Kotaku unveils Path of Exile's Third Act

I worked with these guys once, right at the (relative) beginning of this project, in late 2007. The fourth of the four friends was gone and it was just the three of them and myself in one of their garages. Back then they were a year in and intending to release definitely sometime in 2008. From what I understand/remember their initial funding came from a business Chris had duping Diablo 2 items and selling them online for real money. Questionable ethics aside, they had a real advantage in terms of resource.

The lead programmer spent his time sleeping (snoring) on a couch and playing Team Fortress 2 all day. The only one who seemed to get much done was the artist. I was straight out of game school, put to work on a useless tool with no actual real task other than "clean this code up." Eventually I lost motivation and found other stuff to do and they told me they would have no more work for me after that other stuff and that was fine with me.

Credit to them, their initial goal with this was to basically create a next-gen Diablo 2 where THEY sell the items (pre-empting our current microtransactions). The business plan was ahead of its time but they have more than missed the boat, as now that Diablo 3 is out and everything has microtransactions and DLC, there seems to be nothing special about the product they are offering.

Several years later I'm unimpressed with what they have achieved. With the resources they had they could have done for more than they have. Instead they put out this trash and then go around publicizing it as though its something to be proud of. They also had the nerve to give "lectures" to people at the last games industry conference even though, despite that they have created this... software they haven't really achieved any real success and therefore, in my book, are thoroughly unqualified to be giving any advice. Indeed I went to the lead programmer's talk (which was about skilltree design, because that makes sense...?) and it was literally the worst one of the whole conference. He got ripped up in the question time afterwards fairly badly and I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

Unfortunately, news stories like this on such a well-read website such as Kotaku will only serve to inflate their already over-sized egos, when really what these guys have always needed is a reality check (and some exercise, christ even the skinny guy 5 years ago is a fatass now).

They like to paint themselves, and indeed the article above helps to paint them as a few rogues who started out with nothing and have played by their own rules and come out on top after a long 6 year slog. The fact is, from my own (admittedly limited) experience, the anecdotes in industry I have heard and the FACTS (6 years and still not released) they were actually a bunch of lazy arrogant snobs who started out with plenty of resource, squandered it, ignored the advice and refused the help of people who knew more about what they were doing (playing by their own rules, remember?) and after it all...still really haven't accomplished much at all.

"Perfectionists?" I would be embarrassed to use that word about myself on the verge of releasing a product like Path of Exile.