Can GGG survive?

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panikouk#7916 wrote:

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JarlaxleDaerthe#2435 wrote:

There's a blaringly obvious contrast between the PoE 1 veterans and the PoE 2 tourists, and that is supporter packs.

When we browse the forums we see a handful of PoE 2 enthusiasts with absolutely no financial support badges, in contrast, those who are unhappy with the direction the game(s) have taken have hundreds if not thousands of dollars in supporter packs.

So my question is, if they continue this trend of abandoning PoE 1 and neglecting the playerbase that build their company, can they survive on the penniless tourists alone?

Got news for you, all those accounts that play poe2 paid for early access.

Poe1 is a game that requires far more money to be played than the rest in the ARPG genre, that its better to invest in stash tabs. Now perhaps I should had bought packs of the leagues I loved, not that I regret it though. Anyways if that would happen, it would have had so at the end of that league.

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That said, lesson learned.
GGG's current leadership is simply unqualified for the position

Do u really think they designed poe2 and their latest league 3months ago?

Got news for you, those games are 2-3 years ahead in league design. What u see today and in the next 3-6months in poe1 and poe2 is work done with Chris in charge.
This is Chris work

Nothing you said is true.

Most of the accounts are free keys that came from people like me who bought the large supporter packs. I gave out 6 keys and none of them enjoyed the game.

Furthermore, PoE is completely free to own and play, how is free "a game that requires far more money to be played than the rest in the ARPG genre"

No one mentioned anything about the strawman you are burning. But GGG have shown time and time again that they can produce content at breathtaking speeds often mid league within a day or 3 of detecting an issue. Entire leagues are built in a few short months.

I suspect I'm being trolled as there is too much misinformation and misunderstanding of the facts for that to be a serious claim.

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JarlaxleDaerthe#2435 wrote:

Most of the accounts are free keys that came from people like me who bought the large supporter packs. I gave out 6 keys and none of them enjoyed the game.

Neither of us in the forums can make such a claim or counter claim. We don't have any indicator of how many people play on free keys and how many paid.

If I had to make a guess, I'd say at least 50% of the playerbase paid the 30$. There's also alot of PoE players that bought more expensive packs who already had EA access. (like me)
Not all of them gave their extra keys away, I'd argue it's the minority even.

Like I said before, way too much speculation to be conclusive right now.

I think we will notice when they have trouble making money, because they will have to shift away from their vision. Until then, it's smooth sailing.

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/edit: Just thought about it a bit more. U are saying GGG can't survive off new players, because they don't have supporter badges.

I think there are 3 reasons for that.

#1 GGG didn't push supporter packs as aggressive with PoE2 yet as they did with new PoE leagues. The only time they did was when EA launched.

#2 I don't know if it's true for u aswell, but at least I didn't purchase a supporter pack right when I started playing PoE. Obviously it was a free game, so I was just curious, seeing how things would go. After seeing how the game evolved and how the company treated the game and it's community I then decided to support them. I can't remember the exact time line, but I think it was maybe a year after I started playing.
So just because those people didn't outright buy into a game and company they didn't know anything about prior doesn't mean they can't become supporters eventually.

#3 This might be a minor reason, but another reason for me to support GGG was the community. They always spoke positive and very highly about the game and it's developers. No matter if it was the forums or streams/videos, u could feel the care. That's why the barrier of support was pretty low for me.
Nowadays the discourse is way more negative, which would make me worry if I'd just waste money supporting this company. Also this former indie studio is also no longer indie, but backed by a big chinese company, so why would they even need the money from the little guy, right?

I think there can be multiple more reasons for why u're seeing what u're seeing right now.

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JarlaxleDaerthe#2435 wrote:

It is true that the new wave of players who enjoy PoE 2 may invest in the company

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JarlaxleDaerthe#2435 wrote:

there won't be sufficient investors

My brother in Christ - you are buying MTX; not shares.

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JarlaxleDaerthe#2435 wrote:

whilst those who voice approval for the new direction have little to none

Those can be hidden if the person desires.

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JarlaxleDaerthe#2435 wrote:

There's a blaringly obvious contrast between the PoE 1 veterans and the PoE 2 tourists, and that is supporter packs.

When we browse the forums we see a handful of PoE 2 enthusiasts with absolutely no financial support badges, in contrast, those who are unhappy with the direction the game(s) have taken have hundreds if not thousands of dollars in supporter packs.

So my question is, if they continue this trend of abandoning PoE 1 and neglecting the playerbase that build their company, can they survive on the penniless tourists alone?

Dude .. they said the recouped ALL cost of POE2 development on the EA release.. every single thing after that is proffit

There are tourists who are whales, it's not just POE veterans.

GGG will be fine.

GGG will survive.

While I don't really care about PoE2, especially as of now, as it's so far from the experience I want, it's still a popular game. And on top of that, it's a good foundation that can still be turned into everything they (we) want based on community reactions.

But while GGG (and PoE2) will survive, I have my doubts about PoE1. And that's a real shame, because PoE1 is the ONE arpg on the market that offers "something else": fast, action-packed gameplay with deep character/build customization.

ARPGs with slow, "tactical/meaningful" combat with more shallow/streamlined character/build customization like PoE2 on the other hand...? There's lots of alternatives on the market.

people need to remember that this is still early access

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JarlaxleDaerthe#2435 wrote:

It is true that the new wave of players who enjoy PoE 2 may invest in the company, just an interesting observation that those with negative opinions on PoE 2 have many supporter badges whilst those who voice approval for the new direction have little to none.

Though the numbers of peak daily active players indicates that there won't be sufficient investors should they continue to abandon PoE development in favour of PoE 2.
From 580k all the way down to 50k..

PoE1's player count goes from ~200k down to 30k in it's cycles, so by your own admission PoE2 is performing better than PoE1?

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pattw555#0071 wrote:

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JarlaxleDaerthe#2435 wrote:

It is true that the new wave of players who enjoy PoE 2 may invest in the company, just an interesting observation that those with negative opinions on PoE 2 have many supporter badges whilst those who voice approval for the new direction have little to none.

Though the numbers of peak daily active players indicates that there won't be sufficient investors should they continue to abandon PoE development in favour of PoE 2.
From 580k all the way down to 50k..

PoE1's player count goes from ~200k down to 30k in it's cycles, so by your own admission PoE2 is performing better than PoE1?

Of course it is. It's new, it's shiny and it's made by (some of) the team that made (makes?) the best ARPG on the market. D3 had WAY more players than D2, but we all(?) know it isn't/wasn't a better game. And those 5-600k initial players? We don't really know if that is the "norm", especially as less than half of those players wanted to return to the game for 0.2. And, PoE2 numbers include Chinese players, PoE1 numbers do not (small trifle there, but it is what it is).

On top of that, PoE2 isn't "solved" yet. There's still lots of things to figure out, which helps retention A LOT. PoE1 has been solved for years, which hurts retention. PoE2 also has way better graphics, which is surprisingly important for today's audience, but speaks nothing about the gameplay quality of a game.

A PoE2 game that gets all of the attention from GGG versus a PoE1 that has been neglected for almost a year? Players stop caring when GGG stops caring. PoE2 doing better than PoE1? Everything else would be a direct disaster for GGG. Of course it does better.

I, in the absence of POE, have gone back to playing even D3, yes, D3 🤣 hell, it's a hell of a lot more fun than playing an eternal league of POE, any ARPG is better than POE in its current state, and certainly any ARPG is better than POE2...