Paradox Interactive

Paradox Interactive AB is a video game publisher based in Stockholm, Sweden. The company started out as the video game division of Target Games and then Paradox Entertainment (now Cabinet Entertainment) before being spun out into an independent company in 2004. Through a combination of founding new studios and purchasing independent developers, the company has grown to comprise six first-party development studios, including their flagship Paradox Development Studio, and acts as publisher for games from other developers.

Paradox is best known for releasing historically themed strategy video games, especially grand strategy games, and has published strategy games in different settings, as well as games of other genres such as role-playing video game and management simulators. They typically continue development of their games after initial release with the creation of downloadable content, and are also known for creating games that are easy to mod.

Why They Suck

 * 1) Paradox are infamous for their exploitation on DLCs and Season passes by cutting several in-game contents and selling them as DLCs. For example, if you wanted the full version of Crusader Kings 2 with all the DLCs, You have to pay over 300$.
 * 2) * This also applies to some of their older games, such as Victoria 2 and Hearts of Iron 3, which Paradox intentionally removed several unit spriters and sold them as a "skin pack" DLCs. These DLCs is something that was free in the original version.
 * 3) Similar to EA, they have a very horrible customer service. When you try to text their services, they will rarely, if ever respond to you.
 * 4) As of lately, Paradox usually rushes their games in an unfinished state and "complete" it later via DLC releases, the most recent example being Imperator: Rome, where players quickly found out after the release that a lot of basic features from Paradox's earlier grand strategy titles were missing. A year later after the release, Paradox released Deluxe Edition DLCs and Magna Graecia DLCs to "patch" the game.
 * 5) * This also affected their DLC release, as it was frequently rushed and being cut in half and sold later. The most infamous example being the Leviathan DLC for Europa Universalis IV, which introduced a lot of game-breaking bugs and corrupted player's save files.
 * 6) They rarely, if ever, patch any of the bugs in their games for free as they occasionally include bug fixes in DLCs.
 * 7) They actively defended their DLCs exploitation by hypocritically claiming that they "wanted to extend the replayability of (their) games", while what they actually do is dissect several in-game contents and lock them behind paywalls.
 * 8) * After being asked about the complaints on DLC prices, Ebba Ljungerud, Paradox's CEO, tried to justify the price by stating that "We want to make really great games for our fans, and we can't do that if we don't charge something for the development" which is a very poor excuse to their fans.
 * 9) * In an interview with Fredrik Wester, Paradox's executive and former CEO about the same topic, Wester asserted that their current approach is "fair and balanced" which again is a very poor excuse to try and justify what they do.
 * 10) They only provided a limited amount of online servers for their multiplayer sessions, and they also forbid users to rent or create new local servers to host "community" servers on their own.
 * 11) Like many companies, they released a few bad games under their name, with the most notable examples being Gettysburg: Armored Warfare, Empire of Sin, Sword of the Stars II: Lords of Winter, Impire, and Ship Simulator Extremes.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) Despite their reputation, they actually release mostly high-quality games in general. The most notable being Cities: Skylines, the Crusader Kings series, Prison Architect, the Age of Wonders series, mh:awesomegames:Stellaris, the Hearts of Iron series, and more.
 * 2) They actively supported the modding community by trying to make games that are open and easy to edit (moddable), from tweaking a saved game to creating a new scenario.
 * 3) Some of their games doesn't suffer as much with the Paradox DLC Syndrome and actually have decent or good expansion packs like Pillars of Eternity with The Winter March Part I and II expansions.