Streamer priority confirmed. PoE is free to play, so play it for free, but Boycott GGG.
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It would also be surprising if TENCENT had no influence on Chris' decisions, after all TENCENT holds 80% (!) of GGG. After all, the shareholders want to be served and their happiness (dividends) is paramount. A pact with the devil :/
PRO: Financial power for future projects CON: Strong influence by the investor |
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" To Tencent China's Market is much more important than western market. They really don't care about you. Christ can do whatever he want with it, that is the deal. Chris Wilson isn't kicking himself. Why would he? The company you've knew is booming, became bigger and better under Chris's superior management... just not the way you wanted. He is still a shareholder, just not the major shareholder. He isn't averse to acquisition of wealth and and money, a contributing factor to what GGG become. Are you guys all anti-profit? See what is wrong with this? What is important for a Business, you want more Profit not less. The sound of money. Ka-Ching! Ka-Ching! Ka-Ching! Blizzard was a small indie company too, but they grew up. That kid is never coming back. |
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Blizzard took a lot of heat and similar calls for boycotts when it trashed D3... the original D3... not the published one. The BlizzardNorth crew left it when B/A demanded that they monetize it like WoW and the project was cancelled. B/A didn't even bat an eye. They made D3 without BN's help. And it showed.
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" Again, I think the simplest answer here is the one that makes the most sense based on what we know about Tencent. They tried to brand themselves internationally with movies (eg Tencent Pictures) but soon learned that, surprise, Westerners didn't find that as palatable as a more familiar name (eg Legendary). Same deal with games: they will be exactly as hands-off as they can be as long as their investment pays off. They know their recognition clout is restricted to China. But that clout is damn near absolute, and anyone wanting to break into that massive market must play by their rules. Or some other local publisher, such as Netease. It's what happens when that investment starts to falter that should concern Exiles, but of course they are why it won't. This is why I encouraged people to keep supporting PoE after GGG sold out -- it was in their best interests to do so. It still is, if they're fine with being treated like dumb little open wallets happy to take second place purely because they don't make GGG as much money. If I like a game, it'll either be amazing later or awful forever. There's no in-between. I am Path of Exile's biggest whale. Period. Last edited by Foreverhappychan#4626 on May 17, 2021, 9:07:51 PM
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" Buying Foreign Brand is much faster than building it themselves. It is the same trick used by western companies. Using Chinese products but using Western brand, let them reposition themselves as premium brands in new markets. Not knowing any better, consumers end up paying more. The negative attitude and irrationality of Made in China products are silly. As the Chinese start buying local companies everywhere. What are they gonna do? It is now their money, your product, made in your country. Does it matter who made it, as long as it make money? " Tencent and Alibaba totally didn't get in trouble wth the Chinese regulators and anti monopoly law. " That isn't exactly accurate. That is the Vivendi vs BlizzardNorth drama. Vivendi want to scrap D3 because they think it is trash. So BlizzardNorth crew want and demand to make NEW games instead. Vivendi didn't allow it so they left and form their own companies to do so. More than 30 BlizzardNorth crew left during the falling out and D3 had to be shelved. This is during 2003. That monetization happen after BlizzardNorth crew left and Blizzard bought in new employees to fill in the gaps. Development of the new Diablo 3 didn't really start until 2006 when they bought in Jay Wilson. Activision Blizzard didn't demanded that they monetize it like WoW and They really want to make Diablo 3 a MMO. That didn't come to fruition. Last edited by awesome999#2945 on May 18, 2021, 2:35:04 AM
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My experience with performance of their servers stopped my play 2 leagues ago. All the MTX I bought only makes it worse to do juiced maps. All the normal sized tabs I bought are useless because they cannot be converted to quads. The only MTX that I wasn't experiencing buyers remorse over was Quad tabs. But what's the point of them when the server throttles and sputters because I'm doing my mapping "correctly?"
To hear this problem is only worse now, and that they're giving bandwidth and cutsies to streamers goes further than I would have thought. They should just give us an offline version single player SSF that can't be converted to trade league. They can't be trusted to fix this issue, they have the money, they won't do it and I accept that even if I don't like it. If they want to sell more MTX to people who know what using their MTX on THEIR servers entails(lag) they'll do it. Just have 2 more league types for characters SPSSFHC and SPSSFSC, easy. But as it stands I'm not going to play or give them any more of my money on my account, my wife's account, my brother's account.... I can't imagine you losing money if you did what everyone who played Diablo 2 wanted from Diablo 3. The rubber hit the road 2 years ago when you couldn't keep the servers stable AT ALL GGG! Give us offline, if people play the offline version you also free up bandwidth. I know you tech elitists LOVE your control over EVERYTHING but your control over server performance has lost you customers, let it go. IGN @ExileProz
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Let's be realistic. It was a case of "Share your product with us and we both win or we'll just copy it and sell it to a huge market that you can't access without us".
