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@numberonedad

14 күн бұрын

the money thing doesn't really make sense as a criticism. there are affordable subscription options that give you access to all DLCs. I think for EUIV it's 6 bucks a month or something.

How on earth do they go from Stellaris' success to shooting themselves in the foot over and over and over?

@Mortjep9531

14 күн бұрын

not just stellaris. also Hearts of Iron 4 and Europa Universalis 4. But only one of them gets any real hype and that is EUIV since it is on its last huzzah!

@Furzkampfbomber

14 күн бұрын

I can only speak for myself, but for me the reason I don't give a crap about their games anymore was the mix of ignorance, arrogance and sometimes even malice Paradox showed and how this in return created one of the most toxic, mean and vicious 'communities' I have ever witnessed. It's quite something when you, politely, remark that their newest games comes, again, with that tiny barely to read font they seem to love so much and explain that the tiny fonts they use are causing serious problems when you are visually impaired - and then then not only the fanbase rips you a new one, but their own bloody admins tell you that you should stop playing games when you are to blind to read, you mouldwarp. For some strange reason, this reduced my desire to spend money on their games drastically.

@martenkahr3365

14 күн бұрын

The diversity fungus got its spores in when they started getting local business subsidies from the Swedish government. Those subsidies came with diversity hiring quotas. And then the diversity hires, since they weren't qualified to contribute any real work, were put to work in admin to find more government and EU subsidies that the company might qualify for. Which typically involved injecting even more DEI bullshit into the company and its products. It's been a gradual slippery slope downward for PDX ever since toxic hair colors started showing up on their dev streams on a regular basis.

@ingrudmessenger1193

14 күн бұрын

I mean... Stellaris is an success, but it was also the first Paradox game where i said f that, i'm out. I'm not paying $400 for one game with DLCs. Especially because my biggest complaint from release has afaik not be solved... last time i checked, it still turns into a slideshow if you want to play a bigger, longer game.

@clovernacknime6984

14 күн бұрын

Well, Paradox is a for-profit corporation so clearly their quality being abysmal ever since going public is due to diversity hires rather than greed.

Paradox are following in the the footsteps of titans. EA, ABK, Enron.

@sempersteel2799

14 күн бұрын

Its a real tough race for "worst company of the year" this year. We've got strong opening plays from Sony, EA, Paradox, Ubisoft, and the dark horse contender Nijisanji EN.

@isimiel3405

14 күн бұрын

@@sempersteel2799 Two words Games Workshop

@sempersteel2799

14 күн бұрын

@@isimiel3405 God there's so many I can't even keep track of them. I forgot all about that one. Or maybe my brain is purposefully trying to repress it because I loved 40k.

@KimAlmighty1

14 күн бұрын

it more or less happend when they went public..

@AntonKushnir-iu6ft

14 күн бұрын

Yeah in a matter of no time they let their reputation slide deep into the gutter.... years of build up prestige & a reputation for high quality thrown away in a matter of two three years for easy money it's a shame.

2:55 Isn't it insane how Prison Architect gets to be described as "one of those games in the Rimworld tradition" when it was a major inspiration for the Rimworld dev?

@alexnoman1498

12 күн бұрын

Yes, just like Story Of Seasons was one of the earliest Stardew clones. Or Infiniminer was definitely a Minecraft clone. This happens all the time.

@Coconut-219

12 күн бұрын

Its too bad the Rimworld dev got 'inspired' by the terrible DLC practices that eventually killed PA 1

@lylemata6672

11 күн бұрын

​@@Coconut-219 How does Rimworld have terrible DLC practices?

@pestilentsleeper9152

11 күн бұрын

@@Coconut-219yeah no, you’re a Buffon

@cosmosyn2514

11 күн бұрын

@@Coconut-219 i buy every DLC for rinworld because i dont believe this game was worth only 40 bucks

Paradox was one of my favourite publishers years ago. Now I put them on par with EA, and Ubisoft. They really went downhill when they went public. Short term profits over long term growth; the death knell of many of companies.

@AntonKushnir-iu6ft

14 күн бұрын

Facts they went from high-quality & trustworthy to a company you couldn't trust to tell you the time, what they did to their console users says everything about the new direction they have decided to go which is one of straight usury.

@KHK14

14 күн бұрын

That's harsh... but not entirely unfair either.

@catgckool428

14 күн бұрын

Part of it's Greed, but part of it's due to some laws. Did you know its Illegal for a Publicly Traded Company to intentionally lose their Investors money?

@CndBcn

14 күн бұрын

@@catgckool428 I know of the dumbass laws that make companies focus on the short rather than long term

@biodtox

14 күн бұрын

This is how it goes once a company goes public

A good DLC policy is like the old days before the Internet existed. I did model railroading as an adolescent in the late 80s and early 90s, and I have fond memories of going to the hobby shop with my stepfather to buy cool things for our layouts. Having just bought the Nebraska state DLC for American Truck Simulator, it's that same business model for the virtual world. But Paradox just turns that into a nickel-and-diming situation where it's just not worth the money for what you get. Same as why I stopped playing Sims 4, I got tired of getting such poor value out of my purchases. There's a fine line, and that line is in the eye of the beholder, but Paradox is definitely on the wrong side of that line.

