Paradox Interactive will be increasing game prices across a bunch of currencies

This should be fun!

Including a 70% discount, Cities Skylines (https://store.steampowered.com/app/255710/Cities_Skylines/), released in 2015; currently stands at:

£6.89 for base or £8.99 or deluxe edition.

Okay, but we're not done yet!

Let's include the DLC!

The DLC, including numerous discounts: £162.07

So the "complete game" actually costs you £162.96 for base, or £171.06 for deluxe edition.

This is "discounted" on "sale". And they want to charge more? Greedy much?

I’m always interested in the paradox games, but as soon as I see the prices for the ‘complete’ game my interest just vanishes into thin air.

Now that they increase the prices…

Given the wild inflation in some areas, increasing the prices there is just good business sense.

Still kinda funny how expensive some of their "complete" game versions with all DLC are.

I believe this is more or less the same thing that Motion Twin, the developer of Dead Cells, did recently, no? It looks bad on paper, but it's just adjusting the price to be more in line with the rest of the world, given that currencies like the Peso and Lira pay significantly less due to conversion rates than most other currencies.

All that being said, that's just my limited understanding on the matter, and coming from someone who's money isn't being hit by these changes, I understandably don't have the negative perception that others may have.


Last edited by JustinWood on 19 December 2022 at 3:46 pm UTC

I’m always interested in the paradox games, but as soon as I see the prices for the ‘complete’ game my interest just vanishes into thin air.

The "full" versions may seem expensive, but perhaps that's because we Linux gamers are often insulated from the mainstream consoles or AAA games. The latest Pokemon games on Switch are $60 (so $120 if you want all the Pokemon AIUI). The latest Call of Duty® regular priced base game is $70, with a $100 "Vault" edition also available.

Then you can look at the hours invested for the money, and the kind of people who like Paradox games are typically in it for the LONG haul. By no means do I have all the EU4 DLC (I stopped playing some years ago), but I have over 1301 hours in the game. Thanks to sales I spent only around $50 in total, but even if I spent $130 (over the course of years, mind you), that'd still be a lot of entertainment for my money.

And then there's the question of "do I really need to buy all the DLC"? There's a Pokemon-like urge we have to "catch 'em all", but the games with a lot of DLC generally have very little that are "must haves", especially when you're yet to get into the game, or don't give a hoot about cosmetics.

As an aside, this last one is the main reason I got off EU4. The core gameplay became so tied to and changed by owning certain DLCs, that they became "necessary" to really play as intended. One example I remember can be summed up as: "remember last patch, when they introduced a 10 year cooldown on declaring war against the same nation? Now you can buy a DLC to bypass that." Though I understand they learned from this, and have more independent stand-alone DLCs for their later titles, such as Stellaris.

And then there's the question of "do I really need to buy all the DLC"? There's a Pokemon-like urge we have to "catch 'em all", but the games with a lot of DLC generally have very little that are "must haves", especially when you're yet to get into the game, or don't give a hoot about cosmetics.

Funny enough, I recently came to the same conclusion with the overwhelming selection of (admittedly cheap individually) songs for the (soon to be delisted) game Fuser. I could pay hundreds of dollars for every song and cosmetic (some of which would be duplicate purchases due to bundles being included in that list), or I could just buy the songs I actually want to use.

Yeah, I won't be buying any more of their games after naively "collecting" EUIV and CK2 piece by piece. So they can price their games at $1000 for all I care.

I’m always interested in the paradox games, but as soon as I see the prices for the ‘complete’ game my interest just vanishes into thin air.

The "full" versions may seem expensive, but perhaps that's because we Linux gamers are often insulated from the mainstream consoles or AAA games. The latest Pokemon games on Switch are $60 (so $120 if you want all the Pokemon AIUI). The latest Call of Duty® regular priced base game is $70, with a $100 "Vault" edition also available.

Activision is notorious for overpricing their games. I myself cannot figure out why people still spend money on their underwhelming products.

I'd have expected CHF to actually get a price decrease, given the recent change in valuation compared to EUR. But hey, help yourself, I guess!?

That said, for a game like CK3, with which I've spent ~250h so far (and it's only so "little" because I want to play some other games, too), I still feel a slight increase might be reasonable. I've bought indie games for 10,- that have a much worse playtime/cost ratio. I didn't find them overpriced.

Another increase? They were already dead to me since the previous one, so I guess whatever. CK2 is still plenty good and Paradox can burn for all I care.

Again, in case someone doesn't already know: exchange rate has shit all to do with purchasing power in different places, so no regional pricing isn't people getting the game "cheaper". Nor is the decision based on either of those (exchange rate or purchasing power), but rather on maximizing revenue (sales times price) - so they just figured they would make more money from the extra price than from the lost sales. For digital distribution, cost is not an issue. Indies would do well to stick with Steam's recommended regional pricing, as Steam definitely has way better marketing data than they, but AAA usually have their own.

To be fair, some of these currencies are so devalued against the USD or Euro that companies have no other choice other than to increase their pricing just to keep the dollar value of the revenue steady. This isn't a real price increase, so people need to chill.


Last edited by Kimyrielle on 19 December 2022 at 6:16 pm UTC

This isn't a real price increase, so people need to chill.

It isn't easy to chill when your currency is about to blow up. Wait, it is because I had already found the pricing expensive and have no purchase plans.

This should be fun!

Including a 70% discount, Cities Skylines (https://store.steampowered.com/app/255710/Cities_Skylines/), released in 2015; currently stands at:

£6.89 for base or £8.99 or deluxe edition.

Okay, but we're not done yet!

Let's include the DLC!

The DLC, including numerous discounts: £162.07

So the "complete game" actually costs you £162.96 for base, or £171.06 for deluxe edition.

This is "discounted" on "sale". And they want to charge more? Greedy much?

You say you can buy 7 years' worth of DLC plus the base game for $162? You're complaining?

Think of a $40 PC game back in the day when annual Expansion packs were $30.

And DLC is optional.

I don't understand being mad at options. Would you prefer a monthly subscription where you don't get to choose what you don't want to pay for?