Streamer priority confirmed. PoE is free to play, so play it for free, but Boycott GGG.

I had a nice long rant typed, but it doesn't matter who I am or what I've done. If you know, you know. If you don't, you've still been screwed over all the same by this event. You've still been treated with utter contempt by a company you supported.

ICYMI:

https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/msboji/ggg_letting_streamers_skip_queue_is_messed_up/ -- and if you don't want to bother with that, here's the money shot: several clips of the most popular streamers being messaged by GGG to relog to bypass an extremely long log-in queue. And doing just that.

If being openly shown that streamers get preferential access to a new league isn't your breaking point to stop supporting PoE, if 'reset the league' would be enough for you, then I seriously question what it'd take.

GGG has openly shown they 100% choose profits over people, which for a free to play game shouldn't even be possible. YOU are GGG's profits.

It's time to remind them of that. One person can't make a difference. I, more than many, know this. That's why I'm saying it to all of you.

Don't take this as just 'GGG being GGG' and 'of course they give streamers first dibs'. Don't see this as the price you pay to play 'the best ARPG around'. Surely being treated like a lower priority for what should be a fair start for all is too high a price to pay. Because it's not just that they did this; it's that they knew you'd see them doing it via streams and didn't care that you'd see it. They're assuming you'll just get over it, forget about it once you're back to playing. Like the good little PoE junkies you are.

I can only conclude that is exactly what they think of you. How helpless and stupid they think you are.

Exiles: Boycott GGG. It claims to be a free to play game. So play it for free. See how that turns out for them while they're coddling their toxic, parasitic mouthpieces.

GGG have shown you who they are now. Show them that it's unacceptable.

Boycott GGG.

"

Chris wrote:

So while this was all going on, we managed to also commit a pretty big faux pas and enrage the entire community by allowing streamers to bypass that really slow queue we mentioned. The backstory is that we have recently been doing some proper paid influencer marketing, and that involves arranging for big streamers to showcase Path of Exile to their audiences, for money (they have #ad in their titles). We had arranged to pay for two hours of streaming, and we ran right into a login queue that would take two hours to clear. This was about as close as you could get to literally setting a big pile of money on fire. So we made the hasty decision to allow those streamers to bypass the queue. Most streamers did not ask for this, and should not be held to blame for what happened. We also allowed some other streamers who weren't involved in the campaign to skip the queue too so that they weren't on the back foot.

The decision to allow any streamers to bypass the queue was clearly a mistake. Instead of offering viewers something to watch while they waited, it offended all of our players who were eager to get into the game and weren't able to, while instead having to watch others enjoy that freedom. It's completely understandable that many players were unhappy about this. We tell people that Path of Exile league starts are a fair playing field for everyone, and we need to actually make sure that is the reality.

We will not allow streamers to bypass the login queue in the future. We will instead make sure the queue works much better so that it's a fast process for everyone and is always a fair playing field. We will also plan future marketing campaigns with contingencies in mind to better handle this kind of situation in the future.

It's completely understandable that many players are unhappy with how today has gone on several fronts. This post has no intention of trying to convince you to be happy with these outcomes. We simply want to provide you some insight about what happened, why it happened and what we're doing about it in the future. We're very unhappy with it too.

(Bold mine for emphasis. I have edited out the technical explanations – you can find them at the link below)

The most important part of this statement is an admission of guilt. These are very rare in official company responses; admission of guilt leads straight to culpability and potential legal action, typically. But admissions of guilt are now part of GGG’s official post-mortem statements, so users expect them and do not see them as potential avenues of attack. They are, essentially, part of the image. Sincerity, it would seem, is optional – as proven by what GGG said next.

They knew two things on launch day: they'd paid an outside streamer a lot of money to play on launch day for two hours, and their launch days are traditionally very rocky. Reading between the lines, and knowing that they could make a 'hasty decision' to let this streamer skip the massive queue, we can see that they were prepared for a rocky launch and had a contingency plan. The decision might have been hasty but the system was always in place. This isn’t surprising; they likely need to have a backdoor to check what’s going on internally. That they were so quick to tap that system not only to fulfil a legal obligation but also give their 'top streamers' priority access (for no discernibly good or smart reason) indicates to me that they had at least considered the possibility that they’d need to do something against GGG's ethics based on this agreement.

The addition of other streamers was particularly egregious. They were not legally bound to be there, and it seems to me that they were added not to 'leave them on the back foot' but so as not to create envy and bitterness in GGG's regular, unpaid revenue streams. It would be a very bad look if an outsider got log-in privileges to an otherwise locked server and your most watched streamers did not. Immediate schism, but not between players and streamers (which is an acknowledged and almost encouraged schism between elitists and plebs) but between actual players and ring-ins. This would look like GGG chose a complete outsider over their own faithful streamers. Absolutely unacceptable.