Which never struck me as particularly bad. Like I said, good business. And did you know that the term "pidgin" describing a crude form of English came from my ancestors trying to say the word "business"? Or that, much further back, they made this little thing called the Silk Road to trade with, among others, ancient Rome? Good business as a means of not overtly conquering others is woven *deep* into Chinese history. So while the Tencent acquisition shocked at least some of us, it was probably the goal all along from Tencent's almost eldritch panoptic position. First they copied Western IPs; then they collaborated with them; then they acquired them. But if they can't acquire, they can still copy. Joys of a massive isolated market. This isn't the same as a monopoly. It's more like what the animators and toymakers of the late 70s and early 80s did when they plundered Asian IPs for ideas. Pre internet, the world was a slew of isolated markets. And China is still, in a way, pre internet in the current sense. Fun fact: there's an American song about how great a city is that was incredibly popular in the 80s. It was used by over 50 cities across the world. I'll pop a link when I find it again. It's incredible the shit people get away with when there's no easy way of tracing the source. A little closer to home: NetEase's Diablo Immortal might have been made with Blizzard's exacting oversight, but it bears an uncanny resemblance to other NetEase games. Chicken and eggception here: they reused UI and design ideas they created to mimic Diablo for an official Diablo product...copy first, collaborate next. NetEase are big but not buy-Blizzivision big. Tencent though? Swallowed GGG whole, with only a few tough strands of Wilson-flavoured gristle caught between Tencent's ever-grinding teeth. Important strands though, in the same way that it's the grit that makes the pearl. For now. The real endgame for GGG is almost certainly a PoE that doesn't rely on any one person to be profitable. You know. Just in case. And honestly they should have reached that point well before the acquisition. The workaholic boss might not think they need time off but the workers themselves would probably see otherwise. That and what's the point of making a ridiculously popular product if you can't free yourself from it to do other things? GaaS are unhealthy in a number of ways, but surely one of the worst is the effect it has on the person considered its "lead". Funny; another word for lead is "leash". See also: a little miserable; golden handcuffs. But this is all side chatter to the topic at hand: the rhetorical question of whether or not GGG has lost its way. Correct response: it's a false premise; the way changes based entirely on what's best for the business. It's just that until recently(?) that way was also what's best for the players. Right now, I think for GGG those two are now distinctly different, if not exactly diametrically opposed. If I like a game, it'll either be amazing later or awful forever. There's no in-between. I am Path of Exile's biggest whale. Period. Last edited by Foreverhappychan#4626 on May 19, 2021, 1:14:25 AM
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"This is so needlessly infantalising. GGG is a business out to make money, of course, but they haven't done anything to make me think they see anyone as 'dumb little open wallets'. They ran an advertising campaign and the people involved in it were, naturally, given access to the product. Same way the person you see driving the car in a car ad didn't have to go out and buy it themself. How about 'treated like people who don't flip their shit because one day there are a million people further in the game than them instead of 999,999'? Last edited by GusTheCrocodile#5954 on May 19, 2021, 3:55:57 AM
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I keep thinking that GGG missed a huge opportunity along the way with streaming. Instead of relying so much on others to cover the game for them, they should have started a dedicated PoE stream themselves. Imagine Chris popping onto Twitch once in a while to chat with everybody that tunes in. Not just ZiggyD, or Ziz, or the same baeclast crew that he always interviews with. But made the whole community feel part of something.
Then they could have switched developers to chat for a bit and explain game mechanics or some shit. All the while they could have been getting subs and donations from those in the chat that would support such a connection with the developers. |
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" I want to say this without comment on the specific line 'dumb little open wallets'... You've done a very fallacious misdirection here by focusing on the 'natural' consequences of a decision. Imagine this phrasing: 'of course you scraped up your knees and elbows when I tripped you - that is, naturally, the outcome when you fall onto concrete'. Saying that there are natural effects stemming from a cause doesn't address whether or not the cause is justified in the first place. The cause of this thread isn't that streamers were paid to play the game, it's that they were given a gameplay advantage. In a free to play game, access to servers should be fair and equal. Phrased differently and bolded, No one should be denied access to servers at any time because they aren't on twitch/youtube. If that statement constitutes flipping my shit or asking too much then I would suggest your standards are too low. Is there anything they could give paid streamers that would upset you? How about a level boost to 70 with all quests completed? |
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