Finally got around to playing Stellaris. It’s an older game but I work my way through my Steam unplayed list slowly at my age.
Great game, so much to learn, so complex yet elegant. Really enjoyed it, got 40 hours gameplay for my first time out over the last few weeks.
I noted some tech unlocked items I didn’t have access to, options that were referenced but never appeared. Did some digging and discovered that almost every system in the game, from research and military through diplomacy and government, has a DLC which contains the full range of options.
Bit annoying when they’re effectively selling me what is really a patch for the game. Then to add to that, for a ten year old game the DLC is still full price. There’s some places selling it at a discount but mostly mostly its mad pricing. The full edition is £180!
If this was happening with a product more serious than a game, I’d be more than mildly infuriated.
How has Skyrim managed to include all the DLC in the last three editions and these people are still trying to milk every drop from a ten year old game just because it had a decent release?
Bonkers.
I think stellaris is in a bit of a special spot. You note the game is 10 yrs old. They release a dlc about twice a year, and they usually make some kind of minor change or sometimes system overhaul for the base game at the same time. Most games get a little bit of care for maybe a year or two after release. Active development 10 years after if rare. I think they are a bit predatory given some of the pricing, and how they structure things. But this receives much more attention than a skyrim does.
Yeah I’m not too upset with Paradox’s strategy here. I am of mixed feelings about it though.
It makes it next to impossible to get into as a new player, because you go to the store page and see that the game costs $250 for all content. But each of those content drops were spaced out, well executed, and usually come with major changes to the base game formula to accommodate them. For someone who has been playing the game for 10 years, each DLC is exciting and fresh, and costs about $20 for another 8 months of new enjoyment in your favorite game.
But anyone looking at it as a new player is going to see the bulk cost of the game and, rightfully so I think, decide “nah, fuck that”.
Rimworld also comes to mind here. Rimworld has like 8 DLC packs that collectively add more content to the game than the game even started with. I don’t own most of them because I don’t play Rimworld all that often. But for someone who does play it often, they’re genuinely good expansions.
I’d love to see more games like Terraria, which gets sold for $5 on the regular and has had over a decade of love-labor free updates that fundamentally change the way the game works, but I understand how that may not be financially responsible for larger studios. For bigger projects I’m not that mad at paying $20 twice a year for quality expansions, so long as they are in fact quality.
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