What happened to Chris Wilson?

I really feel this is true.

Its very easy to envision Johnathan wanting to go HAM on POE2, Chris reminding him of "the plan" and now we see a late January legal document a couple weeks after that filing we see Johnathan's short official news announcement which is so unlike normal GGG communication as to be literally the singular time they ever communicated like that.

EDIT: it was 8 days after Chris' exit that they pissed off everyone wanting a POE1 league.

So Chris Wilson non existent in company.
Well it was expected and mostly everyone that looked into it a little knew it, supports that reddit "leak" even more , i guess Digital Extremes will be last bastion for me =).
I believed in "The Vision" it wasn't perfect, but it had its charm, seems new vision is now just blurry mess cookie clicker for couple years.

Wish you well Chris, was interesting till it lasted, i guess 2025 will be most wild one for GGG.

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superbomb1967#5561 wrote:

Tencent is turning the poe into mobile garbage.

no, gameloft nz being closed down in 2016 started the console and joystick developments.

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AngryGekko#0233 wrote:

Guys, i dont wanna disturb worshipping Chris, but...
Am i the only one witnessing that PoE2 is EXACTLY the game Chris Wilson's dream of 'Ruthless' was all about? It's the EXACT copy of Ruthless 2 years ago, with it's insane punishment, casino crafting and git gud arenas.

Not a single mentally intact businessman would EVER call poe2's base concept a solid foundation for an arpg supporting f2p seasonal restarts. The campaign is of exhausting length, the missing loot is demotivating, the casino crafting is demotivating, the insane exp punishment is demotivating, the 1-death-per-map is demotivating, the skill tree doesn't have depth that could be motivating, the walking distances are demotivating.

Everyone can critizise Tencent, but for one thing: they DO know how to make money. And all the stuff above is not a way to make money, it's the complete opposite: a game that will fail as a seasonal installment with so much demotivational content. It's Chris Wilson's ruthless vision. I doubt even at GGG there has EVER been a single employee agreeing to this direction. Chris Wilson was OBSESSED by this idea, you can read about it anywhere, he was ready to DIE on that hill, even if this direction will ruin the game.

And now, two years later, despite of all the community's disagreement regarding his ruthless vision back then, a company famous for making money is settling on this pure insanity of an arpg idea? Really? Although nobody (and i bet even at GGG: nobody) will call this a solid vision ensuring longterm retention for PoE2? I don't know guys, but it seems to me PoE2 is ALL about Chris Wilson still influencing, still stubbornly ignoring the fact that his vision will not work. It seems to me, that he is still the only person fighting to die on that hill for a vision nobody wants. And it seems to me, he's clearly in position to push PoE2 into this direction, no matter the costs.

I can not see a company with rational eonomic incentives would in any way ever accept such a mess of direction.

you're (unfortunately) not the only one who doesn't understand that good games not easily give players what the want if you as a game dev want them to stick around.

sure, you lose some players on the way cause they just give up cause they grew up being permanently gratified for every fart they did but you get gamers stick to your game.

and that's what game companies want, a fanbase of gamers not shortterm players.

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vio#1992 wrote:

you're (unfortunately) not the only one who doesn't understand that good games not easily give players what the want if you as a game dev want them to stick around.

sure, you lose some players on the way cause they just give up cause they grew up being permanently gratified for every fart they did but you get gamers stick to your game.

and that's what game companies want, a fanbase of gamers not shortterm players.

^^^THIS

I can add that Johnathan also was very keen on Ruthless(as seemingly most of the older Dev's and Hrishi who is younger) and that anyone with half a brain can see that POE1's loot system is a dumpster fire.

Of course POE2 needed to slow the loot spooge down some.

Thats not to say I think they've got anything "nailed down" in 2. its a process and in EA/beta.

Also the guy you quoted seems like yet another person who never played D2 "not a solid base for an ARPG" LOL. Clearly has little to no idea about why a game is good or bad. D2 is so much more like Ruthless/POE2 than it is like POE1 bench mode, I can't even begin to comprehend their viewpoint. Hell the main reasons I like POE2 so much more than POE1button is the loot system is so much more reasonable. (again needs dailing in but the basics are there)

Not for the first time I'd like to point out:

everyone who hates "the vision" why are you all here playing POE1 or 2 or both and not off playing the 100% free of any vision Diablo 4?

Your perfect low friction, minimal "vision" game exists already... but for some reason you're here. And I bet you don't have a clue why that is.

what wonders me, even if you got rich in nz like chris did, how do you spend the money there.
even if you bought a tesla (jonathan, i still wonder how he charged it there 6 years ago), a golden pen (Eric) or a house with a huge flatscreen (jonathan), the only sensible thing to sink your money is to start a new business or go abroad.
i hope chris chose the former.

this is a very materialistic way of looking at things. But its also pretty inaccurate they can import pretty much anything to NZ that any other 1st world nation has it just costs a little more shipping and import taxes. Being rich makes that not a real concern.

The thing to do with lots of money is live a life of your own choosing without being obligated or constrained by jobs or money.

"you win, so now what?"