@MrDasfried

14 күн бұрын

Its not only the nickel and diming but also decision fatique. I dont even Start games with that big dlclists.. Way to exhausting

@SimuLord

14 күн бұрын

@@Jeffrey-fc5gk When I moved from Boston to Reno in 2002, part of the trip by car took me and my then-girlfriend along I-80 through Nebraska. In November. There wasn't even corn. It looked like the surface of the moon. That said, there are a lot of weird and wacky things in Nebraska, from the Oregon Trail historical monuments along US-30 to little bits of Americana in the towns, and that's always been the best part of ATS. Even the most boring-seeming of places have something cool to see. It's like a virtual road trip (because who has the time and the gas money for real-life road trips anymore?)

@Kenionatus

14 күн бұрын

The good thing about independent DLC is that you can choose to just not buy one that doesn't meet your standards. That's why I think it's probably the most ethical post launch monetisation that exists. People sometimes recoil if they see the hundreds of bucks it costs to get all DLC of a decade old game, but that's just the cost of continued development shown in black and white to every player imo. (Well, and also publisher profits, but that's also included in microtransaction or subscription models, just less visibly.)

@peelsreklaw

14 күн бұрын

@@Jeffrey-fc5gk The details in ATS are insane. It's incredibly accurate to the places in-game that I've been IRL. The devs travel to the states during development so it is quite a lot of effort, yes.

@gaz74205

13 күн бұрын

you know, on the face of, yes, their DLC policy seems extreme. But you need to factor in that a large amount of the players of paradox games have remarkably high playtimes. a lot of this is due to the dlc, and free updates, that continually add to and change the game. take stellaris. in 8 years i have 2503 hours, so far. over 300 hours each year. when you average it out with total spent against hours played, to get the cost per hour, it's pretty reasonable. you get a lot for free with their DLC releases, only certain features being locked behind a purchase. I get why some won't like it, but considering i've seen playtimes way higher than mine, the reason they can do it is cause for many of us, its actually decent value per hour. They are pretty good with multiplayer too. if the host owns all the dlc, and no one else owns anything, everyone gets the DLC the host owns for that multiplayer game. So yeah, i agree dlc gets out of hand sometimes, but paradox caters to their core players with huge playtimes. Its a similar thing with both euro truck sim 2 and american truck sim (i also own both). the reason they can churn out so much is the core players with huge playtimes.

Prison Architect 2 was doomed from the start, even before it's announcement I did knew this, because the OG Devs Introversion Software did sell the IP and are making their new game The Last Starship. Without them PA2 will nothing be like PA1

@rphilipsgeekery4589

14 күн бұрын

What? so the original team has nothing to do with it ?

@LilyBoinks

14 күн бұрын

@@rphilipsgeekery4589 paradox interactive BOUGHT prison architect from introversion software in 2019 - sure enough, prison architect starting going downhill in 2019. like leaving your children at the jonestown daycare center.

@kodiakjak1

13 күн бұрын

Yeah I remember hearing something back in 2020 that the IP was purchased by paradox and thinking "welp, it's dead" back then

@ThePrimeMinisterOfTheBlock

12 күн бұрын

​@@rphilipsgeekery4589yeah man they've been out for years. The "developer" referred to in this video is the group paradox contracted to make their buggy DLCs

@jdenm8

12 күн бұрын

@@ThePrimeMinisterOfTheBlock Correction; they're the company that Introversion licensed the Console Ports to. Paradox kept them on the property when they bought the IP from Introversion. Things went backwards because the Console versions completely diverged from the PC versions in one of the pre-alphas. They would share no more code until after the Paradox purchase. Afterwards they clearly tried to refactor the PC version to be more like the Console one so they only needed to develop the DLCs once, but instead they half-arsed it and introduced a ton of bugs to the PC version.

remember Totalbiscuit, wait for reviews, don't preorder

This really is bizarre. Sure, the dev's departure might be because of the contract ending, but it is not exactly common to have them be shown the door before the game is released, at least. I don't see this being a good move.

It's sort of amazing how...traumatic... Prison Architect's journey has been under Paradox when you consider that the original was put together by an absolutely tiny studio whose relationship with solvency was always rather tenuous(though their output is something special). The original actively regressed technically and ran into further balance issues with the DLCs; and the sequel has been stuck in development, and not 100% encouraging development, for absolute ages.

@wintermute5974

14 күн бұрын

It also completely killed the modding scene for the game, the game just didn't have a big enough community for modders to want to make new patches every four months when the devs put out a new dlc. The way the game was treated is almost a parody of PDX worst DLC practices.

@-Gorby-

12 күн бұрын

As far as I could tell, you had to buy the DLCs for the game to work properly. Otherwise, every time a new DLC was released the "vanilla" game got more and more bugs.

@drummer9642

12 күн бұрын

When Paradox took over and started pumping out DLCs, they managed to break so much of the original game and some bugs just didn't get fixed for years. They really did overtake the game like a parasite. You got a sense of the passion behind the game originally, but paradox just sucked the soul out of it with half-assed DLC spam. Sure there was more content, but it all felt very shoe-horned in and unpolished. I'll be impressed if PA2 is even a 5/10.

@XMysticHerox

12 күн бұрын

@@wintermute5974 Well one thing I'll still give PDX credit for is actually allowing people to roll back their game version unlike most big studios.

@andromidius

12 күн бұрын

I wondered why I was having such a rough time with it when I tried to play it again recently. The game feels awful and jank!

I've worked on a couple of games where there was significant tension between publishers and devs and behind the scenes it was obvious the publisher wanted to cut off the relationship as soon as contractually possible i.e: Certification passed and Day1 patch is ready. The opposite can also happen, where devs are working on a project they don't want and/or dislike the directions forced on them, and they can't wait to bail out. As you might expect, the games in question are usually not very good because this tension and lack of passion can blatantly be felt in the product.

