Tencent & Charan

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鬼殺し wrote:

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Acaste7 wrote:

save us the incoherent state of panic you're all in for that unfortunate day of the week when your parents decide to walk in on you fighting off your fingers with your goddamn peewee.

Jesus Christ...

You were doing okay until you played the whole 'you're still just children living with your parents and they're going to catch you wanking off' thing.

Well, sort of okay.

Okay, not okay at all.

Go away.

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鬼殺し wrote:

Yeah. Hence my wish he'd just cashed out entirely and started over at his own pace, doing what he loves without all the unhealthy stress inherent to keeping PoE going. I'm sure he loves it, deeply. I'm not sure it loves him back.

But I'm willing to bet that cashing out entirely was never really an option. Tencent would never acquire 100% of GGG just to let go of the person responsible for making it so great. Tencent didn't want to just buy the golden egg. They had to buy the goose laying them. And everyone knows that's not 'GGG'.

Without Chris there is no PoE as we know it. Period.

Now is the time for you, for anyone, to try to convince me that would be a bad thing. Now we come to the REAL CRUX of the matter, eh?

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codetaku wrote:

Hey Acaste, have you ever heard of a concept called psychological projection? Because we have a shitton of evidence that Charan doesn't still live with his parents (or if he did, it would be to financially support *them*)--you, on the other hand....

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Acaste7 wrote:

stop assuming things, because most likely - you are wrong.

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oldmunchi wrote:

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Acaste7 wrote:

stop assuming things, because most likely - you are wrong.

thinks people are most likely wrong. what does that say about your personality? or would that just get me a shit post from you for "assuming"?

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鬼殺し wrote:

A much younger and more naive (and healthier, I'm pretty sure) Chris once told me he'd rather scuttle PoE than let it be compromised. Although I feel we've come very close in the past, this Tencent acquisition complicates things deeply. On one hand, 80% foreign ownership by a single entity mostly concerned with creating and distributing a p2w version of PoE in their home country sounds pretty fucking compromised; on the other, the new safety and resources this bargain brings to the company could result in the GGG founders finally having the freedom to make the non-Chinese PoE more like the game they've always wanted.

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鬼殺し wrote:

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codetaku wrote:

Hey Acaste, have you ever heard of a concept called psychological projection? Because we have a shitton of evidence that Charan doesn't still live with his parents (or if he did, it would be to financially support *them*)--you, on the other hand....

...Too close to the bone dude. My dad is fiercely independent but it's coming. We Chinese might be long-lived but once we start ageing, we age quick. I have a photo of my great-grandfather, me and my sister on this very desk, taken not long before he died at the ripe old age of 102. I look at it a lot. Every day, I see a bit more of someone else I know and love in that photo.

Mum, on the other hand, probably already has a nice chic 'retirement village' lined up somewhere, but she did give me power of attorney recently. Ugh.

To say I'm very conscious right now of the merciless march of time would be an epic understatement.

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鬼殺し wrote:

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ChanBalam wrote:

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鬼殺し wrote:

Yeah. Hence my wish he'd just cashed out entirely and started over at his own pace, doing what he loves without all the unhealthy stress inherent to keeping PoE going. I'm sure he loves it, deeply. I'm not sure it loves him back.

But I'm willing to bet that cashing out entirely was never really an option. Tencent would never acquire 100% of GGG just to let go of the person responsible for making it so great. Tencent didn't want to just buy the golden egg. They had to buy the goose laying them. And everyone knows that's not 'GGG'.

Without Chris there is no PoE as we know it. Period.

Now is the time for you, for anyone, to try to convince me that would be a bad thing. Now we come to the REAL CRUX of the matter, eh?

Tencent side:
No smart business would buy another without some insurance that the transition would be well-managed and the institutional knowledge captured. That is what only buying 80% does.

Chris (20%) side: cash up front (some or all, I would not be surprised if a significant portion of his payout is delivered over time.) and an opportunity manage a smooth transition that allows the GGG standards to be maintained through the end of the 3.xx release time frame. what Chris et al have done is positioned themselves to significantly influence the near term delivery of POE, make sure current employees are protected during the transition, and are in a position to help preserve POE's past values as 4.0 is developed.

Of course, nothing is guaranteed and I've seen buyouts collapse into piles of shit despite good plans.

If one's objection is to Tencent as the buyer rather than the fact of a buyout, oh well. That will trump any operational concerns.

Outrage at one old fact can become increasingly difficult to maintain in the face of other emergent ones. This is how we forget atrocities (forgive the hyperbole; the Tencent takeover was not an atrocity, but I think that company is tied up in some atrocious practices). It's just not convenient to cling to that grudge. And this is better for GGG, for PoE, for most of its players.

But this 'wait and see' policy is not really compatible with those who are aware of and refuse to look away from who and what Tencent is, in its monstrous totality. What GGG's absorption into a company that had no scruples ripping off other IPs wholesale represents. Oh, Tencent are far past that now -- much easier just to buy off the original creators -- but that is where it started and I strongly doubt they've had a moral reform since. Transitioning from copying to assimilating was just a matter of practicality.

I want to point something interesting out I found digging around yesterday.

"Grinding Gear Games possesses strong development and innovation capabilities in the action role playing game genre," Ma [Tencent Holdings senior vice president] said. "We look forward to supporting their growth and collaborating with their team in bringing great gaming experiences to gamers, both in China and abroad."

source

There's some pretty interesting wording there, but the one that sticks in my craw is the last sentence. Take note which comes first out of 'China' and 'abroad'.

(Congrats, America, you're no longer excluded from the word 'abroad'.)

'Collaborating with their team' seems like something they were already doing before the acquisition, so that's also an...interesting choice of words.

'great gaming experiences' is also delightfully open-ended.

All in all, that statement doesn't exactly inspire confidence beyond Tencent saying 'GGG make a good ARPG and we want to own that game, firstly in China but the rest of the world can play our game too if they want.'