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[Micro102]

Because they constantly added massive expansions with tons of new mechanics which took a lot of time. It makes sense that a game with twice the effort put into it has twice the expenses and thus twice the sell price. My several hundreds of hours in the game guarantees that the price was worth it for me. The only thing I would be wary about is that the base game has been changed to match the expansions so if you don't buy the expansions then the game might be unbalanced/broken. You also aren't going to get the same experiences as a youtuber who has all the DLC. But maybe you can role back to an earlier version, pirate the older version (after buying it of course), or find a mod that fixes some of that. Or find a friend who has all the DLC and multiplayer with them.

[ZeroGravitas]

Happy that EUIV is on sale.

Fuckin' apparently still $190 for all the DLC at half price.

I want to get this game because I've played CKII into the ground and I enjoyed what little of EUIII I played (I made Russia, after like 4 goes at dealing with the Golden Horde, then I was going to stop expanding East until Ming kept going "oi!" so... I just ended up messing around the Pacific for no reason) but why is it so god damn expensive.

Hey, CK3 on September 1...

[MrRoboto75]

I dunno, wars and peace deals are pretty damn awful without the Art of War DLC, to allow transferring ownership of occupied territory.

[forsaken1111]

Hey, CK3 on September 1...

Yeah knowing Paradox the way I do, I look forward to buying the complete game next year once 2-3 DLC come out

[Ametsala]

Happy that EUIV is on sale.

Fuckin' apparently still $190 for all the DLC at half price.

I want to get this game because I've played CKII into the ground and I enjoyed what little of EUIII I played (I made Russia, after like 4 goes at dealing with the Golden Horde, then I was going to stop expanding East until Ming kept going "oi!" so... I just ended up messing around the Pacific for no reason) but why is it so god damn expensive.

I've only got vanilla. The two things I've missed the most from DLCs are the buttons to get rid of a crappy heir, and the one to change main trade node. I think I even save game edited my main trade node at one point. Next up is the button to mothball fleets, and the war & peace deal stuff.

Edit:
For those interested:
Changing main trade node button is in Wealth of Nations DLC
Get rid of crappy heir button is in Rights of Man DLC
War stuff & fleet mothballing is in Art of War DLC

[pisskop]

Some things I consider relatively novel to the newest version:

Frisian Brazil
Andalusia
Manchese Japan
Breton Kongo
Breton Columbia
Brittany existing in 1600
Danish Scandinavia being wholly danish
Luwu-owned Polynesia (a unified island nation)
Greece existed in lue of the knights.

So other things I found 'odd' but not unique:

Papal italy
Portugal does not exist
Though the danes own scandinavia, they lost land to the empire.
Milan owns the ivory coast
Ireland existed for a century, as a standing nation
Yemen is a regional power who Im just now coming to kill.  Took the horn of africa and most of the mamies.

[Micro102]

I always found it odd that after many many years of inflation, new games are still stuck at $60. I expected them to go up. I also wondered why no one made more expensive games that have been worked on longer. Paradox chopping up the full game into a bunch of DLC answers both of my concerns, so I can't say I hate the concept, but sometimes the content added doesn't match the price.

[hector13]

They also don’t have anywhere near as much physicality as they did (boxes, discs/cartridges, instruction manuals etc.) so that aspect is a bit cheaper.

[Inarius]

Next level will be 80. Be sure of this. Some already are.

[MrRoboto75]

Next level will be 80. Be sure of this. Some already are.

...and still have rampant micro-transactions and secondary purchases

[pisskop]

The same way windows can still cost 150, or a graphing calculator that I used in high school can still cost 130 even today.


The overhead with software is developing it and/or providing continued support for it.  back when you got manuals and nice cases and whole developed backstories and piracy was less of a thing the cost was standardized as a way to ensure some profit could be made.  Some games had manuals/stories that could have reasonably cost 25 dollars as some stand alone material, others were not willing to sell for less so as to not disrupt this standard that was set.

