End of an era at GGG; Tencent is calling the shots and gameplay is now secondary to $

I have always been of the mindset that if you build a quality game, revenue will come. Of course this puts me in opposition to literally every AAA game maker out there that has the philosophy of "milk the customer as fast as you can and never mind about gameplay."

I wonder how many people on this forum would be surprised to know what these big game companies are like? I worked for Electronic Arts for 2 years and was astonished to find that maybe 1 person in 20 played ANY kind of video game and among management that dropped to maybe 1 in 100. All they care about is milking the customer and that is primary. That is why Bungie went to garbage after it was acquired by Activision, Ditto Blizzard and now ... apparently ... Ditto GGG.

In an effort to milk the customer a bit more, Tencent wants more transient D4 style customers. Their entire calculus is marketing vs revenue. They could care less about whether the game is boring, end game design problematic, campaign long and boring. They have decided.

1. Long campaign means we hook the player to buy more loot boxes / cosmetics / other MTX and by the time they find out the end game is bad they have probably already been milked as much as possible.

2. Longevity is irrelevant, these people only care about the next quarter profit. To these executives D4 is a phenomenal success. Gamers mostly agree that it is a poorly executed travesty and stain on a good franchise to gamers.

3. Killing POE1 was a given the moment they made 60m on early access keys. Also by extension other givens are that POE as a free to play game is no longer a thing (since they have proven people will pay for it) and that the priority is money. Don't be surprised if there is now pay to win in POE2 before it comes out. Gamers might see that as messed up but game companies love it on their revenue projections.

4. Engaging gameplay, bots spamming RMT and other things are no longer a priority. If it doesn't contribute directly to revenue it is no longer a priority.

POE2 is a total mess right now and not because they didn't have the tools to make it right but because boneheaded decisions are being made in the senior offices.

As for me, they got me. I loved GGG so much that I bought the most expensive pack for POE2. I am a long time GGG fanboy. But then I hadn't been keeping up with current events since my work and home life are chaotic and I didn't know Tencent had bought a controlling share in GGG. If I had I probably wouldn't have hit that purchase button. My bad.

Now you all know where things stand. If you expect POE2 to ever be worthy of the name, you are going to be disappointed. I would love to be wrong on that but I fear I am not. As for POE1, it is dead. The execs have decided a crowd of flyby transient gameplayers are more valuable than the long time customers and have kicked them to the curb.

For all you flamers loving POE2 and thinking its the best. Most of you have never even tried POE1. Go play it while you can, get a player to maps, beat maven. Come back and tell me how good POE2 is in comparison after i see your char in your profile. I will still disagree but then you will be talking from an informed position.

To GGG, if you can, stop chasing the $ and get back to making good games with the lessons learned over the last decade. If Tencent wont let you then ... well you have lost me as a customer and i doubt I am alone but you have also lost any claim to "vision" in games.
Dernière édition par Kraythax#2592, le 30 janv. 2025 12:05:53
Dernier bump le 1 févr. 2025 05:58:42
Oh jeez


Somehow this is feedback
"
Poe2WarriorMan#6401 a écrit :
Oh jeez


Somehow this is feedback


Yep feedback to GGG that this is messed up and wont work. Get back to designing good games.
While tencent does influence them they did maintain some autonomy in the deal which was vital to the continuation of the product, I think even tencent understands that as did GGG.

This isn't as much of an angle as you might think imo.
Innocence forgives you
Dernière édition par SilentSymphony#3358, le 30 janv. 2025 12:08:51
I like your thoughts because ours seem very similar, we share the same grief, which is not understood by others because they don't understand what was taken from us here and on top of that they want to sell us a pig in a poke. The problem is that it has always worked. People forget too quickly and don't have a codex.
"
sownice#7469 a écrit :
I like your thoughts because ours seem very similar, we share the same grief, which is not understood by others because they don't understand what was taken from us here and on top of that they want to sell us a pig in a poke. The problem is that it has always worked. People forget too quickly and don't have a codex.


The problem for GGG is the market is already saturated with such companies, which is the reason the best games for a while have all been independent developers. I have been playing last epoch for a couple of weeks, I should look into if they are truly independent.
Dernière édition par Kraythax#2592, le 30 janv. 2025 12:10:56
"
Kraythax#2592 a écrit :
I have always been of the mindset that if you build a quality game, revenue will come. Of course this puts me in opposition to literally every AAA game maker out there that has the philosophy of "milk the customer as fast as you can and never mind about gameplay."