The problem is GGG couldn't easily facilitate all of this without everyone seeing. They could have informed their chosen few of the decision privately but everyone watching would have seen the top streamers suddenly get in all at once and form their own conclusions. So of course GGG did openly; the damage was done by then, although players (and probably most streamers) didn't know it.

Let's address the worst line in there: 'literally setting a big pile of money on fire'. Now and then GGG try to skew candid and honest (yet another gamble), but in this case they just plain showed their hand. Not allowing a paid streamer their play time even if no one else had that playtime on a free to play game that is 'fair for all' would indeed be a massive financial hit. Had they allowed this person in and no one else and said simply, 'we had no choice', I think people would be at least somewhat more forgiving. Instead they doubled down and let a bunch of non-paid folk in, not to mention their cohorts, because that too avoided setting some piles of money on fire down the track. So instead of simply doing what they were legally obligated to do and admitting THAT was the mistake, GGG went overboard, admitted it was 'for money', and then, and only then, claimed there was a mistake. No, GGG. You made several here. But the big one was gambling on your servers being stable on launch day. You gambled on that and you lost. You might still have your big pile of money, but in that moment, everyone saw who you really are.

To suggest that they did this to 'offer viewers something to watch while they waited' is an insult, flat-out. No one likes to watch someone else doing something they themselves really wish they could. It's like rubbing it in their faces. No, not 'like'; that's exactly what it is. And it's made all the worse by the fact that this 'offer to watch' confirmed something many players suspected but didn't want to believe: GGG do in fact give streamers priority treatment beyond relatively harmless things like mtxes. Do and can and did. I remain astounded that anyone could type that line and not see it for the 'massive faux pas' that it is. Astounded.

Finally, the last line: 'we're very unhappy too'. After all this talk of setting piles of money on fire and giving streamers priority access and seeing this as somehow a 'gift' to all the other players, I'm left wondering what exactly GGG are 'very unhappy about': are they unhappy that they were forced to make this decision? Because they weren't -- they put themselves in that position. Are they unhappy that we all got to see them choose 'a pile of money' over their own integrity? That's a pretty selfish thing to be unhappy about. Are they actually unhappy that so many people were unhappy? Well, whose fault was that? There is little to no empathy in that last line. I've no doubt that Chris and GGG are very unhappy, but I seriously question whether they're unhappy for the same reasons as their faithful, loyal Exiles, past and present.

Summary: typical admission of guilt, candid explanation, a few moments of Freudian truth, and a promise to do better. Feel free to accept the apology and believe the promise to do better. Just be aware that this was not a mistake in the moment alone. This was a chain of bad calls, and the worst of them was neither rushed nor forced. It was motivated by a need or desire to make 'a big pile of money.'

Full statement:https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3082616

On April 20th, 20 users were 'banned' (suspended for the duration of the league – 3 months, roughly) for abusing an exploit. It is known that at least some of these users were among the priority queue for streamers and their friends/family/guild members, and one of them insulted their viewers when the unfairness of the priority queue was brought up. This is both only to be expected and very convenient for GGG, who needed a scapegoat and a win after the streamer priority queue debacle. I'm reminded of that parable about the frog carrying the scorpion across the river only to be stung to death by the scorpion halfway across, but I can’t tell in this case which is the frog and which is the scorpion.

Whatever the exploit, users were quick to point out that yet again the damage had been done. Whatever ill-gotten goods these people created/acquired, they’re already in the market. Still, for a brief moment, GGG looked like 'the good guys' again – for doing the bare minimum expected of them when someone is 'caught' cheating. In fact, many people also pointed out that had a non-streamer been caught cheating, they'd have just been banned outright, permanently. Just more evidence of GGG giving their revenue-generating streamers preferential treatment.

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3087148

A boycott would not bring GGG down, no. Absolutely not, and if I thought it could, I wouldn’t call for one -- I still care about the people working there and I want them to continue to working on this game, given it seems to be all they'll be working on for the foreseeable future. Company destruction is typically not the intention of a boycott. The intention is to make enough of a dent in their revenue that they can’t but help notice it and want to change their ways as a result. But even that isn't really the goal in this case. The goal here in fact is not what GGG do, but what players do. This is all about not rewarding bad behaviour. GGG treated their normal player base, regardless of support status, with open contempt that day, and they did it to save themselves a lot of money, or to prevent the loss of potential revenue.

If you like the mtxes or support packs, that's fair enough. You are buying them for your own pleasure, and getting 'your money’s worth'. But if you're a supporter because you've always been a supporter or because you think GGG are morally upstanding or have your best interests at heart, I think you should definitely consider playing for free from now on.

As for GGG's financials, they’re public record and I’ll link them below. As others have noted upon trolling through this (and likely other) documents, GGG pull in roughly 77 million USD from customers a year. So yeah, they're doing just fine without or without your few hundred a year chucked in. Surely it's worth more to you than to them...

https://app.companiesoffice.govt.nz/companies/app/service/services/documents/A23178E0C67CE83ACBE2FCC3485368F7