Simple reason. Other companies : "What is the least amount of content and work we can do for the max amount of profit?" Cut content, reskin "DLC", micro transaction the shit out of everything. Don't bug test/(actual beta test) anything at all. Ok guys, go home now.. oh and 80% of you are fired.
@@ChumpionTV Ignorant? Are you even in the gaming industry? As a programmer, their procedural generation tools are amazingly good. Everything about the presentation was on point, and I will be remembering and probably referencing this video during my career.
@Gregory SullivanYour are four cents short of a nickel. All I here, is you crying about a game that you would probably like, if you would take that blizzdick out of your ass.
@Gregory Sullivan It wasn't "stolen from Blizzard", it's an homage to Diablo (1 and 2 at a time when 2 was old and 3 wasn't even being made). If it were 'stolen' don't you think Blizzard would have taken GGG for everything they have? Oh that's right, you trashed the whole judicial system below (actually above this reply) to back up your preposterous ideas.
@Gregory Sullivan I started playing POE in 2013 and have spent about $150 on the game, nothing for years now. Not to play dress-up but for extra stash tabs. I'm quite happy with that as, if it were Blizzards model, with all of the new content since release I'd have to have bought the original game then several expansion packs and would be sick of it by now. (I used to play Blizzard games.) Your wife agrees with you? There's a surprise! Fact remains I've played D1, D2 (and LoD) and D3 and, other than playing D2 / LoD* for 5 years I got tired of them all. PoE has kept me engaged for 6 years now and I still play an hour or two daily. *I had to buy 2 copies of both D2 and LoD and run one on a laptop so that I could do in-game muling to move items around for storage. That cost me close to $250, not including the laptop. I've paid far less for PoE, played it longer and still have plentiful storage but haters going to hate....
49:56 Q: "How do you keep your team engaged with working on a game this long? A: "It helps to be the only big game developing company in New Zealand" lmao
@Sparka Check the Standard league for your stable of characters. I came back after about four years to discover the templar that I started the game as was still there. All seasonal league characters get moved there after the league ends. Stash slots get converted to "remove-only" to be added to the pool of permanent premium stash slots.
They put a lot of resource back into the game. If Blizzard did that to their ARPG's then they would not have had competition, but now it seems that even though the start was rocky GGG is steadily becoming a bigger concern (in a good way). Hopefully other game dev companies learn that it is good to keep on investing into a game.
Sharing this industry wisdom shows the PoE heart. They are not interested in becoming a monopoly. They want the entire gaming world to improve, and they are helping tremendously.
they've gotten the taste of blood in their mouths 1st when they hit 70k and again after blizzcon, you either Die a Hero (like D2) or live long enough to become the villain (WoW)...give it time youngling...they are still ambitious, and thats exactly what's needed to corrupt them over to the Dark side...
@@wraithryder Except their model is free to play, which sets them apart from a vast majority of AAA gaming studios. They're not in it for the money, they're in it to make a great game that they can keep investing in, otherwise they would have sold the game instead of offering it for free.
I can't go back anymore knowing it will be brainless farming again to become relevant. And also procedural generated levels when repeated too much become soulless and pointless. Screw that.
Also as I have grown older, I lost patience for diminishing returns with randomized gear. And I just don't care about level design when farming and leveling is just mindless steamrolling lots of enemies. And I almost don't care about trading because Trade Chat in PoE is cancer, and economy is bloated with bad items it's rarely worth the time to try selling, so you just give up trading.
And don't get me wrong, I like PoE, and I do come back with bigger than usual updates like he mentioned, then I quit again. I don't think PoE is bad, but some aspects of it made me decide that, at its core, it's not the game for me. And that's fine because there are still people who like how it's being done. I feel bad he didn't mention PvP because in RPGs my favorite thing was to do PvP as endgame, but the PvP of both Warframe and Path of Exile is... not good. Maybe because the variety of attacks is so big it's hard to balance, but PvP with repeatable matches with a good core mechanic help A LOT with keeping players numbers up. And PvP and balance wise that is kind of hard because most skills and weapon damage in Warframe and PoE are usually spammable. So even though it is strategic in some parts, it becomes a mess when lots of people get involved in the fights. This is why MOBAS have skills with longer cooldowns, because then you have to build and strategize around it. But in PoE and Warframe it's usually spamming in the most effective way with movement skills in the middle, but at it's core it's just not optimal for PvP. Maybe just, for pvp only, change how cooldowns work. Also, people hated the Battle Royale fad, but I actually enjoyed playing the royale of PoE, because it was sort of unique with each different match, valuing replayability a whole bunch!
POE is the only game (THE ONLY GAME) I have ever bought micro transactions from. I feel it is the only game I have played deserving to spend money on in this kind of way.
