HeathGCF: Like you, I think it's a shady practice to cherry pick some of the more interesting core game elements, then charge extra for them as DLC.
It doesn't help that it also means buying the game on release is going to be a somewhat... indifferent of an experience.
This was my experience with CK2 - when the game came out, it was basically a nice game engine with not so much actual gameplay content to it. So much so that I went through the game files, and was shocked to see how little actual effort went into fleshing out the game.
Judging by the early reviews of Stellaris, the situation with that one was even more egregious. A nice skeleton, but not so much meat on it.
So, in between this and the pricing of the actual playable game, a perfect candidate to wait until the "complete" edition comes out. Hell, I got more games than I will ever have time to play (and they just keep making more and more of them), I won't lose much sleep over waiting a couple of years or so. Assuming I won't just decide to pass on the game altogether and get busy with something out of a studio more interested in publishing a final product than the "long trail" of sales Paradox apparently so loves.
EndlessWaves: Stellaris is over two years old and very popular, so you have to factor two years worth of expansion packs and DLC into what you're seeing.
It's $66.12 with current discounts (and without the fluff like soundtrack) right now. Normally, I'm OK with paying more for extra content, but the issue with Paradox for a while now is that it's not "extra" content - they design their base game around all those holes that -need- to be filled for a decent experience. Something that their base releases are definitely not. And while I'm perfectly happy to pay $40+ for the likes of Dominions 5, I'm disinclined to put my money in supporting what amounts to partial releases.
EndlessWaves: Paradox have always done significant elaboration to their games. EU3's four expansion packs made the final game unrecognisable from the base game.
As somebody who owned several versions of EUII and EUIII, and was happy to support the company in such a way back then, there is a marked difference between releasing a genuine expansion pack once a year or year and a half, for a game that is perfectly playable and fleshed out on its own, and their current practice of selling most of the game as DLCs.
EndlessWaves: As long as it's done well of course. The last Paradox game I played was CK2 back when it was on Gamergate and that was terrible. The interface was littered with features from DLC I didn't own. Nothing like the EU3 model where each version felt like a complete game.
Exactly.
EndlessWaves: If they've improved that aspect of things I'd probably buy this in the current sale.
Going by the early reviews, Stellaris was even worse than CK2 in that respect. I'm sure the game is much more playable now (especially with all the DLCs), but the question that's foremost on my mind with any newer Paradox title is "what core elements are withheld for another DLC?"
Also, their stance on forced telemetry and patching that into CK2 long after I bought it put them on my publisher shitlist. It doesn't help that they plainly don't care much for their customers anymore (Majesty 2 has been sold for years with a broken DLC that you can't access without an unofficial fix, as an example).
In short, to hell with them. Here's hoping some new publishing studio appears, one with less focus on short-term profit and more on maintaining good relationship with all of their customers, not just the diehard fans.
