PoE may not lose its player base, but may lose its payer base?

I started playing PoE in Prophecy league. About 2k hrs played so far, bought supporter packs for over $500.

I made a commitment to pay a supporter pack every new league because I was genuinely impressed with the game.

But I will not be buying any more.

Let's be honest, the MTXs are way over priced, we all know it. But we still payed. Why?

Because we knew that it was the ONLY way GGG will be able to continue PoE. And we wanted it to continue.

We also know that we had more direct influence in the game's direction.

Because if we didn't like it and we didn't pay, then it is over for GGG.

But it is not the case anymore.


A company like Tencent can do many things to make profit from the game.

For example, in the Chinese realm you can pay to respect your points. They also have something called "revival coin". Not sure what that is for - revival in HC mode maybe? (I can read Chinese but I don't have a Tencent account so I can't login to see the details.)

And you sure do need a Tencent account to login the game in China.

When said "Tencent didn't have the agenda to have people sign up their services". Clearly that's only applicable for outside of China.

But nobody uses Tencent services outside of China anyway. - Tencent only got to make money and grew big in the first place because FB, twitter, etc. are banned in China and instead there are Tencent versions of them. Essentially the same product but with no competition because the largest population in the world doesn't have a choice.

And let's not forget that RMT is common practice in China.


Now let me ask this -

Will Tencent not "request" GGG to develop more features that will attract more players to simply just sign up their services in China, but not necessarily add any value to the game, as Tencent will get more benefit from people just signing up anyway?

Will Tencent not "request" GGG to develop more features that will feed into RMT for more profits?

And can we expect that the game will not be shifted in certain ways, because GGG will guard with its life the integrity of the international realm, and develop for two sets of directions at the same time, while one side has overwhelmingly more players and brings more profits?


For streamers and racers this may be good news.

No doubt Tencent will be largely invested in race events - a great way to promote the game.

So it means more coverages and potentially sponsorship for streamers and racers.

But, races will also become a marketing tool.

Not only for marketing the game, but also for marketing Tencent.


As said in the title, PoE may still have its player base. But it may lose its payer base.

And as a consequence, The game will have to change. It will have to try to make money in some other ways, or, it could eventually become just a marketing tool for Tencent, if Tencent sees enough value in that.

Just like how you get free complimentary apps when you sign up for new services, or buying a new computer / phone.


And, sadly, there is no way back.

Yeah, a part of the 'payer base' will inevitably be lost. I don't think there'll be any supreme hype before 4.0, so it seems rather likely that PoE's monetization will be adjusted after Incursion.

Nothing has actually changed though. It's not like Tencent is going to throw infinite money at GGG from hereon out, GGG still needs revenue from it's player base just like they always have. The whole point of something like this is that GGG gets access to the weight and connections behind tencent and gets a huge investment into the company in order to better the game.

Half of these emotional doom-and-gloom posts are just making everyone look incredibly daft. The revival coin is a SC item for christsake, Chris has even had to point this out himself because everyone keeps parroting things they refuse to do any research into. Speaking of research, you all should probably look into the other games Tencent has bought and look at how they've changed like Chris did.

Hint: They haven't changed.

Riot is still as nonsensical ever and panders to the lowest common denominator like they have since beta.

Warframe is still a massive grindfest and their monetization hasn't changed a whole lot since launch.

Smite, too.

Tencent is perfectly content to sit back and let people make money for them without having to involve themselves directly. Why would they need to mess up something that's already profitable? The Chinese have sung nothing but praises for how Chris operates GGG, they know his strategy is successful over here, they don't need to ruin it. And, to go further, even if they did want to push things like that on the international realm GGG can still push back against it. If GGG doesn't want to implement something, there's no way for Tencent to make them do it short of firing everyone and replacing them.




Tencent isn't going to kill GGG/PoE, the only people who are going to kill PoE are the players. This is always going to be the case, and it still is. Feel free to stop throwing money at GGG if they actually start becoming horrible monsters, but until then stopping support is just shooting yourself in the foot and making a self-fulling prophecy over hurt feelings.

Not sure about other transactions but supporter packs as a concept is pretty much dead.

I don't think you fully understood what I said. There's a difference between a player and payer, and there are different reasons why people play or pay.

For any product it is eventually the payer who decide what it will be. And the majority of the payer in the past are not going to be the same as the majority of the payer in the future. And therefore inevitably the product will have to change to suit the new payers.

Anyway, you can keep paying and I can stop to pay. After all it is just a game. No biggie. :)

I'm not going to throw money at Tencent. Not six bucks and definitely no sixty. They may hide behind 20% GGG but it's little more than a skinwalker now.

"

ma_po_to_fu wrote:

We also know that we had more direct influence in the game's direction.

Because if we didn't like it and we didn't pay, then it is over for GGG.

Holding the game hostage to your personal whims, is not conducive to getting a better game in the long run. If all players had this mentality, the game might have gone under a long time ago. There have been changes I didn't personally care for in the game. Overall, I still enjoyed the game and continued to buy supporter packs. If I stopped enjoying the game, I would find something else to play.

"

ma_po_to_fu wrote:

But nobody uses Tencent services outside of China anyway. - Tencent only got to make money and grew big in the first place because FB, twitter, etc. are banned in China and instead there are Tencent versions of them. Essentially the same product but with no competition because the largest population in the world doesn't have a choice.

While not quite the same thing in origins - Google essentially has a similar monopoly. If we still had numerous capable competitors, we would have much better search engines available.

If the game remains fun to play, it should keep most of its paying player base. I do think anything shifting the game towards RMT would absolutely destroy PoE's paying player base. I'm not worried that is the direction PoE will go, but imo, it would be counterproductive and bring in far less revenue.

Post moved by OP.

I also continued to buy supporter packs while I didn't necessary like everything since I started playing. I think a lot of people did. Very few people can say that they kept supporting because they liked absolutely everything ever happened in the game.

We kept supporting because we were willing to give GGG chances. Because we knew that was the ONLY way for them to continue. That is not the case anymore.

Holding a game hostage is a strange concept that I have not ever thought of. It is only entertainment.

As long as the game is fun to play, people will keep playing. However, whether people (or at least some) will keep paying, and paying the same way as before, is a different question.

"

ma_po_to_fu wrote:

As long as the game is fun to play, people will keep playing. However, whether people (or at least some) will keep paying, and paying the same way as before, is a different question.

+1 This.

I liked the game, i supported it on this and my alt acct with microtransactions and supporter packs. Its was an indie game, free to play an I support the underdog new kid mentality.

I dont support big companies. I shop at farmers markets, and i try to luve as ethically as i can, to my set of humanisticc morals.

Ill keep playing the game, but i wont support it financially again. Ill send a ton of free pizza their way though, cause thats supporting GGG not tencent.

Matt.