I have no issue spending money for cosmetic micro transactions, as long as the game is free to play AND they also include good cosmetic assets in the game. In fact I support this system because I can then support the devs when I feel they are doing good, and stop supporting them when I feel they have failed. This is why I am against micro transactions in WOW. We pay 15 bucks a month already. If WOW went free to play like POE and had a store of only mounts/pets/tmog, etc, then I'd be okay with it.
@Sapphire Spire like 99% of COD/madden fans who pump out 60 bucks a year? Don't forget other games like Assassin's Creed, who pump out pure trash on a schedule.
@Sapphire Spire Nope, I haven't yet. I have stopped playing for around half year now and still think it's worth it. I sunk like 300hour in the game and pay ~20€, pretty good value if you ask me.
@Gregory Sullivan You seem like you have a very keen knack for copyright law! Though something tells me you haven't yet attended law school... Just intuition I guess? You should definitely give it a go!
@Gregory Sullivan A rip-off is correct. But a rip-off often fails because they don't improve on the original. PoE definitely improved on that, nothing wrong with that. Instead of seeing it as a rip-off, why don't you think of PoE as the real D3? I could go off on a long chain of how a game is a rip-off of another game. Hell, most games nowadays are rip-offs, by your definition. Every TCG = Magic. Every MMORPG = WoW clone. Every 2D side-scroller = MapleStory. The original games are not ripped-off. They *inspired* the new games. It's similar to inventing new things as technology advances. Did we just finally take a photo of the black hole because someone just thought of it? No. They thought of it decades ago, but didn't have the means to see one. Now they do, and ta-da! We have the photo. Did someone suddenly think of making a Diablo clone? No. Someone came up with it, turns out it was a brilliant idea, and now, ta-da! We have PoE, Torchlight, Wolcen, etc. Go ahead and play your brilliant D2 or D3, while I wait for these other rip-off cloned games that were developed *by* *the* *people* *who* *originally* *also* *loved* *and* *played* *those* *older* *games*
D3 has incredible combat, but itemization is dull and character building is pretty much non-existent which is why D3 is fun to play but only for a weekend. The key to PoE's itemization I feel is the fact optimized rare items are so much more powerful than any unique/legendary item, regardless of rarity almost without exception.
Gregory Sullivan This comment tells me that you havent actually sunk time into POE. The economy in this game is extremely deep. Far deeper than d2 at any point. Its character build depth is enormously more in depth. The endgame is far deeper as well. If you havent actually played the game and done the actual endgame then pulling shit out of your ass makes you look silly right? I put probably 6k hrs into d2 and can tell you although d2 is a historic landmark of gaming POE is the true evolution of d2 compared to d3 which I also put 500 hrs into and was horrified.
They are gamers at heart. Gamers who make games they themselves wanna play. Not like Blizzard and others, where everything is about putting as little effort in as possible, while trying to maximize profit with microtransactions.
Like really? Game engine is prehistorical, laggs and crashes with 10 prc exp lost because of bad game design is really awsome. This dude is faaaaaaar away from gamers.
@@veixest The current engine was created when they were a small team developing in their garage, and next year we'll get a brand new one. I don't really have problem with lag or crash (just put the game in an SSD), sound like you just need to get better.
@@veixest wait you think that because the game lags the devs arent gamers? like they chose to make the game lag?, thats literally the worst argument ive ever read.
Chris was buffed with lvl 27 Haste, Onslaught, Rampage 500 and held one button for almost an hour (Word Flurry - Cast While Channeling - Slideshow - Faster Casting - Infused Channeling - Spell Surge)
More like "I'm being thrown out of here, I have exactly 1 hour." which is what these conferences do,sadly. He had no choice. But he's a great project lead, I agree.
@@inayaarime He's even left plenty of time for questions and commentary at the end and his speech was amazingly well organized. He was clearly well prepared (or very used to giving speeches, which i doubt as a development lead). Pretty sure he could've cut the time for questions just short if he didn't manage his time properly.
@@asdfasdf-mn8iu Yeah, he's very good at managing his time, and obviously prepared well for that con, knowing it was going to be short time for a long topic
"So many games these days just remove trade... you need to have trade in your games that are about items, because that way the items have some value. If you find an item and you're the only person that can ever consume that, it's not really something that you've achieved that you can actually feel good about having it, it doesn't have any weight to it." TAKE SOME FUCKING NOTES DESTINY!
Jelle Street agreed . I refuse, I hate , I won’t use, trade period. No need for it. But if people shut the fuck up just because it’s there. Fine. Let them have a way to feel important.
@@TheKingCoaster don't see any reason to hate on it? It's not a feature you're forced to use. I agree with Chris - it's a feature loot based games need and i see their philosophy in it. It makes the game feel more alive since players get to to interact with others, and simply because trading is a big thing. Imagine finding a top tier item, but you have no use of it for your chars - sell it for profit to someone who'd happily buy it. Rather than just being all wowed and just leave it/vendor it for bull price.
