Tencent has Invested in Grinding Gear Games

If GGG keeps doing what it did I have high hopes 4600 hours played and easy 400~500$ spend
Try to get at least 6~7K hours by 2020

I can't believe what I just read. I am trying to be optimistic about this but am finding it very difficult. I have never thought twice about buying MTX if I liked the way it looked, but I won't be able to anymore...

Doesn't take much searching to realise the sad truth that Tencent is not the kind of company you want to be giving money.

I tried so hard since reading this post by GGG to convince myself that nothing has changed, by my conscience just won't let me. Luckily all my cosmetics purchased thus far went to GGG and not this evil company... It's like giving money to Facebook

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Khy wrote:

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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.

You spoke to CEOs of other companies? What about speaking to... Well... The freakin company itself you were in neogations with for the last weeks if not months?!

This answer alone makes no sense and shows how fishy the whole deal respectively the announcement of it is. You can only speculate how huge the (guaranteed) upcoming changes will be and what GGG is trying to cover here.

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We retain full control of Path of Exile and will only make changes that we feel are best for the game.

You can't. With Tencent holding 80% of GGG now (source) Chris, Jonathan and Erik might stay in control operatively, but whenever Tencent wants to change a single decision or a complete direction, they just overrule everthing.

The 80% show how all profits will be distributed. It's not uncommon to have an silent majority shareholder, you can even enforce that legally. If they want to make decisions they need 51% not 80. I assume the other 29% are compensation for being legally obligated not interfere in Development/Production/Marketing decisions. It is that simple. Stop Speculating.

So, if they're investing... why?

Was GGG not profitable enough with its previous business model and needed the backing - or was it *too* profitable and another, much larger, company wanted to muscle in, mafia style, to rake in a portion of those profits?

Honestly, whenever I see a Chinese or Korean games company having anything to do with a western games company I get *hugely* leery - because those for those countries games are all about grinding in a way that GGG never imagined; or the quick work-around of pay to advance more easily (or ignore grinding altogether), and gambling boxes scattered all over like barrels and boxes in PoE.

With such a backer, while GGG may *say* they're going to remain independent and in control, that cannot be factual - why bother investing if there is no control? These companies are going to want to change PoE and if they can't they'll get rid of the leadership of GGG to do so.

just like every good game out there, they all sell out eventually, florensia sold out to a company and they screwed there fan player base over, and had everything erased from there servers and had to start from scratch again. I sure hope you don't sell out like they did, by the looks of things its heading down that road. best of luck to yah.

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BlaqWolf wrote:

So, if they're investing... why?

Was GGG not profitable enough with its previous business model and needed the backing - or was it *too* profitable and another, much larger, company wanted to muscle in, mafia style, to rake in a portion of those profits?

Honestly, whenever I see a Chinese or Korean games company having anything to do with a western games company I get *hugely* leery - because those for those countries games are all about grinding in a way that GGG never imagined; or the quick work-around of pay to advance more easily (or ignore grinding altogether), and gambling boxes scattered all over like barrels and boxes in PoE.

With such a backer, while GGG may *say* they're going to remain independent and in control, that cannot be factual - why bother investing if there is no control? These companies are going to want to change PoE and if they can't they'll get rid of the leadership of GGG to do so.

The company is profitable (this can be achieve if the make 1$ more than they spend) the investor wants in on those profits, so they invest vast amount of money to provide financial security for the next 5-10 years in exchange for a share.
At this point all profits will be split 80/20 or to be exact 80.00%/13.17%/3.41%.
The board of directors Consists of 4 people which all have 1 vote when it comes to decisions 2 people from Tencent Chris and Jonathan. In order a decision to pass the votes must be at least 3/1. So Tencent can't push any decision individually without consent from either Chris or Jonathan.
I don't know why people are going crazy over this.

I find nothing positive in this announcement :(

You guys have been, to quote my 6 year old, EPIC at developing this game from the initial closed beta when I stumbled across you. I really hope that doesn't change, but in all honesty I have a sinking feeling in my gut that this marks the end of the what is the best game I have played since Ultima Online

How many of the equity interest do they take? >20% or more ?

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foetal wrote:

I find nothing positive in this announcement :(

New meme league names?

Greed
Aquisition
Armageddon
Invasion Reloaded
Betrayal

I wouldn't be so hasty to write off GGG completely. As in "let's wait and see" and "give them a chance" and "it can't be that bad"... But that's the fanboi in me talking.

The grown-ass skeptical (and cynical) man in me however has outgrown the naive child long time ago. I've been gaming for 32 years since I was 5 year old and in more than 3 decades I have never seen any deal like this end well for the small company or for their product. And no, I'm not talking only about EA gobbling studios, ruining entire franchises and shutting them down, plenty of other examples out there. It's not even limited only to gaming... And no, I'm not talking only about Disney gobbling studios, ruining entire franchises and shutting them down, plenty of other examples out there (...feels like I'm repeating myself). Hell, I've lived through this kind of "investments" or acquisitions 3 times in my professional career and it pretty much always ends badly or downright a complete disaster. My point is that it's a proven fact over and over and over again ad nauseam that such deals always end badly, no exceptions. The big fish eats the little fish then shits the little fish, goes to find another fish to cannibalize, rinse and repeat etc. And Tencent ain't exactly popular with gamers but afaik they haven't done anything outrageously bad (so far). So I guess benefit of the doubt...

Speaking of Tencent, tho they may haven't done something bad to the big games they own, as a company they are tied to the Chinese government. I hate to sound racist, but the Chinese way of handling private information and to enforce censorship ain't exactly loved in the West, just sayin'. And tbh GGG, your biggest audience ain't exactly Chinese either so keep that in mind. It's one thing to fuck up your game entirely like for example Bioware did with Mass Effect and then the fans to hate you because of a ruined game. It's another thing to start losing your player base not because your game suddenly started to suck, but because you sold your soul for some shekels to a company that has strong ties with one of the most censoring and intrusive in the private lives of its citizens governments in the world.

And last but not least. This obligatory cliche PR copypasta post "Don't worry, guys, we still have the final word"... was it really necessary? Please don't treat your customers like complete idiots. Even at 51% shares your "last word" means nothing anymore, let alone 80%... It hasn't been a day since the acquisition and you're already acting like a corporate shill, just copy/pasting what your new multimillion PR department told you to say. Don't do this shit if you still care for your fans. Like I said, I've been through this kind of acquisitions more times than you and since I've been in a management position myself, I had to make a bunch of posts like this one. And I can tell you first hand - it's bullshit and anyone with half a functioning brain cell doesn't take it seriously, neither the employees nor the customers. So... cut it out.

Anyway, I will be very glad to be proven wrong. First time for everything. But you shouldn't get your hopes up, I know I won't. If anything, learn from history and experience. Personally, I'll continue to support GGG for at least a few more leagues, although... am I supporting GGG at this point? Do they even need our support anymore? Not sure. Very confusing and questionable decision to say the least. I'll just be a fence-sitter on this one - won't run around in panic spreading doom and gloom (yet) but I can't say that I'm quite happy with that decision either.