@Ylyrra

13 күн бұрын

This to me sounds very much like the devs weren't interested in continuing the contract and wanted to fulfil their obligations and get the hell out. And with Paradox's track record recently, I'd probably not want to be working on any Paradox title post-launch either. Get your money and walk away, before it turns into either them pressuring you for crazy crunch to fix a release they torpedoed themselves, or them effing up your financial roadmap by axing the project after 3 months when you had planned for 2 years. Why put yourself in that situation if you can quit while you're ahead, and go sign a contract with a more reliable publisher.

Paradox has turned into a second rate Electronic Arts. I'll observe what happens with their games because I enjoy watching a good dumpster fire, but they firmly landed on my no-buy list after the disastrous launch of Cities: Skylines 2. Fortunately, I know better than to pre-order games, so I didn't waste my money on it. I have Prison Architect, but I haven't spent a huge amount of time with it. It is a fun concept. I also have Surviving Mars and Cities: Skylines. They are good games, but the DLC spam got to be a bit much. Also, the final update and DLC for Surviving Mars didn't launch well and broke some things. I see no hope for Paradox. The company is too far gone to be salvaged at this point.

@gaz74205

13 күн бұрын

Paradox is actually 2 companies. the publishing arm fucks up way more often than the development arm.

Just wait until the news about their Life By You project becomes a little more public lol

@drizztcat1

14 күн бұрын

Shit, what's going on with Life By You?

@patrickhighspeed

13 күн бұрын

The Trailer is total crap. Look at the Cars and you see crazy stuff in an official trailer

@Popchip99

13 күн бұрын

Cant just say that then say nothing else

@naeshelle

12 күн бұрын

I’m assuming you’re talking about how tons of fans are displeased with the art style? Or is it them drastically raising the minimum specs? Or is there something else? Edit: Yet another drama, the release date pushed was back yet again 😬

@TruFalco

12 күн бұрын

LBY At least Paralives is taking their time with release and said they don't want to do a DLC model and looks infinitely more interesting since it's being made by an indie team.

I played Prison Architect 1 for 800 hours according to Steam... I didn't even know that Prison Architect 2 was being made

@sevendeadlysquids404

Күн бұрын

Same here - although I only have about 100 hours, this is the first I heard of it.

After the last few years, Paradox going full EA is not surprising in the slightest.

Yes, it's crazy. I've been a Paradox Fan since Hearts of Iron 3 (HOI3). But for that last year or two it seems like Paradox is in the News every few months for something bad. Also, Paradox has had the worst reviewed product on Steam at least 3 times now. They always come out saying how they're going to change because of said lowest rated items on Steam... but never do... also, their DLC's and DLC system is starting to crack... DLC is getting more expensive, yet the quality has gone down.

@firewarp8819

14 күн бұрын

the last good dlc was No Step Back and I feel like there's a joke there

@wildbillhdmax02

14 күн бұрын

@@firewarp8819 Yea it's a shame since both By Blood Alone and Arms Against Tyranny were both covering areas, I really wanted covered. The fact it took this long to get a Scandinavia expansion is nuts. Then there's Trial of Allegiance... Another Region I wanted covered... I've been wanting a South American DLC for a while since that entire area is just kind of blank/generic. Nothing happens down there, and they don't contribute to WW2 at all, even in a historical way. So I was hoping Trial of Allegiance would bring South America into the game... Three lack luster DLC for HOI4 now... 🤕

Have you heard about the Life By You devs drastically raising the minimum and recommended specs (to 32GB of RAM!) less than a month before the early access release? Do you remember how Colossal Order did the same exact thing with Cities Skylines 2, just shortly before release? Coming down with a case of the Paradox....

@wildbillhdmax02

14 күн бұрын

Whoa 32GB? The most recommended RAM I've seen in a game was 16GB, maybe 20GB. 32GB of RAM used to be considered overkill. I have 32GB in my rig and have never used all of it once. Even with Google Chrome running 10+ tabs in the background. WTF does LBY need all of that for? It feels like they're depending on the customer to have an overkill PC to make up for the lack of performance... Starfield did the same thing... It's crazy. Soon all AAA games will require RTX4080-4090, i9 CPU's etc... just to run decently... making up for the poor optimization. Seem more and more developers and publishers are going this route. Sad.

@paulie-g

14 күн бұрын

@@wildbillhdmax02 TBF, Chrome is eating just over 32GB on my box right now, but that's dozens of windows and probably 600 tabs (if I had to guess). My guess is they're using it to model all the different entities in the world if it's a Sims-style game. 32GB isn't that much on 64-bit systems.

@SimuLord

14 күн бұрын

I can't help but wonder if those devs aren't just terrible, like REALLY terrible, at optimization, but like Bethesda, rather than learn how to program or use a better engine, they're just going to tell everyone to "upgrade your computer." I have 96GB of RAM in my PC because when I built it, RAM was on sale and I figured "no kill like overkill, it's only money." I didn't think it would become necessary for games any time in the projected four-year life of the computer (next one I buy will be a 50th birthday present to myself in the summer of 2027.) But now? Who knows? I might not have enough to run new games by then.

@paulie-g

14 күн бұрын

@@SimuLord That's very unlikely. Games that simulate many independent entities with their own behaviour, such as Sims-likes, are a very specific edge case because they do all of their simulation on the CPU/main system RAM. Vast majority of games don't do that and instead require vast amounts of VRAM on GPU in an ever sillier pursuit of purdier graphics. 96GB is not all that much, frankly. I need a minimum of 128GB for the work I do (it's just about enough to compile Chromium from source).

