Tencent acquires majority stake in Path of Exile studio

[SaintBaron]

https://www.pcgamer.com/tencent-acquires-majority-stake-in-path-of-exile-studio/

By way of its War for the Atlas expansion, Pokemon-styled patches and time travelling Incursion update, action role-player Path of Exile has made some confident strides of late. Developer Grinding Gear Games has now announced multinational Chinese conglomerate Tencent has acquired a majority stake in the company. 

Announced in this forum update (via WCCFTech), Grinding Gear says it'll maintain its independent status and that there "won't be any big changes to how [they] operate". Likewise, the deal won't affect the development and operations of Path of Exile itself.

What it will impact, though, is the growth of the New Zealand outfit. Speaking to the NZ Herald, managing director Chris Wilson says: "We're looking to increase our headcount over the next year from 114 full time employees to around 130. We're planning to do more expansions for our games, in parallel, and of course bolstering the team will be really useful in achieving that."Tencent is the largest games publisher in the world, has a strong reputation and is known for respecting the creative independence of the companies they invest in."

[Download]

"Independent status"? Yeah right.

[EddieLTU]

fuck tencent, bunch of chinese spies

[Snausages]

suddenly, buying supporter packs for the game mean a lot less for me

[Dr.Cola]

Because people buy them to support the game, not for the exclusive MTX or physical goods right? lol

[Doom64hunter]

Yeah up until the point where the game starts performing poorly and major changes are demanded to make sure the remaining players are forced to spend as much money as possible.
I don't trust shareholders one fucking bit.

I wish people could create a snapshot of the game in its current state so that it can be preserved for the future, but unfortunately, it's always-online, meaning that this is impossible without possessing the server code in its current state as well.
Tough shit.