I wonder how many people on this forum would be surprised to know what these big game companies are like? I worked for Electronic Arts for 2 years and was astonished to find that maybe 1 person in 20 played ANY kind of video game and among management that dropped to maybe 1 in 100. All they care about is milking the customer and that is primary. That is why Bungie went to garbage after it was acquired by Activision, Ditto Blizzard and now ... apparently ... Ditto GGG.

In an effort to milk the customer a bit more, Tencent wants more transient D4 style customers. Their entire calculus is marketing vs revenue. They could care less about whether the game is boring, end game design problematic, campaign long and boring. They have decided.

1. Long campaign means we hook the player to buy more loot boxes / cosmetics / other MTX and by the time they find out the end game is bad they have probably already been milked as much as possible.

2. Longevity is irrelevant, these people only care about the next quarter profit. To these executives D4 is a phenomenal success. Gamers mostly agree that it is a poorly executed travesty and stain on a good franchise to gamers.

3. Killing POE1 was a given the moment they made 60m on early access keys. Also by extension other givens are that POE as a free to play game is no longer a thing (since they have proven people will pay for it) and that the priority is money. Don't be surprised if there is now pay to win in POE2 before it comes out. Gamers might see that as messed up but game companies love it on their revenue projections.

4. Engaging gameplay, bots spamming RMT and other things are no longer a priority. If it doesn't contribute directly to revenue it is no longer a priority.

POE2 is a total mess right now and not because they didn't have the tools to make it right but because boneheaded decisions are being made in the senior offices.

As for me, they got me. I loved GGG so much that I bought the most expensive pack for POE2. I am a long time GGG fanboy. But then I hadn't been keeping up with current events since my work and home life are chaotic and I didn't know Tencent had bought a controlling share in GGG. If I had I probably wouldn't have hit that purchase button. My bad.

Now you all know where things stand. If you expect POE2 to ever be worthy of the name, you are going to be disappointed. I would love to be wrong on that but I fear I am not. As for POE1, it is dead. The execs have decided a crowd of flyby transient gameplayers are more valuable than the long time customers and have kicked them to the curb.

For all you flamers loving POE2 and thinking its the best. Most of you have never even tried POE1. Go play it while you can, get a player to maps, beat maven. Come back and tell me how good POE2 is in comparison after i see your char in your profile. I will still disagree but then you will be talking from an informed position.

To GGG, if you can, stop chasing the $ and get back to making good games with the lessons learned over the last decade. If Tencent wont let you then ... well you have lost me as a customer and i doubt I am alone but you have also lost any claim to "vision" in games.


+1

I'll add something, since they're looking for numbers, let's give them numbers: if you don't play their disaster Path of Rutless, maybe there's hope for something as good as Poe-1, maybe, ---> play something else. And another number: stop the sound of coins in your pocket. Maybe then they'll listen to you. 6 or more years playing Poe-1, I love that game, I was a Diablo 2 player and Poe-1 seems great to me, but what if they don't release a league? They could have released a recycled league, or one like "Legacy" which was the one I started playing with, that takes elements from other leagues and makes something special. But they don't do it because they want to force us to play their Poe-2, a game I hate the way it is now. So... numbers, sound of coins, that's what it takes to get them to listen to us and release the league as soon as possible... and if not, there are more out there...
"
Kraythax#2592 a écrit :
"
sownice#7469 a écrit :
I like your thoughts because ours seem very similar, we share the same grief, which is not understood by others because they don't understand what was taken from us here and on top of that they want to sell us a pig in a poke. The problem is that it has always worked. People forget too quickly and don't have a codex.


The problem for GGG is the market is already saturated with such companies, which is the reason the best games for a while have all been independent developers. I have been playing last epoch for a couple of weeks, I should look into if they are truly independent.


I believe tencent only has 20% stake in EHG at the moment. I don't believe they need any additional cash infusion with the units they have sold so far plus supporter packs. It is not F2P so 35$ x x,xxx,xxx units is a decent chunk of money for a team that is still indie sized. They are also 100% virtusl so no physical infrastructure footprint. Also keep in mind when someone points at steam numbers that LE can be played 100% offline if desired.
Dernière édition par ExsiliumUltra#5541, le 30 janv. 2025 12:20:55
Did you play poe1 in 2013? Game was way shittier and like 2% of the content we have with poe2.
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Knuk#4425 a écrit :
Did you play poe1 in 2013? Game was way shittier and like 2% of the content we have with poe2.


Its not 2013, they have a whole library of code they are obviously copy pasting, a whole library of assets they are obviously copy pasting and theoretically 12 years of experience at knowing what works and what doesn't that they have forgotten.

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