Game designers I feel are the most likely people to come to understand that life is a journey (because so are games) and that the destination or making a number go up; are not the point (because just like games).

I figured this out when I got Asteroids on the Atari 2600 in the 80's and no longer needed quarters. Making the number go up wore off real fast. The gameplay itself became obviously the sole reason to play, and once that was mastered it got boring REAL FAST. Just like when you get a HH or MB and almost immediately start wondering what to do next, and start imagining what the next league might be and lose interest in the current one.

Life is a game in the most literal and most metaphorical sense.

if we're talking about money then we have to realize that chris had a vision for poe and he compromised for money.

one thing i find cruelly ironic, is that so many people sing praises of POE1 and how its a good game and to many its even better than POE2 and would criticize POE2.

the reason why i find it ironic is POE1 is the result of GGG caving into compromises.

a lot of people have forgotten how POE1 started. GGG was "nobody", POE was an unknown diablo clone.

when players found interesting builds that did a lot of dps, GGG SHOULD have nerfed that shit and kept everything grounded so that there are not many overperforming interactions.

but they couldnt because they wanted players to be hyped. they wanted players to discover interesting interactions. they needed more selling points to make players want to play POE. nerfing would have the complete opposite effect where players would feel punished for finding out new things. in fact having your build nerfed in an entirely new game that no one knows could be an excuse for players to just quit the game and look for other games.

if you look at how POE started. combat was WAAAAAY slower and much more meaningful. but with GGG being unable to nerf. player power spiked. there was a time when 50-100k dps was considered huge. 500k dps was godlike.

the game still did not have enough popularity BUT they did have whales that enjoyed the game and continued supporting them. so to keep the whales invested, they created tougher content. power creep on players were met with power creep on the monsters.

the power creep kept increasing and the game technically lost any way to be balanced as theres 1001 different skills and countless combinations to consider. buffing weaker skills could indirectly buff other skills in unknown ways. its too huge of a mess to balance. instead GGG made uber pinnacle bosses gated behind RNG t17 pinnacle content. fuck balance. let RNG decide.

GGG actually realized a lot of this comes from player power spiralling out of control. when they created POE2, not only did they make it separate to "rebalance melee", it was the perfect opportunity to rebalance the game.

the decision to not have life nodes is twofold. on one hand it reduces the player feeling that their passives are taxed as they are forced to take life nodes. thus giving more build flexibility. on another, it helps GGG balance the end game content. GGG and even us players can roughly estimate that most players should have around 2.5-4k hp at the end game. and thus ggg can balance monster damage accordingly in a way that monsters DONT NEED to do a gazillion damage. its also why boss attacks are not too huge. a lot of people cry "we dont have a lot of movespeed/we dont have enough moveskills". a lot of people dont realize, that if we had more movespeed/moveskills, ggg would have to introduce attacks that hit a huge area and with little reaction time to give players a challenge.

its a shame that ggg overlooked ES and there are a lot of over performing skills now. if ggg doesnt nerf them, rest assured reflect damage mods will come to poe2. to me reflect damage is a crutch gamedevs use when they fail to balance their game. its primarily used to combat players that go glasscannon blasting everything.

poe2 definitely is the game that GGG wants to make. regardless of whos at the helm.

the most interesting thing that i observe is unlike POE1, ggg is now FAMOUS, it is established. they also have financial backing. they can finally make the game that they want.

but despite saying that, they still are in a hard spot. making money still is a big deal.

one of the biggest pitfalls of POE2 is that a lot of people actually like the non zoomy, slow and deliberate gamestyle. and to an extent many people like things being slowed down. but if thats the case, POE2 cannot function as a temp league. farming is simply too slow.

its also reminds me of another thing that is ironic. many people forgot that many players who started playing poe1 were diablo2 players. farming and leveling took a long time. a lot of standard players remained in standard because for the very fact that it took a long time to refarm everything.

poe2 (ignoring the overperforming builds and trade) is a good reminder of how things used to be scarce. not only things are scarce, the entire pace of the game is slowed. hitting 40/40 in poe2 would be much more work.

so back to chris's involvement and his wants.

i m pretty sure POE1 did not turn out the way he wanted it BUT i would say hes bloody happy that POE1 turned out the way it did for FINANCIAL reasons.

which begs the question. would he really want POE2 to be its own thing or would he prefer to just focus on POE1?

when he started i believe he was passionate to make his own game.

but now? is it the same passion or is he more motivated by money? would he prefer poe1 or poe2?

we can never know as any response he gives could upset a different set of fans.

but all that said and done, i want to remind everyone of the one time that i fondly remember of chris.

during an interview he talked about PVP, and ended up saying peevee penis. he was aware of the fact after he said it but you guys are all too much of an adult and just forgot about it or let it slide. i m not forgetting it.

whatever it is, i hope he does well and has a happy life.

The "Supported by NZ On Air" logo at the bottom of this page appeared on all their websites around the same time as CW’s listed directorial cessation date, January 21, 2025.

i wonder if he will turn around and make another game eventually.
never know.

sometimes devs get the urge to create one last gem after retirement :)