In light of the paradox thread the other day.
I've never seen a case where a bad or overpriced game is the fault of the devs and not the higher ups who don't plan properly, overwork their teams, rush development etc.
That said I don't know what to make of the HOI4 team. They are for some reason tiny, less than a dozen devs for one of Paradox's biggest games. They put out one medium-sized DLC a year, and contacted a modder to make a small DLC last year. I don't know why they don't expand the team, maybe the higher ups won't let them or maybe they don't want to.
HOI4 probably isn't nearly as profitable as EU4 or CK3 or Stellaris, that's the likely reason. It was met with lukewarm reception on release and it's fairly niche to begin with so it probably never really picked up steam properly.
The space one is good because I get to be a communist slug and make a bunch of little space ships to bring communism to the rest of the galaxy by integrating all biological life into the communist hive mind.
it's no surprise that paradox games attract toxic, reactionary jerks (and I say this as a paradox player myself), but that's been the case for a long time now and the reason the dam is breaking now is that the latest EU4 expansion is not only bad, but actually makes the game significantly worse than if it wasn't there at all
I know it is praxis to shit on gamers but PDX is a very toxic studio itself, some devs/execs have a very known history of being toxic, Johan is famous for it. There have been tons of controversies with PDX burning bridges with content creators too over shitty corporate PR.
Gamers are shit. Do you know what is just as bad as gamers? Shitty toxic companies that treat everyone, their staff and the community like shit.
Footnote PDX is also famous for having absurdly bad working conditions and pay, famously DDRJake quit and being Lead Developer for EU4 and his take away was that his 200 viewer stream plus small YT channel was paying more than a full time job as Lead Dev.
That PDX is trying to claim the high ground here over gamer toxicity is just karma, they pretty much deserve it at this point. I feel sorry for some people still stuck there though.
They're also famous for releasing barebones, broken games and trying to slowly patch them into being good enough while selling DLC. The one that really burns me is Stellaris. That game has basically been a years and years long beta, and it still isn't fixed up properly
I didnt see the thread the other day, but the context for eu4 paradox devs being upset about the negativity surrounding leviathan is that th expansion was clearly released unfinished (look at the reddit eu4 thread about it) which was especially egregious considering they just spun up a seperate solo team just for eu4 development. I dont really blame the devs for the state of the dlc, it seems to be coming from senior PDX to ship before adequate quality control (they just did an IPO this year or last right? The profit drive is pretty strong lately there).
I dont use the paradox forums either so I cant speak to their hostility but I cant say HoI4 players being toxic would surprise me. Individual devs probably shouldnt be trawling forums for feedback, a community manager or team should be taking that and filtering it into less hostile language.
Every game community is either psychotically toxic or full of uncritical stans. I have never seen any in-between.