@mygetawayart

14 күн бұрын

@@wildbillhdmax02 i fear it's exactly what's happening. The game stutters and lags terribly even in their own previews (not to mention looking like absolute dogwater but that's a separate issue). The game is horribly optimized.

Worth noting regarding Introversion's The Last Starship ("the FTL like game"). While Scanner Sombre was fully released, The Last Starship is in very early access, likely years from release. I have no idea what they were thinking with Scanner Sombre. It was a cool little two hour tech demo in my estimation, not a full game. I own The Last Starship, as I do every Introversion game ever released, and I'm not overly optimistic. At this point it's shaping up to be a very basic game without any real novelty to it. But, time will tell.

@Ylyrra

13 күн бұрын

Much as I love a lot of the concepts behind Introversion's games, they're very often executed in the, ahhh, shall we say "Bullfrog tradition". Not very fleshed out with actual gameplay. Like Bullfrog though, they had a couple of games that really did land what they promised.

@ElderonAnalas

12 күн бұрын

I mean, scanner sombre I'm pretty sure came out before PA. As did Uplink, their film trope inspired hacking game.

@burningphoneix

12 күн бұрын

What? Scanner Sombre came out years after Prison Architect.

@mascot4950

11 күн бұрын

@@ElderonAnalas I don't understand how this ever happens. You were literally typing this on the same medium that could verify or correct your guess in less time than it took you to finish typing out this incorrect statement. Why would you ever make yourself look like a dumdum when it was so easy for you to verify? Do you live the rest of your life like this? "This expensive decision would take three seconds to verify before committing to, but I'll just go ahead I'm sure it will be fine."

@Ylyrra

11 күн бұрын

@@mascot4950 Cut them a break. Scanner Sombre was demoed between the PC and console releases of Prison Architect. Memory plays tricks, but having seen articles about Scanner Sombre before seeing Prison Architect "be released" isn't that weird in those circumstances. And if you have a memory of a thing, why would you "research it"? Did you verify that search engines still exist before you typed your comment? You MIGHT have misremembered after all.

Only thing Harebrained Schemes needed was more shadowrun and battletech. Only thing Prison Architect 2 needed was a better game engine that can handle Z levels.

@dragonzord6615

14 күн бұрын

The fact that they haven't tried to do more battletech is absolutely shocking.

@XMysticHerox

12 күн бұрын

You know what those games all have in common? They were developed before PDX went public. Or not under PDX at all in shadowruns case.

I am going to say something that may be controversial among some folks but is pretty much a no-brainer for me and the folks I know that buy computer games : Are the technical specs between the version 1 and 2 of the games drastically different? There are a LOT of folks out here who don't upgrade/replace their hardware as fast as the gaming Industry thinks it should do. Many of us are not on the 3 year cycle in regards to processor speed, graphics card etc. that game companies operate under and think that things should be moving at. Many of us run a computer literally into the ground before replacing it... and won't necessarily be able to run niftier graphics intended for ever faster machines. Some buy on a 5 year cycle due to the fact that their computer is NOT just for gaming, and business depreciations are still mostly operating at a 5 year cycle in many countries. Others just don't have the cash flow to do this sort of thing... running computers as much as a decade out from their release date as its what we can get, especially because of the huge price hikes etc that the pandemic created that have not come down to traditional levels. In my experience (going back some 40 years) personal computers in general run in the range of $2k for the average person (in US Dollars), Nearly every computer I have bought (not counting peripherals like monitors) had had that as a base cost if it could run what were the games of its era.

@poppers7317

14 күн бұрын

The game looks as if a 10 year old PC would be sufficient to play it. Doesn't mean that it's actually the case because of bad programming.

@davidaustin5622

13 күн бұрын

It's never been easier to run new games on older machines. There are a few Hellblade 2 type games that do 4K + raytracing for the cinematic experience. Some genres can still push the envelope. Most genres have stalled, and been ported to handhelds and phones.

@shroomanox

13 күн бұрын

It's 3d, the minimum requirements are a GTX970 suffice to say the specs are a lot higher.

Paradox inflates their DLC prices on older titles to push their subscription service. It make it very hard for a patient gamer who views the stoppage of DLC as the completion of a title and a time to buy game on sale.

Theres an editing error at 5:06, Bellular says "one of their more recent games that they've done after that which is" then goes on to explain the idea of the game (a combo of ftl and factorio) but never actually says the name of the game. Seems the title of the game has been cut but nothing else. If anyone reads this and can upvote for visibility it'd be much appreciated.

The DLC policy of Paradox, and other similar policies, makes sequels _really_ hard to sell. Because they introduce such a huge content parity, it's really not worth buying a sequel until years after its been complete and there's a dozen DLC released for it. I think they need to do for sequels is focus on improving the player experience of the core loop. Things like UI improvements, more intuitive gameplay, more control over details (especially true with C:S2), and a cleaner core framework for more content to be added to with updates/DLCs. DLCs also can't be repeats of DLC from the first game. Deja vu isn't a pleasant feeling when dropping $10-$20 on new content, so you need to separate it somehow. Players will be comparing sequel DLC to the DLC from the original, so make it obvious that there's tangible difference in the new stuff. Make it feel like progress has been made.