More than 5 years after I paid that guy several hundred dollars for virtual space ships, and I still don't have a playable game and still cannot fly those ships....
I'm not even playing the game (yet at least) and am not getting bored for just a second. It's also some interesting context for a game I do play, Warframe
No. It could be a great game but the developer could be bad at giving conferences/presentations (and some how is still a head dev/some how is the one chosen to give the presentation). They are not correlated.
Yea I just ate this video. Even though I'm currently sorta unhappy and quit (for mostly impatience with farming RPGs) I still recommend this game to my friends.
OMG!!! THANK YOU!! So far it's felt like he's giving up company secrets to profitability... but if you really think about it if more developers/companies learn from this, then we will get way better games in the future.
@@_AriseChicken i play without spending a dollar other than a currency tab, map tab, and premium tab upgrade all for $20 (buy first blood when there is a sale on stash tabs) so ya the micros dont influence my experience
"[Here's a talk about how we broke the industry rules and were successful.]" - Chris "[YoU're BReAkinG aLl tHe RuLeZ!1!1!]" - Madrox ^-- supposed to be humorous. But for an actual reply: "Technology leadership is not defined by patents, which history has repeatedly shown to be small protection indeed against a determined competitor, but rather by the ability of a company to attract and motivate the world’s most talented engineers. We believe that applying the open source philosophy to our patents will strengthen rather than diminish Tesla’s position in this regard." - www.tesla.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you
@@_AriseChicken 9/10 on steam, 8.1 on metacritic, 92% of google users like it. It's not P2W, it's F2P, even in Australia the servers are good and there's a steady influx of new content. I'm sorry, but you're objectively wrong. You have nothing other than your own personal opinion to back the idea that PoE is a bad game.
@@_AriseChicken Yes, Madrox *is* indeed implying that PoE is good. At least something was implied. Now what does stating "icrotransaction dress competition every 3 months" imply? Nothing whatsoever since it's optional and arguably a separate game entirely.
It's funny, I downloaded POE january 6th, hit level 2, looked at the skill tree, logged out. The next day I played for like 6-8 hours and logged out at level 28 (I know, super slow, but I was trying to teach myself the game, videos would have been a better idea), I've played every day since, fantastic game.
Do it at your own pace. The game actually has a lot of stuff to explore and great lore. Speed is only relevant when you engage in the late game economy.
Doesn't look like they ever had a plan besides going in and grabbing the Anti-D3 players and running away with them into the fantasy world of "D2 was the greatest game ever, let's make yet another game based on that misguided thought". I mean what they're showing here isn't a "plan" but more of explaining how they actually survived for 10 years using what is now a 13-year old engine... But looking back at D2, I guess their players love old engines that play like crap now. Keep those Sunglasses of Urza handy, though...you'll need them every time you remember D2 and think "Those were the good old days". All his graphs seem to show is that, yes, players come back to their game and their numbers spike again, but then it doesn't take the majority of them long to realize why they stopped playing and disappear again. Or it could be new players and they realize they don't want to bother with a game that is so complicated it can't possibly be balanced (as no game with "100s of builds!" should be able to be...). They want players to spike again, rebuild with a newer engine.
I just imagine some intern going to Chris Wilson and going "Can we really not put in dragons?", and Wilson answering with an exasperated voice "ugh fine, but only cosmetics"
When they enter the office, they all get a buff from Chris with "150% increased speaking speed" and a buff from Bex with "150% more development and design power" :D
It's about creating a business model, which is very hard to do. You could have the same thoughts with Mc Donalds, or any other industry that produces entertainment. The aim is to create the need and make people come (and pay).
@@rainerzufall1337 It produces also convenience for parents. So they don't have to waste their hard earned time (not money) on cooking for the kids but rather spend it with them.
@@orangeorange4636 Right, 100% about making money, but about how to make money in a way that is sustainable long-term and doesn't alienate your fanbase, instead enticing them back again and again.
@@bigred9165 Not really. It makes you ponder if this is what you want to do, what about your goals, your dreams? Does it make sense to pour all your time and effort (your 20s) on your goals so you can enjoy gaming later? will you still like gaming then? or even be alive? I should find my balance *thinking*
@@yourebreathingmanuallynow3944 well said... video games are dangerous to male minds and lead to very sad results in our lives, often. what about learning anything at all except video games? how much have these diversions taken from us?
I sunk hundreds into this game to support the company. This was back when they really needed the funds. Since sell to Tencent, no thanks. They're living fat and happy. It's great to hear that the spiritual successor of D2 is making hand over fist money without selling experience, items, etc.
Here I am wondering why the guy is talking so fast, then midway thru he's like, "Okay, I only have 20 more minutes." I'm like, "Holy shite! Faster! FASTER!!!"
