Tencent has Invested in Grinding Gear Games

Terrible terrible news. When half of the actives belong to some other company you never know what to expect.
Any business decisions made by GGG now has to be discussed with Tencent first. Maybe it won't affect the actual game itself(highly doubt tho), still GGG just handicapped themselves big time. If Tencent is not happy about current GGG's marketing strategy, we may see drastic changes.
Not a final nail in the coffin, but this is indeed very depressing.

That's really sad and disappointing. Hope the Ferrari and new house was worth it.

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Sabranic_SilverDeth wrote:

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deMoxE wrote:

What laws, well maybe start with logic first just because you own 80% of a boat, doesn't mean you can sink it. You can't damage the 20% that you don't own. As far as I know it's illegal and most likely criminal in pretty much any state.

This is not how the real life investment world works... at all...

Tencent will not set out to sink "the boat (TM)."

Their initial rounds of meddling will cause a small dip in returns. This will justify more changes dictated by them, (which they will consider a prudent step in protecting PoE's value as an IP). Each instance of this "fiddling" escalates the negative preference cascade, which will, in Tencent's eyes, necessitate an even more hands-on approach to PoE's development.

This will simply exacerbate the flight of investment further. At some point down the road, it becomes "not worth the costs" and Path of Exile will be mercilessly shutdown without a second thought.

Tencent will blame all of this on GGG's management, not their own interference. It will ALL be done in the name of securing a RoI and I assure you, every bit of it is 100% legal.

Besides, I don't know many big corporations who actually care whether something is legal or not. Most of the US economy could be shut down over anti-trust laws. I don't know of any regulations on major corporations that aren't mere slaps on the wrist.

Welp. This is gonna sound hilarious from a D3 refugee, but now i'm actually hoping that D4 announcement will come sooner rather than later :D.

Money rule the world.My game going to die.Goodbye GGG.Need to start new other game.Suck tencent.I hate China money but not it's culture

From my point of view ... I will refrain from commenting so far, if there are a few "issues in the subject" :)

I feel ... ehh better not :)

I have twice worked for great companies that got bought. The first couple years are awesome, same great culture and even more money flowing around, so much fun! And then corporate claws slowly sink in, management starts making decisions with different priorities. At first it makes sense, then it's still excusable... and then it just starts to suck, the soul is lost and everyone is miserable.

If it does go that way the next couple years will be the best years of poe yet and we won't see the negative effects until 2021 or so.

And maybe tencent really is more hands off. I hope it goes as well as possible.

Grats on the payday, Chris and co. You earned it for sure.

Will Tencent try to change Path of Exile?
No. We spoke to CEOs of other companies that Tencent has invested in, and have been assured that Tencent has never tried to interfere with game design or operations outside of China. We retain full control of Path of Exile and will only make changes that we feel are best for the game.

^^hope GGG got a contract about this^^

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deMoxE wrote:

First of in order to do any bad shit or make decisions at all, they had to remove and replace current management first.

Second of why do you assume bad faith already ? This would implicate management isn't any good at all and never was since ultimately they decided to bring devil on board. This doesn't make any sense, it's video game company not an oil drilling machine. You invest into something that works the last thing you want to do is change management and company direction. Unless it is pure acquisition which this isn't.

What laws, well maybe start with logic first just because you own 80% of a boat, doesn't mean you can sink it. You can't damage the 20% that you don't own. As far as I know it's illegal and most likely criminal in pretty much any state.

1) That's funny because shareholders can actually make decisions about the management.

2) Because Tencent at it's best uses addiction tactics against their customers, at it's worst they run games into the ground. And yes the responsibility of "bringing the devil on board" rests ultimately on the hands of the previous major shareholders, which is why people are angry. And no it's a "company" period, smaller companies often start out with a non-profit main goal, with profit being required, but not the main focus, that's no longer the case. There are several cases where these types of acquisition happen because the bigger company thinks there's a large untapped source of profit, even if said profit would come at the expense of quality for example. Another reason to acquire a company would be to actually remove a competition from another company you own, something the like of EA has done in the past for example.

With 80% you can outvote the other shareholders and aim straight into rocks, and yes that would sink the boat. Company acquisitions where first a majority, such as said 80%, are first bought and then later down the line, the rest is, are pretty common, Tencent itself has done it several times.

Hell people aren't even noticing that even on the case where the original founders did so to gain more founds to increase the scope of the game, they would become awfully dependent on Tencent's money. One way or another it's not their company anymore.

10 years of a good game before selling out isn't a con, I think it's more of people being tired of working on it and wanting to do something else. It's a slow burn out.
Think about WoW, and Blizzard/Activision, for example.

I've only played poe for a few years now. Last January the big news was poe on consoles. I knew that was the beginning of the end.

I'm still probably going to play the next league, it looks cool, and as a company you have to put your best foot forward to make a good deal in these negotiations. IRL I used to work for a private company that puffed its chest out to the tune of a $350 mln buyout (I now work for the parent corporation but have zero involvement with the original company, who has been slowly dying over the past 6 years; my friends who still work there tell me only bad news and layoffs year after year).

I will definitely think twice before spending again on mtx. And all future developments will become tainted, it's impossible to believe otherwise as policy decisions come from the top down, and the top is no longer ggg, it's someone else that ggg has to answer to.