@RAFMnBgaming

10 күн бұрын

pretty much anything from OG game DLC that falls under "Quality of life" needs to be in the base game for a sequel.

@michaels.3709

10 күн бұрын

@@RAFMnBgaming I agree. If it improved QoL in the original, that should have been an assumed feature in the sequel, (or an equivelent fix needs to be added). Without it, they're releasing an objectively worse game and we know that _they_ know it.

Just another week at Paradox Publishing ^^

Introversion Software also did darwinia, DEFCON, and more importantly, Uplink. I dont think they have ever been -great- at handling their financials though, kind of like Arcen Games, so I wasnt surprised to see Prison Architect go somewhere else eventually but what Paradox's publishing side has been doing lately is rather stupid and shortsighted. I do wonder how well they can possibly do in the future, especially as I suspect they'll be getting more competition in the Grand Strategy genre in the future.

Why do they ever want to make this game in 3D ? They removed the core of what prison architect is/was.

I don't think this is weird... the original contract ended early 2024 and they didn't have any provisions to go beyond that. The other team was already set to take over so they all just decided that the game was complete enough for them to do that and add some polish before the new official release date. I'm guessing that Paradox didn't want to have 2 teams engaged on the same game since they had provisions set for the new studio to take over. Maybe not a common situation, but I'm not sure it suggests there's significant trouble.

The piece of information that I was missing is that I'd thought Paradox had bought Introversion, and that Introversion had been working on Prison Architect 2. So the situation isn't as bad as I thought it was. The fact that Life By You has been delayed indefinitely might be a sign that Paradox has learned their lesson about releasing on a schedule instead of ehen the game is ready, although it's a bad sign for the state kf that game.

I really hope EU5 isnt shit. Ive put so many hours into EU4 and CK2, but was let down by Imperator and CK3

@waterloo32594

14 күн бұрын

Well if you use pattern recognition and look at Imperator, CK3, and Victoria 3, then you will realize how unlikely it is that EU5 will please you

@Vlad-1986

12 күн бұрын

Well, the good news is that EU4 won't go anywhere. You only need to wait for release, and watch some videos to know if it is worth it or not

@ManCheat2

8 күн бұрын

@@waterloo32594 Victoria 3 was the biggest flop and hated thing from paradox. all they had to do was make victoria 2 2... and they fked it up.

I was looking forward to PA2 as a big fan of PA1, the artstyle looked good and still somewhat in keeping with the original. Multi-level buildings would be a massive expansion to the building simulation as well. Sad to see D11 leave development after so many of their staff in middlesborough work on it for such a long time.

Paradox when from studio I would buy all games blind to studio I don't buy anything from any more. It's like watching your childhood friend wreck his life

I was looking forward to prison architect 2 now im scared

Played the game pretty extensively back then and also was pretty active in it's community. Never once did I hear someone saying "yeah this needs 3D graphics"

Having a trailer that looks like more work was put in than the actual game already made me wary, yet I wishlisted it. I guess I'm not the only one now probably not bothering with the game anymore.

The hell is happening with AAA gaming industry ?

@dntthe88

15 күн бұрын

This is hardly AAA

@SuperZura91

15 күн бұрын

@@dntthe88 Well, Paradox sure has the bad reputation of a triple A studio.

@Carbiniz3r

14 күн бұрын

Execs think that growing is eternal so they tool for that, instead of aiming for a sustaining consumer rate. Because "number must go up".

@TheAsj97

14 күн бұрын

@@FestivejellyWhat matter is budget and marketing to make something triple A, not sales.

@Strict666

14 күн бұрын

@@Festivejelly so are games like Stardew Valley then AAA?

It's the toxic corporate mentality imo, seems to me, Paradox upper management treatment towards their developers is as a "replaceable resources". Which is bad bc the soul & love from original creator simply isn't there. The quality will be just different. It could be good, but certainly not better.

Prison Architect isn't Rimworld-like.. Actually Rimworld got inspired by Prison Architect ;)

@SimuLord

14 күн бұрын

Managing individual actors in a city-builder or similar makes it a Tropico-like.

@hedlund

14 күн бұрын

​​@@SimuLordEh? It's been a while, granted, but isn't el Presidente the only one you _can_ directly control..? Everyone else acts based on runtime parameters, as far as I remember. Edit: In Tropico, that is. T6 is the last I own, so if there's newer stuff I could easily be entirely wro g by now

@halludbarimed9446

14 күн бұрын

They both inspired by Dwarf fortress .There is no such thing like rimworld like. Rimworld started as graphic pack for dwarf fortress.

@poppers7317

14 күн бұрын

@@SimuLord the guy from Rimworld -stole- got inspired by the graphic style of Prison Architect.

@XMysticHerox

12 күн бұрын

@@poppers7317 Used with clear and direct permission.

Paradox used to be the GOAT developer for me, releasing a banger after banger after banger (EU3, CK2, HoI3, Eu4, Hoi4, CK3) and now for laste few years they are stumbling from disaster to flop and back to disaster again. Makes me so sad.

Hey Bellular, can you cover Pistol Shrimp's recent kickstarter of Free Stars, a proper sequel to The Ur-Quan Masters, which was originally known as Star Control II? It's a pretty darn cool story and it will be interesting to see how things go from here!

I think what happened was: They said they would deliver the game in day X, if you pay us Y But now the game got delayed so they wanted more than Y, and Paradox didn't want to invest much more so they just moved the responsibility to a cheaper studio. That's actually not that weird to think about.

