the game had problems with limited content. I am not wasting my money on that hoping it will get better later. Development was shutdown 6 months later proving my decision to hold as accurate. If the Devs/Publishers don't like that, then don't release a game with limited content, performance issues, or tons of bugs.

That's exactly how I felt about the star trek game. Seems a little limited right now, maybe when there's a bit more content.

@@nt78stonewobble So many people waited, never buying the game, the project was shut down. A shame it happened with Star Trek (as a new fan, watching Strange New Worlds, I was excited to try out this game). I remember people considered Paradox the perfect developer for a Game of Thrones game, but looking how they treated Star Trek, GoT fans should be glad, they dodged a bullet

@@RRRRRRRRR33 Heh, I'm the other way around. I have no interest in the new trek stuff. :) Probably doesn't help that the fan base is that... Divided.

Sometimes they are hands off , and leave a Dev alone

Their modern published titles are fine for the most part. CS2 has been the only recent disaster.

@@XMysticHerox Humankind is pretty horrendous tbh

@@Nightsmith_After_Dark That game was always going to suck. They tried to be the next Sid Meyer's Civilization instead of its own thing.

It was a trash game especially compared to 3 and planetfall

Hell, sword of the stars 2. They seemed to have learned their lesson, but apparently not.

Star Trek has never been about Diversity. It's literally always been about "The Human Adventure", I mean that was the tag line for the first damn movie........ I hate so much that stupid people who don't know Star Trek have been gifted Star Trek.

@@slyguythreeonetwonine3172 It is true that diversity has changed in definition, expanding in some regards. Classic TOS was founded on diversity in the midst of the Cold War. A crew made of many nationalities, some even in conflict with each other at the time. Even an alien crew member. Pushing the limits of what was acceptable, including by having a woman on the bridge crew. Since then every crew has been carefully curated to represent different perspectives, pushing the limits of how we perceive a functional group of individuals working towards a similar goal for the benefit of all. I definitely don’t agree with all the creative decisions, particularly in Star Trek Discovery, however it is important to the franchise that it keeps pushing the limits. The series has been inspiring in so many ways, and the fact that so many people can see so many different things to value is a testament to how the franchise has evolved and shaped our understanding.

Same, loved the mod, long time Stellaris player and a massive trek fan. Pre ordered because I believed it would be a typical paradox game (okay-ish at launch but better over time). Launched on the first day and it was just so underwhelming and also just plain confusing. Played for about 4 hours on and off but decided to wait until they fixed it... This sadly has been the first paradox game for me that was the warning (CS2 being the next). Sadly Paradox are now no longer a wishlist/day one dev for me now.

Prison Architect wasn't really in development anymore. 1.0 release years before Paradox bought it, and Introversion wasn't really adding much to the game anymore and was, as per the devs, kind of done with it.

Sadly this is the correct response to Paradox now . Such a shame as i loved their games .

Melania

​@@ereviscale3966Melanin?

I hope so. I'm waiting for Manor Lords.

I hope so. I'm waiting for Manor Lords.

What the f is balance!!!!! (Like raising unity or the other that obly moves country stats temprarily)

@@nahuelleandroarroyo tbh the nation management feels pretty decent in my opinion, the balance issues seem to come from other places

@@nahuelleandroarroyo Honestly TI is one of those games that I'm kinda "Who the hell cares about balance? There's no other game like this, I've no idea what I'm doing anyway, I'm just going to enjoy the ride."

Why is she still in charge?

Against the Storm on that list too... They seem to have a knack for spotting and supporting real gems.

@The_Beard Them too. I haven't played it. Xenonauts is good too

@@FasterthanLight11 Yes! I have not played the early access release but the demo was excellent and that was a while ago. As per usual I have way too much yet to play - I think the point has been proven. Hooded Horse are one to watch.

terrible* things

They have Stellaris as well.

are we sure the "project ceasar" is EU5? i also think it is but there is confirmation i missed?

@@niaraa8378 EU4 is oldest of their main games and Tinto already worked on 5 EU4 DLCs since 2021. Either this or Johan wants to make IR 2 and make every EU player mad.

​@@Vince-tt1uj i agree, for me it's EU5, but they trolled the Victoria gamer a long time too lol. i dont know why they dont reveal it already each content creator i follow on YT already sowed maps and stuff. i think they are extra cautious they know they had a lot of L

Stellaris is working fine. I have almost 2500 hours in it.

Yeah, they'd rather nickel and dime than fix their messes.

​​​​@@Kelvryn you've been nickled and dimed cause you play incomplete game. Compare that game to Borderlands 3, The Saboteur, Pocket City 2 or Doom Eternal they are complete games even without dlcs

​@@powerfulshammythere's arguably a tonne more replay ability compared to any of those games

⁠​⁠@@Eltener123well of course there is more replay ability. You have to restart due to their games breaking so much. The other games PowerfulShammy mentioned just let you keep going with no issues.

"I steer clear of them for the most part because I don't want to be DLC'd to death ..." Same here, I'm done with them.

Every gamer who got into Paradox games pre-2010ish "They're that company that makes niche wargames that no-one else makes, and patches them for years after release." Every gamer who heard about Paradox in the past ten years: "Aren't they that company with $400 of DLC on every game?" Can't quite put my finger on what changed, it's subtle.

Skip Vic 3, it just sucks simply. It holds no candle to Victoria 2. CK3, just pirate it. If Paradox continues its anti consumer practices I will continue to pirate at least all their DLC(usually do buy the base game, oddly enough). Paradox simply is not deserving of the money anymore. It has become a fully anti consumer company selling DLC by the piecemeal. Heck if you want to play good Paradox games just go back to CK2 with Mods, or EU4 with mods or Darkest Hour with Kaiserreich(yes, I still think HOI2 Kaiserreich beats 4's one :p)

CK3 is awesome. Have the entire game, has hundreds of hours. Very satisfied with the game, more so when you can mod it. I've been giving Paradox my money appropriate to the fun I get out of them. Granted, latest DLC isn't worth 20 bucks >.>