Tencent has Invested in Grinding Gear Games

Will Path of Exile become Pay to Win?
No. We will not make any changes to its monetisation on our international servers.

OMG are you(GGG) living in some dream world or what? they own 80% of PoE now they can vote for anything... if PoE is not going to generate income TENCENT want then we will see p2w items im 100% sure, you can check any of their games(expcet ofc League of Legends because it generate enormous $$$ so ofc they dont need to change anything that works like LoL).... to see it will happen here also if peoples goin stop spending moneys just to boycott Tencent

for me i played since beta bought some supporter packs(kinda dont like them at all)but i prefer and spend a LOT for ingame cosmetics stuffs, but yea... like rest of these guys im not going spend single cent until i will see what Tencent want to do with PoE, which can be months or years but i was supporting great indie company, not greedy Chinese giant.

also a long time supporter from closed beta and will also stop supporting this game. im sorry but you dont need my money anymore now you sold out.

I have a sad face. While I'm sure the status quo will be maintained for at least a short while this is certainly a foreboding development. Historically this is only a good thing for the game company that sold out. Usually not for the legacy fans. The new fans will love it though. P2W coming to a POE Auction House near you. Stay tuned!

I can empathize with those who are upset that GGG raised cash by going to an outside investor. But, one of the ironic outcomes of a strong backlash to the former owners of GGG selling a majority stake to Tencent would be that in the future the ethical "NO pay to win" model becomes less attractive to new gaming companies and to potential acquirers of firms built on that business model.

POE may indeed start to falter in the near future. At some point players will stop coming back and signing up anew in large numbers for each new league / expansion, it's only a question of when. And, they've made several recent stumbles and the sum total of all their past additions to the game will at some point (if it hasn't already) cross the line from "increased variety of experiences" to "bloat" for some fraction of the playerbase.

But, with this and similar threads and all the anger they contain lingering on for a while, the narrative if POE starts to falter is more likely to be about how difficult it can be to tap into capital markets once an ethical monetisation scheme is put in place. Ergo, think long and hard before setting up an ethical gaming company because your options for the future will be constrained.

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harddaysnight wrote:

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KillerFit wrote:

Chris Wilson made Business decision and anybody of us would have made!

Wrong. No way in hell I would have made that decision. I'm not some kid who is ignorant about how things work. I was working in engineering tech companies before Chris was born. I worked most of those years as a consultant/contractor. I know how these things work. If it's only about money, there are a lot of ways to make money. I wouldn't have done it, and I know a lot of companies I've worked for wouldn't have done it either.

Are you Chris WIlson or are you plain Ignorant?A man does what he feels right to do!If your own opinion contradicts that,does not mean that the decision was "wrong" or no one would have made it!Seems to me your either hollow in the head or just moving letters,because you did not bother to read my opinion at all!You would have had understood that i do NOT approve of the decision my self,but i understand why he did it! Next time before trying to feel "special" and tell us how "nice" and show off guy you are,try sticking to the OP please!Thank,Amin and don't bother to answer!

This sucks, feeling sold out.

Ah yes, great games such as league of legends, which went rotten the second tencent got its hands on it, and clash of clans, a mobile game that's awful to play and awfully monetized. Really giving me confidence here.

Ah well, guess we'll have to wait and see.

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MangoSpatula wrote:

Tencent seems like the most optimal choice considering all the other gaming companies out there, they are hands-off and GGG is a very good company by itself that benefits a lot from this hands-off relationship.

Seriously, did you not understand that this is an acquisition, not an "investment". Tencent bought GGG. Tencent put itself as one of the "directors" of GGG, officially filed it with New Zealand government. At 80% shareholder, and a director of GGG, Tencent is now pulling the strings. They'll keep Chris and team in place so long as it pleases them and makes profits for them. So there's no guarantee that Tencent will be hands-off in the long term. Just look at their other acquisitions.

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MangoSpatula wrote:

Never did I buy a skin and feel like I was supporting Tencent instead of Riot or something.

If you buy a supporter pack with GGG now, 80% of that (not necessarily directly) goes to Tencent. It doesn't matter what you "feel", it's the fact of the 80% shareholder that matters.

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MangoSpatula wrote:

I've seen a lot of people getting upset, I think a portion of the reasonably upset individuals are the ones whom feel that GGG should stay indie. This makes sense, because GGG represented leaders in altruism in game development, and it's a bit hard for people to embrace a big change like this.

Damn straight I am upset. I don't fault Chris, because it's his decision, his company, but now I choose not to support GGG anymore. And I will probably stop playing PoE because, funny thing is, I don't want to support $800 billion USD gorillas like Tencent in any way, shape, or form.

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MangoSpatula wrote:

Just want to add: if Tencent is going to be helping with the graphics/art budget then.. hot female templar and anime-league, pls GGG

You sort of shot yourself in the foot in this comment since earlier in your post you claimed "hands-off" from Tencent. Can't have it both ways.

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MangoSpatula wrote:

(the anti-China nationalists come off as low-key racists.. or if you use twitch chat you realize some of them are just straight up racist lol).

And you just gave away your politics there, brainwashing thanks to mainstream media I see. Hating China's companies or business practices does not instantly mean that person hates Chinese people. Before you label everyone into neat little categories in your mind, you might want to check your own motivations for calling people "racist".

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cipher_nemo wrote:

At 80% shareholder, and a director of GGG, Tencent is now pulling the strings. They'll keep Chris and team in place so long as it pleases them and makes profits for them.

Well Chris said this is not the case. So either Chris is lying and you know more than we do or you are just wrong. Nevertheless they probably have the legal possibilities, but for that you would need to know the contract.

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If you buy a supporter pack with GGG now, 80% of that (not necessarily directly) goes to Tencent. It doesn't matter what you "feel", it's the fact of the 80% shareholder that matters.

This is wrong. The revenue from supporter packs and mtx goes to GGG. it pays the sssalaries, it pays the office rent, it pays the servers rent, it pays the software licenses, it pays the maintenance and replacement of hardware, it pays acquisition of new hardware and so on. What then is left over, aka earnings, this maybe goes to tencent, depending on the contracts.

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Damn straight I am upset. I don't fault Chris, because it's his decision, his company, but now I choose not to support GGG anymore. And I will probably stop playing PoE because, funny thing is, I don't want to support $800 billion USD gorillas like Tencent in any way, shape, or form.

If you would stop playing PoE, this would at least be honest, in the contradiction to many others, who just wanna stop the support.
But if you do not want to support >500E9$ gorillas, then you also need to stop using google, stop using chrome or any chromium based browser, stop using any Windows or Mac OS based pc's, stop using facebook and amazon, stop using x86 based pc's and many more.

sooo... you can hire new programmers for optimization purposes? xD