I love Paradox games so much but my god yes. After Stellaris I vowed to never buy one of their games again. It INFURIATED me that they had a thing you could buy that was specifically for all the DLC and then released more DLC and didn't include it in that first pack. Made you buy them all individual or to buy a Season Pass which wasn't mentioned or noted or even suggested would be happening.
Pricks.
Which sucks so much because Surviving Mars is one of my favorite games of all time.
Yeah, but it's a sustainable model that allows for longtime development and product lifetime. It's also completely voluntary since base + utopia + synthetic dawn are 85% of all worthwhile content on their own
Like, microtransactions are garbage, but the industry has shifted to a point where you're out if you don't have a long term payment model. The paradox model at least puts a cap on what the whales can pay, and actually gives them more content in return.
It's the least bad model out there. At least for companies too big to pull a factorio/terraria
I'd agree if they didn't release a new DLC every two weeks after dropping season passes. There's a difference between taking advantage of a sustainable business model and then being a money grubby shitbag of a company.
Also, a better sustainable business model would be to develop full games that people can enjoy over a longer period of time instead of needing to constantly tempt them back with new drops that arguably should have been part of the game from the beginning.
But then still, most people wouldn't pay over the standard full price of a game, no matter how big it is. So that's actually less sustainable for a company
TBH I much prefer the cosmetic micro transaction and even loot boxes to this system. Because now you’re locked out of content if you don’t pay extra, while with the other models don’t screw over the players who don’t want to/can’t pay
I have no idea what happened with the development of that game in any fashion. I just bought it and like what I played. I never looked into it because I figured most of it was going to be Paradox being Paradox.