I don’t usually buy their games until I see how much it and all the DLC costs. I’m also looking at other gamer’s feedback on said game, looking for things that others are repeating.

Paradox has lost its mind in the last year or so. Its been frustrating because they're in my top 3 fav dev/publishers. I don't have much faith in Life by You at this point either.

Risk of Rain 2 moved from 2D to 3D and was fantastic, so there’s definitely a way to do it right

Prison Architect 2 has the same art style as Two Point Hospital. The similarities are striking

Honestly dude you have to stop with the poor devs narrative. Yeah fuck these greedy publishers. But these devs signed up for the project, claimed they could achieve the world with their proposals. Then when they turn out to be incompetent developers and make a complete mess of the game despite being given the time allocated plus an extension, the fuck they pooch. The truth is not always that the devs are extremely talented and it’s the greedy publisher fucking everything you. Mostly the problem is the dev team is incompetent and not up to the task. Happened with KSP2. Now it’s happening with PA2.

@DaXurk

14 күн бұрын

is that you, john paradox

@youtubevanced4900

14 күн бұрын

@@DaXurk nope. I’m just bored of the talented devs just needed more time narrative. I was dumb enough to drunk purchase KSP2 one evening. Now I’m paying the price. I won’t be doing it for PA2.

@DaXurk

14 күн бұрын

​@@youtubevanced4900 I suggest buying games sober then, hasn't steered me wrong once

@Waggabagaboo

12 күн бұрын

sorry brother I really enjoyed KSP but a certain uncensored forum kept calling the devs "mexican scam artists" and I listened - saved me a preorder and was vindicated.

@youtubevanced4900

12 күн бұрын

@@Waggabagaboo I don’t think the current devs are Mexican. The studio is in the US somewhere.

DEFCON and Darwinia were awesome games too. Hope Introversion throw out another hit. I think they have it in them, for sure.

The problem with paradox DLC policy is that it's perfectly manageable if you play the game from the very start and buy the DLC as they release. However, it's a huge porblem for a new player who wants to buy the game 7 years after the game's release and has to wade through 30+ DLC's or has to buy them in the entire pack which means paying €/$100+

Aww man I’m seriously bummed out knowing now I can’t finally make a prison with more than one story to it

This isn't bizarre at all. It's a common practise in the major companies: take studios for let them produce a new chapter of a fanous game, aquire the IP and then abandon the devs changing them with another one more cheap. In this method they aquire a profitable IP, garantee a sequel pretty finished and then have new devs that cost less money than the old ones.

Am I mistaken or did the host say both that: 1) The game will release in 3 months 2) The game will release in December (6-7 months)

I like stellaris But god damn do they change the entire way of how the game works often and GOD DAMN do the cost of the DLCs add up 💀

Paradox are a good dev house that makes great games, but they are terrible publishers.

@OmiGundam777

15 күн бұрын

It's weird to see them have massive missteps like CS2, and then over in Stellaris they just released possibly their greatest dlc yet. Wow.

@powerfulshammy

15 күн бұрын

They ported Prison Architect to mobile and it's a shit game on mobile. Better on PC.

@a1pha_star

14 күн бұрын

@@powerfulshammy Everything is shit on mobile, go figure. 😂

@ssStolengrad

14 күн бұрын

I think they are horible at the developing new titles. Victoria 3 is okay but honestly butchers its setting. War and diplomacy is horrible and one dimensional. Imperator turned into sour apple. It wants great to begin with. But i enjoyed the wonky rawness to the game. Many of the newer dlc they have devloped for their titles are mediocre to bad.

@esaesaeesaesa

11 күн бұрын

@@OmiGundam777 I don't see it being that weird considering CS2 was made a completely different studio.

VTM: Bloodlines 2 is going to have good company soon. Also, unfair to say that The Last Starship has not sold well. It's in Alpha version 9 at the moment, and it has overly positive reviews. It's understandable that people are not flocking to an early alpha in this day and age.

From what I've seen of Paradox, under their previous Leadership they were very, very liberal with expanding the direction of their games into an area that they weren't really well familiar with. The investment required for some of the engines and other things that these companies need to make their games work is very expensive as compared to old titles (CK2 vs CK3 as a good example), you've got games like the new Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines 2, which have basically squandered their initial hype due to the very poor performance of the previous team. Let's basically list off the recent financial disasters: Millennia Foundry Star Trek Infinite The Lamplighters League Games that have underperformed in a key aspect: Cities Skylines 2 They have tossed a TON of money into the above, and aside from Cities, they are all failures. They will likely only break even, at best. Age of Wonders 4 was apparently a very large surprise for Paradox, it recovered its entire budget in the first week, over 80% of the sales were for the Deluxe Edition, which is the Season Pass. Every DLC release so far (the final one of the season pass is coming out next month) has been very well received. They have announced that there will be additional DLC forthcoming for AoW 4, no numbers on how many or how large they'll be. If I had to guess, it is hard to get a game greenlit by Paradox, or was in the past, and when using unfamiliar technology they tried to give overly ambitious timelines that they could hit, and vastly underestimated the amount of work and time it would take to get it all done. This isn't just them, it is all of the various studios that have been involved, i.e. Lamplighters League as a prime example.

KSP 2, then CS 2 and now PA 2? This is not a coincidence. STACY, VERONICA AND CHAD ARE MAKING THEIR MOVE AGAINST US! Gamers! Rise! No more Mr. Nice Guy!

He did not want any ESG and DEI in his game so he had to go !

