I don't have a lot to say, but when I do...

Thank you Chris Wilson, Jonathan Rogers, Erik Olofsson and Brian Weissman for getting involved in the industry to produce this game. Now, if this world had more individuals like you, those who love gaming with some knowledge in software programming to do something similar (worse or better) than what you could do. There is a market with plenty of opportunities for others who'll choose to follow your steps.

The start is most challenging because it takes 2-3 years of time investment code a program (game) to its early (alpha) state, and then hope it receives further funding (backing, investors, supporters) to hire a bigger team to get the game to beta. I was aware of Path of Exile existence on its release, but it was around a year or year and a half later that it captured my interest.

If others out there want to get more financial support my advice is you can do what Chris Wilson and the rest of his team did, but it's much more challenging, because (and I and I'm sure others( would not support your company, unless it was publicly (not private) traded, where we could buy (purchase/invest) stocks/shares in it.

Close to a 100 million USD is a lot of money, too much I would say for just one individual, and Tencent still gladly spent those $, because with what they could do in China they saw at least $150-200 mil return (after taxes and other expenses). That's why I'm telling you there's still plenty of opportunities, because yes despite how you see hundreds of games being delivered annually, most of them are not Path of Exile or better.

As you can see Activision-Blizzard still is (has been) developing games (franchises) from 15+ years ago. World of Warcraft is like 18 years old game and there's so many out there believe it will do great. A lot lately believe that "voting" with their wallets is relevant, and will make a difference, but from someone who's holding the world record in that I'll tell you one thing, that's nonsense, because I've been doing that the best I could...

No, what matters the most it's for us to be fortunate the world has more like Chris Wilson, and the other individuals I mentioned above, that's what makes the most difference. If the stars perfectly aligned this game (GGG as a company) could easily worth 15-20 billion USD. It's not always about the money, but about what you want to deliver, or what you can deliver within your abilities (skills, experience, etc.) and then there's a lot of other factors outside of GGG, like government or global market rules, regulations, pandemics, etc.

Based on what I've seen from the announcement I'm thankful to GGG that I'll get to have fun playing one game this month for two weeks (4-7 days of league launch to test the new "themepark" and another 5-10 days thanks to Zizaran, his sponsors, and the rest community/streamers alongside GGG that support the event as well.

Ruthless was a great addition, but for me the difference in how long I enjoy playing this game per league are events, and how rewarding those are to me. I'm still optimistic that what we know so far about Sanctum isn't everything, but if it then yes I would feel disappointed.

Consistency is the path to earn loyalty and support, which is why the boss kill event that was introduced in 3.19 I was hoping isn't a one time thing, and thanks to the two out of three events in November even without a Gauntlet I found myself playing 3.19 longer than any other league in a while. Archnemesis difficulty and some nerfs to power creep made the experience for me a lot better, while many others were RIPPING a lot more.

With Archnemesis heavily nerfed, a league mechanic where one cannot RIP, and a Ruthless mode without a worthy event/prize to pursue that will reset along the league every three months it seems like Sanctum is indeed competing with World of Warcraft. I have few things to tell you about World of Warcraft...

Only the last weekend (three days) in a season matter, because the MMR rating is most inflated to get rank 1, and without PvP it's just guilds competing against other guilds, and for what? When I played WOW I only cared for the guild to have a majority of roster capable to clear the content before the new arrives, because at the end all you would get is some pixel/mount/title.

Outside of that 8-9 hours in the week is why WOW is a game for casuals, (2-3 raid nights per week, depending if the content is on farm or not), and being in voice chat where I have to listen the need of attention was a lot more challenging than pushing less buttons than in PoE.

From someone who's been in hundreds of guilds/clans/leagues, and has led most of them, ask yourself is babysitting something you see yourself doing? You won't have to do that when you'll hopefully become a parent yourself, alongside one great partner to call a family, which is much better experience than having hundreds of other "friends", especially online friends.

2023 will be a lot better year hopefully. I'm glad to see that the majority of the PoE community belongs in my market with the steam chart retention as proof, and it's been like that for over six years now. For me just like for most Path of Exile is (and has been) a filler game for many years, until it became the last game I'm playing, and in ideal scenario I would be alright with that, but it does sucks seeing the industry in this state for this long, where I find myself with a lot more free time and money I have not much use and joy/fun to spend on.

Things could always be worse, like D4, PoE2, and other AAA/AA products not to happen in 2023, which is why I feel better when I'm being more thankful for what others have done for me (for us). We are all making some positive difference, all it takes is to just pay attention more to see how.