https://store.steampowered.com/app/1142710/Total_War_WARHAMMER_III/
This is fascinating because I do keep a general eye on the market and there seems to be massive pushback happening from gamers who properly play these games. Normally there are more than a few fanbois out there who will defend DLCs to the death but it seems even the majority of gamers now have had enough of the DLC policies these studios follow. On top of that it seems elsewhere people are reporting on the shoddy releases coming out where they just don't run well.
In order to play WH3 properly, you have to buy like 3 games. I dunno why they're complaining about DLC. It's a club. Pay the dues or don't.
Do the maths, that's all I have to post on this, even if you're somebody who 'could' afford to pay the three games and DLC content on top of it the point is the prices are ridiculous and much of this will clearly be pre-release content they're selling off to people in quick succession and this has been standard practice by CA for years. You can't then go and complain that the studio is shutting down because people refuse to have anything to do with them anymore because of their shoddy business practices and so many studios are doing this now.
I see for example Cities Skylines 2 is on steam properly now and going to release. Normally, that would be exactly my type of game because I enjoy city builders. However like most gamers I know now they're probably going to be releasing about 10 - 20 different DLC separately if that and it's getting completely out of control even by most peoples' standards, they're just being greedy as fuck.
For me though on a personal note, it's not just the fact that they're greedy even by greedy standards, it's the way they consistently fuck over their earliest customers and have zero qualms about doing so. Sims 4 is a great example of this, that's gone free to play now, imagine being one of the poor fucks who bought that at release and now you're realising you bought a barebones game that's being sold to you at $10 - $20 apiece sometimes even more. I was wondering where the limit would be and it looks like this is it. Most studios aren't selling you a game anymore, they're selling you a paywall that you have to get through and then they're charging you even more for everything on top of that. This is the equivalent of charging you an admission fee to even get into the store and then you're allowed to buy stuff.
DLC is literally getting so expensive now you could probably afford to buy a brand new gaming PC with the money you piss away buying it to get the 'full experience'.
Well I admit I am not keeping up. When I went to update-play WH2 it cost me like 100 dollars. You are right that is a lot. I guess I am just a sucker for abuse.
I will say, for what it is worth, Paradox has redone their DLC policy to be a bit less money-grubbing. From what I have seen of the dev diaries thus far, it looks like a huge step forward from just the barebones, and the new Paradox policy on DLC is going to be that important shit will not be locked behind the paywall. So any major updates to the core will be in the free update, while the DLC will only affect changes made by the DLC.
Not saying you have to change your mind on it or get it before you feel it is ready, but I think Paradox is actually continuing to live up to their name and somehow change their entire way.
I agree with the overall point though about Warhammer 3. When it was first released, I loved it and thoroughly enjoyed both the campaign and the new factions. But it seems like every update the break the game more (much like they did with Three Kingdoms) and they seem to refuse to fix it. I know that there have been suggestions they take after Paradox and make a team dedicated to bug squishing their games, but CA seems to be offended by the accusation.
I didn't know that about Paradox, they have such a bad reputation I generally avoid them. The problem is with the DLC policies, okay, if they change them fine, but for long term customers it's too little too late.
One thing that has really been driving me away from spending any money on games at all has been that the reality is when you buy the game early on you're not buying the full experience even though you're being charged as if it's a full game.
They know this is the case, which is why the price for the 'base game' drops so dramatically a few months after release if they're not getting enough sales. So as far as I'm concerned that's them knowingly doing false advertising and only changing because of boycotts. To top it off, they not only do this with the DLC content but they often release completely broken titles as well that can barely be called playable yet they still keep releasing the damn DLC content instead of bothering to fix anything.