UPDATE, 5th of July: Fredrik Wester, Executive Chairman of the Board at Paradox, has expanded on his previous statement about the type and style of downloadable content that his company puts out on a regular basis.
Wester said that criticism about DLC is more than welcome: “the more civil tone you use, and the more specific you can be, the more we listen.” While it is a given he also said that “(Paradox) do not promise to agree” with the type of critique you might have.
Original Story: Paradox Interactive is known for many things, which includes making quality niche games and unique historical experiences, but also for releasing a whole boatload of DLC for its most popular offerings.
Fredrik Wester, previously Paradox CEO, has decided to comment on this particular facet of his company, explaining why it is that he feels it’s a “fair and balanced way to release content in the long term.
ORIGINAL: “Every time we release a DLC we also release a big update for free, which means that you get continuous upgrades of your game even if you choose not to buy any DLC,” said Wester, adding that this would not be possible if they didn’t release downloadable content as often as they do, which funds said updates.
Wester made a point of saying that players enjoying Paradox titles in multiplayer always get access to all the DLC that the player with the most of it has, which is a good way of dealing with playerbase fragmentation due to updates and content releases.
“I know this is not a flawless model and that a lot of new players get intimidated by seeing a game with hundreds of $$$ in DLC, however we also run deep discounts on all our games and DLCs regularly,” explained Wester.
Adopting this DLC model allows for Paradox to engage in more experimentation and content-related craziness, according to Wester, which results in more interesting games across the board. Wester concluded saying that he is very much in favour of cosmetic DLC, which he feels is fair.
On a related, yet unrelated note, the former CEO of Paradox recently said that the standard 70/30 revenue split used by most video game marketplaces is outrageous, calling Epic’s undercutting of this system “fantastic”.