Backed the first game directly as I've always enjoyed introversion titles dating back to putting a cheque into the post to buy a copy of Uplink after playing a coverdisc demo. Still got some of the early pre-steam versions saved on an old PC. Interest waned once the game was bought over and the DLC's started coming along and the visuals of PA2 just don't grab me the way PA's did. Almost comes across as a generic tappstore game Scanner Sombre is a decent "walking experience" kind of game although the LIDAR visual style isn't going to be for everyone

At 7:14 you said it's coming out in December but the title says 3 months before release?

PA2's art style reminds me of the corporate 3D style that Kroger uses for all their advertisements.

@Kroke_Monster

13 күн бұрын

Not enough people are somehow realising this. It’s the furthest disconnection from PA1 style. Yet people are praising it for sticking to it. It’s more related to Mark Zuckerberg Metaverse vision than PA1

The games crash is down to avarice. You don't make a successful games company by rushing shit out of the door. Full stop. The real money is in building a brand known for excellence. Rockstar is a good example of this, "its ready when its ready" philosophy. And it has payed dividens for them. Not releasing a game until it is actually good should be a no-brainer for anyone looking to make money.

Past certification on all platforms in January 2024 but not releasing until December 2024? That is strange if the game is already finished. I'd be skepitical of what exactly Kukko are adding to the game if the game is already done.

on a random tangent, Michael, are you guys thinking of a sequel to pale beyond ... or a new game? totally up for more from the studio, played the shit out of pale beyond and love to see games coming from my country, N Ireland

I was fans of a lot of these series' before Paradox bought them. Prison Architect and Cities Skylines in particular. Really sucks when something you've already paid for is now being patched to support 1 million DLCs with no regard for the underlying balance of the thing you originally paid for. Then they put new developers on the case to run the franchise into the ground. I really hate that company. Even though they own some of my favorite series, like Stellaris and Crusader Kings.

Did Valve's move to overwrite CSGO with CS2? Because right now I don't think everyone would agree with that, they have lost quite a few players to other games and the competitive side is just non existent due to the amount of hacking.

I wouldn’t say that the UK team are necessarily more expensive. This isn’t a straight 1:1 swap. Remember, the UK government offers heavy incentives for certain industries if they work in the UK; see film making, for the most common examples, also car manufacturing. Well, gaming companies such as Creative Assembly and Rockstar have taken advantage of these subsidies, tax breaks, etc. I honestly don’t know whether Brazil offers the same, but am just am just saying there are others areas to look into surrounding this other than financial. After all, accepting that UK gift horse does mean that such companies have to follow certain guidelines; as with Black Rock and Vanguard, so with any government intervention. It is a weird situation. Most companies I have worked with in the software industry would have worked their product up to release; made sure there was an initial period of support to ensure any adoption or teething issues were covered and would then consider a contract complete. Mind you, with more and more studios being acquired and going public, they become answerable to a board of financiers rather than the customer. This is always where companies begin to fail as they lose any ethics regarding customer satisfaction and quality, but become subject to meeting board requirements and returns on investment. If I recall correctly, didn’t Activision/Blizzard in their most successful year ever let go of a lot of staff simply to increase their profit margins by some percentage points. That they then tried to hire back a lot of this talent afterwards, just made the decision all the more ridiculous. Gaming is a huge financial market now and being successful in that market can be elusive. If you want to work in it, as I’d say with any other job, do it because you love the work you do. The amount of churn with professionals leaving gaming to go to other jobs is very high. The gamers that remain in the industry out of passion is quite small, and those that do remain are tied to the suits who moved in when they suddenly realised the profits to be made. Just my random thoughts.

Paradox: nice game, this is ours now

I hated warcraft 3's 3d style vs the 2d art from previous games. It's probably one reason I didn't get into wow. Making cities 2 high fidelity and cutting out the players without high end machines was a stupid call.

I am waiting for Prison Architect 2 to be available for a couple of month before I decide if I want to buy it because all of the DLCs for Prison Architect 1 had bugs galore. Also right now Prison Architect 2 looks like a copy of Prison Architect 1 in 3D.

PDX is probably huffing glue.....again

5:08 Yeah. I have that one on my wish list, The Last StarShip. I thought it looked interesting. But haven’t gotten around to buying it yet. But I intend to eventually. I should go find a let’s play on it.

Paradox fives off vibes of literally collapsing

The gameplay for RT3 is actually good. The issues with RT3 is that it was buggy, had some head-scratcher design decisions, and wasn't optimized well enough. Just like Sim City 3000 it ran slugishly. They eventually did fix that, but they haven't really fixed any of the bad design, like non-scaling ui that makes you break out a magnifying glass if you're resolution is above 1080p.

PSA: You can refund your Prison Architect 2 pre-purchase at any point before launch.

I had pre ordered PA2. I stood by my choice after the first delay but asked for a refund when they delayed again until September. With CS2 and KSP2 fiasco I don’t want to risk it now. I’ll buy again after the reviews are in if positive

@fransmith3255

14 күн бұрын

Madness lies in pre-ordering games. Do yourself a favour and make this decision your norm. 🙂 There's literally no benefit to pre-ordering and every risk to pre-ordering.

PA2, in my view, is the sequel that literally nobody asked for. the first game is so good, and by far one of my favorites prior to Paradox acquisition and subsequent DLCs. i've been watching the dev diary videos for PA2, and haven't been sold on what i see. the entire project feels like a giant cash-grab to me so i will wait and see what the reviews say before buying - my faith in Paradox is pretty much shot at this point.