Today, microtransactions are capable of mitigating the effect of piracy, and help you as a player not notice all the money you sink into the game.  its easier as a consumer to make 60 $1 purchauses than 1 $60.
Mostly though, video games are still a thriving market, and AAA titles and consoles can still command such a high price.  After all, you bought a machine that is largely useless outside of playing this custom-made disk . . . they have you in a position of power.

Look at steam and the like though.  A lot of humble bundles seem ludicrous, and for a large part I do think the devs of a game are underselling their quality/product, but they highlight how the market has changed and how software just doesnt have the material overhead.

The price was a standardized agreement that the consumer agreed to pay for years, to break that agreement risks upsetting the higher price point, as even with inflation they still turn a tidy profit from the %60.  It doesnt benefit the devs to charge less because people still expect to pay more, and it doesnt benefit them to charge more because the industry makes so much over their cost of production from the sale; and the market would just shun the product.

I feel like their are much more succinct ways to express this, but its been ages since I did a econ class.

[LadyBrassroast]

Is it my imagination or does the AI go way harder on culture/religious conversion now? Like if a Walloon minor conquers Cologne or Julich they'll spend the bird points to convert culture from Westphalian or Rhenish to Walloon, and Lithuania/Commonblob goes ham on Catholicizing Belarus and Ukraine and winds up plopping a Cardinal in Kiev. I've also noticed that loyal vassals will convert to your religion voluntarily sometimes now.

[The_Explorer]

Well I'd rather (between the two) buy a game, and then buy tons of DLCs that adds tons of content (whether little or a lot, which EU4 does both). Then buy a new game for 60 dollars all the time. The first at least ends up making a huge epic game. But a lot of people seem happy to buy call of duty or madden every year for 60 dollars, but I've seen the same people complain about buying a dlc or two a year, which makes no sense to me, but guess it does to them. Imagine if call of duty was rarely remade (except for massive engine upgrades to be more modern) and instead was one huge epic game, but had to buy dlc for it instead at a cheaper price than just buying 60 dollars over and over. That be amazing. Wish more games were one huge epic game maintained for years. Most games release a few dlc at most then move on to the next thing.

Then again, if I like a game, I'd rather play it for years and years and years. Like I can do that with skyrim because of mods (still play it to this day because of mods). But can't do that with most games sadly.

Like EU4, I have over 2k hours played according to steam. Skyrim has about 1.5k hours. How many games offer THAT much gameplay without it being remade over and over or just abandoned for the next game?

To me, paradox and bethesda have some of the the best business models (ignoring bethesda's fallout 76 which I think is actually better these days but thats aside... their stupid 20 dollars for a blue skin), but overall both offer one game that allows to be played for thousand or more hours. Though for bethesda, its because they are so mod friendly which gives them "free" content created by people, which gives tons more playtime. Paradox is rather mod friendly too. Very very rare to find a game like that.

Either way, I'd rather buy a bunch of dlc for one huge epic game, then a bunch of games at 60 every year that get a few dlc then left to die. Though...paradox might take that approach too far as they learned with imperator rome.

[Micro102]

The DLC is a separate purchase from the main game. The only decision you should have to make is "does this DLC provide enough new content to make it worth the price".

[EuchreJack]

The DLC is a separate purchase from the main game. The only decision you should have to make is "does this DLC provide enough new content to make it worth the price".

That is why I wasn't offended by the DLC plan of CK2.  Each DLC that I bought added extensively to the game.  When a DLC adds 20 or more hours of gameplay, its worthwhile.  I didn't pick up any of the "make your soldiers/characters look different" DLCs, unless they were part of a package and thus free.

Yes, I probably paid over $100 for CK2.  But I also put in over 1000 hours on the title.  That is decent.  Very few things give me 10 hours of enjoyment for a dollar.

EDIT: It helped that when I was playing a lot of CK2, I also had decent money coming in consistently.  I could afford to throw around $14 every six months.  Now...well nobody at the bottom end of things is really doing well, so I can't complain much.  I'm a bit bitter now about the portions of EUIV that are locked behind DLC.  Hopefully nothing fundamental to my enjoyment is trapped behind the DLC wall.
On unrelated news, my main motivation for buying HOI: Darkest Hour was the Fallout mod, although I think I bought HOI 4 on its own merits.