The Paradox Paradox: DLC and post launch content discussion

While listening to a podcast, a discussion about Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines  2 came up. The hosts were discussing the DLC Practice with the exclusion of 2 clans from the game which many World of Darkness fans feel are important to their experience of the game. Whether the clans were removed and made DLC or were added after while other portions of the game were added I don’t really know and neither do others from what I can tell. Publisher Paradox Interactive via the developer of the game The Chinese Room decided to have these 2 clans behind paid DLC. There was an outcry, and Paradox relented and included them, quite rightly, in the base game. The hosts made this out to be the norm with Paradox as they often employ a long term DLC practice for many of their games.

This led to an assumption that Paradox is greedy and that this was almost expected based on their history. I feel that this is an unfair assumption as many of the people I have seen or read discussing this, are not people who frequently play Paradox games. I also feel they don’t necessarily know the history of Paradox. This is another example where people who don’t know the whole story or cannot be bothered to find out exacting information are happy to discuss a subject with deep certainty because of past experiences.

I don’t want to defend the decision to place these clans behind a pay wall. This was ill advised to the point of being tone deaf. This is a Paradox trait, I agree, and as such should be called out at every instance. But the taring the entirety of Paradox for the odd stupid thing they do is a little over the top.

Paradox has a long history but the basic thing to know is they separated into the Paradox Interactive we know today in 1999. Since then, they have developed several franchises of their own and published several other games from other developers. Their games had a basic publication model where they sold the base game and then over many years iterated on this base game. This was done through paid DLC and Free-LC that every player who owned the base game received. Some of these were major gameplay changing DLC and others were less so. There were also cosmetic packs and music packs that added to the experience but did not add to the mechanics of the game and these were, it goes without saying really but I feel I need to add it, completely optional and often go on sale.

Now I have issues with this model. As an example, I have too many hours in Crusader Kings 2 (almost an embarrassing amount to be honest), and as such when a friend of mine was interested in buying Crusader Kings 2 he contacted me and asked what DLCs are absolutely imperative. The game was on sale (if often does along with all previous DLCs when a new one is released) and he liked the look of it. As I had many hours in the game he asked if it was any good, how easy was it to get into and so on. As a sidenote I feel if you like these sorts of game CK2 (and now CK3) are really good games as you can go as deep or stay as shallow in the mechanics as suits you. Many people create their own challenges, and the game remains fresh on each playthrough. But I digress. When I highlighted the DLC I felt were essential, ones I thought were important and ones which I felt could be discarded, he was shocked by the price he would need to pay even though the game was 5-6yrs old at this point and was on sale. CK2 was in active development for 8 yrs as was the original game before it. There is longevity in Paradox’s games, but that longevity comes at a cost. The barrier to entry is high and the game was starting to creek unbearably by the time they released CK3. This is the Paradox model. I would prefer if they had a point at which the games DLCs became free, say 3 or 4 years after release. This would mean if you came to the game at the 4-5yr mark you would receive the base game and only have the most recent DLCs to purchase.

Paradox also went through an odd phase when Fred Wester relinquished his role as CEO and moved to executive chairman and a new CEO was moved from the board. The name of the CEO was irrelevant as I don’t want to apportion blame but 2021 she resigned stating differences of opinion in the company’s strategy going forward. Fred Wester returned as CEO and I feel the 3-4yrs he was away Paradox became a different company with very different aims. When Fred Wester and his partners bought Paradox in 2003 he stated he didn’t want to make it a AAA studio but continue working on their IPs. During his time away as the CEO, Paradox moved to a very different model and the ‘feel’ of the company from the outside was less family to more corporate. Subscription models were introduced, DLC policy became more aggressive. Vampire the Masquerade was one of the games that suffered for this in my opinion.

It is worth noting that we have Paradox to thank for many studios we all look at as ones that create good games and are customer friendly (mostly!).  Lets not forget Obsidian only being able to make Pillars of Eternity because of Paradox and they also published Tyranny with them as well. Other games include games from FatShark, Colossal Order’s City Skylines, Hairbrained Schemes Battletech, Mount and Blade and Magicka from Arrowhead (you know a little game called Helldivers 2 and who’s current CEO Shams Jorjani was Paradox’s Chief Business Development Officer at Paradox). They have Paradox Arc a publisher for indy games as well. They are also very active within their community with live streams, active message boards and forums, PDXCon, developer diaries and so on. There have been numerous instances where Paradox have redone something based on player feedback (and others where they have been less willing to do so).

Now it sounds like I am being very fanboyish about Paradox. In general I think they are a good developer (I read somewhere they were on of the first to actively seek unionisation) but I am aware they are also a business and as such they can do shady things (there were reports of bad practices within Paradox that were confirmed by numerous sources that caused Paradox to perform review with an external company to highlight any issues which they published on their site I believe).

The whole point of this is I feel we need to have the whole context before we condemn the behaviour we find unpalatable. This and other situations show that they are not perfect but I feel on the whole they are not a bad company. I wonder what the discussion would be if they were a company that released a new Crusader Kings, Victoria or Stellaris every year with minimal updates for a full £60-£70 in the style of COD, Battlefield all sports games? We lambast EA, Ubisoft and others for this practice whereas Paradox games are generally AA cost and have a lot of content. I am using Paradox as an example here as I have, for one reason or another, a good understanding of their games and an awareness of there history. This could be another developer or publisher such as Larian, Klei or Devolver. They all have situations where they were not exemplary.

I think we need to remember that that there are people behind these companies. Some companies show their hand over and over and repeatedly shown their colours by doing shady things (I see you EA and Activision), some companies just always seem to be bulletproof and don’t catch any flak and others, like Paradox, make decisions that are ill informed and boggle the mind with what feels like the level of foolhardiness that could easily be avoided with a little forethought. In the end people need to make up their own mind where their personal limit is for things that feel anti-consumer.   Should you buy Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines 2? I feel personally that Paradox made a faux par when it comes to this and this was nothing more than an ill-thought-out decision in making the clans being withheld unless you pay.