Yeah I’m not too upset with Paradox’s strategy here. I am of mixed feelings about it though.
It makes it next to impossible to get into as a new player, because you go to the store page and see that the game costs $250 for all content. But each of those content drops were spaced out, well executed, and usually come with major changes to the base game formula to accommodate them. For someone who has been playing the game for 10 years, each DLC is exciting and fresh, and costs about $20 for another 8 months of new enjoyment in your favorite game.
But anyone looking at it as a new player is going to see the bulk cost of the game and, rightfully so I think, decide “nah, fuck that”.
Rimworld also comes to mind here. Rimworld has like 8 DLC packs that collectively add more content to the game than the game even started with. I don’t own most of them because I don’t play Rimworld all that often. But for someone who does play it often, they’re genuinely good expansions.
I’d love to see more games like Terraria, which gets sold for $5 on the regular and has had over a decade of love-labor free updates that fundamentally change the way the game works, but I understand how that may not be financially responsible for larger studios. For bigger projects I’m not that mad at paying $20 twice a year for quality expansions, so long as they are in fact quality.
You also can’t throw it up if you have too much, which is the body’s safety regulation for alcohol poisoning. Same reason you can technically vape alcohol, but it’s hilariously dangerous and should never ever be done. It’s really easy to kill yourself with alcohol when you bypass the liver with it.