And I don't even think we can prevent it.
Tencent bought PoE because they think it'll get them more money in the long run.
Let's assume for a second that Tencent is being 100% honest that they have no intention, currently, of interfering with PoE development.
Even if that's the case, many people are still going to stop buying packs at the rates we have been. First off, the amount of money some of us have spent on the game is already way more than almost any other game we've played--because it made sense to support an Indie Studio for making a great product. But it's not *just* the fact that it's no longer Indie; many people very specifically don't want to give money to Tencent in particular (the reaction would be very much the same if it were Activision or EA, but if, for example, somehow Nintendo decided they wanted GGG, many people would be going "huh???" but there wouldn't be this same degree of clear backlash), and we now know that for Tencent to profit off of their majority share, they will be getting part of the packs we buy from now on (probably less than many people think--they'll only be taking a cut of the
profit. The portion that goes to operating costs will still have to go directly to GGG. But Tencent still gets a cut).
So, if people stop buying packs even before Tencent asks for changes.... GGG will either have to think up new monetization strategies or Tencent will eventually push new monetization strategies on them. The only alternative to these two is that GGG dies as a studio, since they will be anti-profitable at that point. With any of these options, we lose.
I'm not trying to trick people into buying all the packs even post-takeover, for the record. I'm merely explaining why this was not a well-thought-out plan on GGG's part :/
