Would be fun if Ataribox was sneaky Steambox, where Valve is trying a bit different concept of Steambox, with specific brand image and specific target group. Get more traction on linux gaming platform, have have number of support staff that can solve linux-specific issues before they roll out with more general-use box.

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[quote=Philadelphus]

Quoting: ColomboYes? If a game's not in a state I think I'll enjoy at the moment I buy it, no sale. I'm not going to bank on it changing in the future. If it does, great; more bonus for me. If not, I got exactly what I expected to get.

Good for you, but this isn't the case for majority of people. Why I am so sure about this assumptions? Just look at the damn gaming in past years!

Kickstarter, early access, people praising active devs that respond to people and fix stuff constantly. Steam reviews.

Kickstarter is the best example, because it basically set X_current = 0 (since release is a bad descriptor) and it all depends on perceived value after some time T multiplied by trust in dev.

Early access is in similar state. Just listen to people buying into half-finished game which promised continuous update and then look at how review trashed after dev stopped updating stuff for a while and look at forum of that game to see all the complains.

Or just look how important is reputation of dev studios.

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and I doubt more than a tiny fraction of other people do

You can doubt that, but you will be wholly incorrect to think it is only tiny fraction of people.

Lets make a small mental exercise, a model if you like:

Assume game from dev who will provide post-release support

1. Game is released, there are some bugs. Lets name perceived value at this state X_release

2. You know that game will be patched and bugs corrected, maybe a subsystem or two reworked a bit and improved. Lets name perceived value after all the bug fixing as X_supported. Assume that X_release < X_supported.

3. Knowing that game will be supported after release, you can count with X_supported instead of X_release. So you can check your perceived value of game X_supported * company_trust against game price and decide if the game is worth it for the price.

Note that company_trust is how trustworthy is the company to get into X_supported.

Thus: If X_supported * company_trust > game_price => buy_game, otherwise no_buy

As we previously stated, X_release > X_supported. So if what you say is true:

X_release < game_price => buy_game, otherwise don't_buy

Which means that the X_release perceived value must be sufficient.

It is now obvious that the difference X_supported - X_release * company_trust is important. If X_release < game_price, but X_supported * company_trust > game_price, you wouldn't buy game without trusting company to fix it.

Now, you can look at Paradox games and compare how well received are those in main series (EU, HoI, lately CK and Vic a bit as well) vs their other titles (march of eagels, the japanese one, EU:Rome). Even when they are from the same company, people just did not trust Paradox enough to buy into those knowing that Paradox won't support them for long, unlike EU, HoI and Vic. While traditionally, while EU1,2,3 and HoI1,2 were often released in kind of beta-state and paradox was accused to overload QA to players, people bought into them because Paradox eventually fixed it and reworked even non-functional concepts.

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Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: Colombo

Patches cannot objectively be both free and not-free at the same time.

Here, there is the logical error you are making.

How can it be a logical error to essentially quote one of the foundational axioms of symbolic logic? I can imagine it being an error, but not a logical one.

Eh, first of all, "logical error" is used in common speech as well.

But if you want... if you use improper logic based on assumed, but not stated axioms, which applicability could be disputed, you will get incorrect answer.

Assuming that A can be either "true" or "false", or in our case, "free" or "paid" depends on expectation of all people. Someone can see it as part of continued product support, something that is part of the price of game or previously released DLC (especially since Patches went into two modes, hotfixes and big patch that comes along DLCs. Sometimes, you have to wait several DLCs for specific bug, introduced in previous DLC, to be corrected).

So A can be both "true" and "false" at the same time, depending on assumptions of other people. If person X consider A to be true, than A|X = TRUE. If Y consider it false, then A|Y = FALSE. Obviously, from this example, A can be both true or false. You will get global answer if you integrate through all people: A| \int_\Omega.

Obviously this goes beyond propositional logic. But, why assume that this problem could be solvable in propositional logic?

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Patches cannot objectively be both free and not-free at the same time.

Here, there is the logical error you are making.

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I'm sorry, but what? I get patches for each Paradox game I own every couple of months that I can download without paying a cent. That seems like (one of) the definition(s) of "free" to me.

Um... are they not free? Last time I looked, Paradox has never charged us for a patch.

Last time I looked, post-release support was critical to continued success of game. Game that was released broken and not patched up was often heavily criticized. If devs announce that they will stop supporting game (i.e., patching bugfixes) when there is a long list of bugs (especially after newly released DLC/expansion), they would often trash their reputation and sales.

If there is such expectation, and previously, while Paradox was known for releasing games in state that can be described as open beta, it was also known for eventually fixing all the bugs and people bought their knowing and expecting that, then it is not "free". It is part of the price I bought the game for.

I say it again, if on one say you say that these patches are "free", but on other said complain that some other company stopped support and didn't release patches (or that some product is less good because it wasn't patched), than something is wrong with your opinion consistency.

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niarbeth: That was one of the longest self-wanks I have read on internet.

Paradox removed westernization and added "idea" spread (whatever it is called). But you can't interact with it unless you have several DLCs.

Thats like taking away bathroom in your house, improving it, adding bathtub, but locking away shower, bathtub and water unless you "unlock" it with additional payment. Also, in the process, electricity in living room does not work any more.

Many people have stated before that Paradox DLC policy, although a good idea, contains several broken premises. And that Paradox is haemorrhaging fans, while those who are staying are becoming more and more extreme (extremization is common process in this case, similar to political parties).

Also, that nonsense that patches are somehow FREE... could you please STOP repeat this nonsense? Especially when the same people were so rabid about criticizing Armello devs for not supporting Armello on GoG any more?

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My mouse doesn't work at all. Game looks good, but mouse doesn't really work. Can't move my mouse and it moves by few pixels at max. Shame:(

I hope that devs will able to solve the problem.

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Indonesia strong. Useless water tiles can be replaced with housing and food. Land then can be used for mining. Strong!

Balista elephants also strong! Seems like they remove big weakness of catapults (fragility and movement).

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b b but, over the shoulder cam is horrible. And First person view is much better.

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