@Kroke_Monster

13 күн бұрын

Notice the PA2 dev videos also only have very positive comments or ones with praise but are skeptically neutral. They are censoring negative comments when I saw the promotional dev log vids a few months back.

Speculation: maybe Paradox said, that instead of what the split was agreed on, they want to have bigger cut (lets say it was 50-50 now they want 80%). And if the dev does not like it, they will find one to finish the job. They probably had some provision that basically gave Paradox full control over who developer is. And they found studio that maybe will depend on AI, that will finish very last work and push it out the door. It will be few months of work for the second studio so they would not mind much worse cut. If that would be true, then fk them, they don't deserve a cent from you. But nothing else makes sense.

It's weird they went 3D because, well, the og art style is very "unique" feeling

The last star shipship isn’t released yet. It’s in early access.

im a huge fan of colony sims, building games and space games. pretty much every trait that the last starship has. and i heard absolutely NOTHING about it other than like one post by the devs. the main issues regarding sales for that game is that it is very much early access (like beta 1.00001 levels of early access) and marketing (which if they are busy making it playable long term is understandable)

well, the thing that makes PA2 interesting for me is the addition of verticality in your building options.... thats it. But that they have booted the main developers.... thats kinda sus, also Paradox just pumping out DLC after DLC without addressing core game issues is hard to get past when it comes to buying one of their products...

Make me want to play prison architect, back to the past

😪 Thankfully they released and not shutdown like wangotango or arkane

It's an acid test ... When things are going well, it's easy to do the seemingly right thing. It's what happens when money runs low when good and bad management both show their true colours.

I wonder what is need to be done to successfully transfer project of such scale from one studio to another...

Well... I am enjoying "The Foundry" that they recently released... that's a good thing they did I guess..

i hope paradox goes out of business. i lost every ounce of respect/trust i had in them after cs2

here have a hapy and witty remark

Dude, the proof is in the pudding. They are Paradox, they are supposed to be paradoxal

@Razsac

14 күн бұрын

🤓 paradoxical is the word you are looking for

@paulie-g

14 күн бұрын

@@Razsac C-nts is the word we're all looking for ;)

@Razsac

13 күн бұрын

@@paulie-g aye, that works better

Everything started to go downhill when they went public. The opinion of the consumer doesn't matter anymore, the shareholders matter.

With the shit they have been doing over the last years, I don't feel like giving Paradox any more money. Even with the upcoming Bloodlines 2, though I owned the original Redemption and Bloodlines. When I see that they greedily ask 20€ for Bloodlines when it's not on sale, a 20-year-old game with many bugs, I know enough about this company.

Might there be a good reason why we don't have Terraria 2 or Stardew Valley 2 around? Maybe some titles are just "concept-complete". There needs to be a GOOD reason for a sequel to a long-lasting fan favourite.

Scanner Somber is interesting. It's more of an interactive story. I enjoyed the shocking end revelation. 😎 But I can understand why it didn't "perform well". 🙄

The main thing people who haven’t play Prison Architect don’t get is, even after all the dlc from paradox, the game is fundamentally broken from what it was meant to be able to do. You can’t have a large prison with + several hundred inmates working with all parts of base games as large parts are just broken due to dlc or ‘fixes’ made by paradox. They have broken it more and more across the years, it is virtually unplayable unless you going for a medium small prison. I spent another 150 hours last year trying to go for a large prison starting from nothing, by 120 hours I had 15 fps with 400 inmates and small constant game breaking bugs that kill any and all enjoyment of the game. It runs like shit, it ain’t fun, nothing works, no mods, idk bout dlc I haven’t spent money on Parasites (paradox) in 4 years. Fuck them. They make my favourite type of games but they can’t actually make them fun / work / or not Extremely expensive. Someone said it best the Euro Truck Sim DLC model is great, you can buy now a lot of DLC w base game for same price as base game on release and several X times more content. No paradox game doubles or triples in size by end of life cycle but will cost 10x that of ETS2. Let them burn.

You know, looking back, it feels like there was something (or someone) weird happening between Paradox Publishing and Paradox Entertainment. Almost all of the issues seem to be with the games not developed inhouse. You really have to wonder if some overly enthusiastic manager over-promised and embellished some truths to his bosses at Paradox proper and now we are seeing the results

I hope theses dudes chill. They own my favorite ttrpg series now.

In just feel sad for all the truly hardworking devs and artists... Publishers are just evil.

@Ramon609

14 күн бұрын

Agreed.. look at Sony

I don't agree with what paradox has done with games like cities 2 etc but, listing to the video and reading its headline, if at 8:00 in the video Double Eleven say the plan was to hand over the project then they were not "removed", they just finished their contracted work.....

I mean, Prison architect 2 had a very, very, very luckwarm reception when announced.

There are some things that I take issue with in your reporting on this - I am sure they are genuine mistakes BUT: For one, original Prison Architect also had a hidden 3D mode that Introversion was experimenting with - in fact Prison Architect 1 is almost fully 3d, but the camera is locked in such a way that it is not easy to notice. So the fact that Prison Architect 2 is in the 3d world is not surprising The comment about how "The Last Starship", Introversions current Early Access Development title "hasnt sold well" is odd? It's the same as Prison Architect 1, its barely in Alpha currently. It should not be surprising that people have not purchased a game that is fully advertised as incomplete in its current state. Hopefully, it will take off once it is more feature complete just like PA1 did. Like your content, just feel like correcting these items :)

11:05 I miss heard you, you said hadn't.