Refreshing to hear such an old school company ethic within the modern landscape. Especially after reading the Kotaku/Bioware exposes recently. Ended up watching the whole thing. Hope publishers take note that passion has better results over excessive crunch.
@Gregory Sullivan You've misunderstood. Was just talking about their company. Not the actual game. Not really concerned about your opinions with playing it. I'm enjoying it personally.
@Gregory Sullivan One thing you need to think about, when considering funding for game like this, is that you need money all the time for the server costs and "monitoring" online community. Plus in there that you want to develope the game onward, and you need alot more money. So you need to find a way to get money steadily over time, all the time. Most games have done it with monthly fee, but that cuts out alot of possible players, even if someone would have the money to pay, it may be impossible for him to pay. Its not doable with one time payment, unless theres expansions that you have to pay for everytime those are released. The way its done now, atleast everyone has an equal chance to play the game. Its free to play for everyone, no matter do you have credit card or some other fancy way to pay for your right to play. Atm it works kinda like, the ones who have money and will to pay, also pay for the ones who dont. And for me thats ok, if i have alot of something i dont need, im happy to share it out to others.
Wow, That talk was awesome. So much insight into Game Development and Path of Exile as whole. I wish there was a multi-hour video of him going into all the details he wanted but couldn't go into in this talk.
This is how games company should be run. Transparency with ur fellow players. Listen to the players. Interact with ur players. Dont be greedy, do quality content cash will come if you do just this. Share holders dont play ur game, players do, and they pay you for this, not shareholders. PoE should be the role model for many gamedev studios. Hands down.
I mean, they are kinda paying a high price for this, they receive an insane amount of infiltered rage directly because there's no distance between the company and the players, some people just go way too far with the rage. The company is getting more and more distant over the years because of this, which I think is the best choice for their employees.
Man I am consistently impressed how GGG can push the limits of ARPG constraints. The actual systems I mean. Sometimes over engineered and complex (often lol) whether fun and enticing or not I AM still amazed what they aim for. Other devs don't even ATTEMPT what GGG does. and for that alone they deserve all the respect in the world.
Mark Rosewater once said that designers should be more afraid of boring your players than making ambitious mistakes. Because players respect, in general, when do something bold and innovative with a positive disposition. Even the densest PoE leagues were at least different and wild. It's a benefit. Think of how bad the game would do if they never innovated on the alpha mechanics.
It’s really the best game of all times! I joined 2023 and it’s an experience I never had before. The first two attempts have been challenging, but now I feel graduated and it is sooo enjoyable!
What a great talk. Makes me want to play the game now. This studio knows what they're doing. They understand what motivates players and what needs to be in the game to make it a positive experience. You guys are what Blizzard once was.
Thanks Angry! This presentation was incredible in detailing how a small company stayed aware of what they were doing and made changes to become a success. Glad you shared!
36:20 Wow that's incredible. I would have never noticed it's the same assets being used! Played both of those maps hundreds of time and never noticed it
I appreciate Path of Exile considerably more than I already did after this insight. It's incredible what amount of thought and analyzing goes into this continual development!
Why the fuck would you spend that much money on a "game design" degree? For that much money you could have started a game design business or gone to med school.
Amazing talk, really really well done. I haven't played PoE in a long time, but I'm going to come back and see the new changes. Thank you for caring so much about your game and your user base.
I'm a borderline noob on this game, yet was interested in this because I am thinking about getting back into this game. But I am curious - people keep mentioning GGG; who or what is that?
"Don't stall content for later" - that's the best damn advice you can give a lot of these dumb AAA devs. Bungie is guilty of a lot of points that you touched on here
36:50 This totally got me. I love Lunaris Temple but when I saw it not covered in blood at night (I imagined what it would smell like and almost vomited once, the ambient noise of the place creeps me out) but during the day covered in blue flowers it's sooooo beautiful.
With having no idea how to develope a game but to put love and effort in it based on your own "gaming" history is this the way how game designers should do! Love you Chris and Team for all what you are doing for ARPG Genre! Keep up the good work alive and thanks for this stunning presentation!
It's just an example but going by Chris' logic, they might already be modeling dragons n a dragon theme, n keeps them in their shelve, ready any time for launch. So yeah, no dragons for now, but make dragon models nonetheless
Thanks for repeating the questions in the Q&A section. I know it wasn't necessary here, but I have seen SO many vods where you could not understand the questions at all that I really appreciate that.
The game itself is quite fine. But it's also a microtransactions hell, and the prices of each individual items is anything but micro. Also it's online only. The official reason being to avoid cheating, the real reason I just gave you.
@Grenherb Character slots, stash tabs... You think you can map without dedicating full tabs to it? Unless you play only one character you can't make it without emptying regularly your tabs. When reaching engame stashing currency becomes unbearable without a currency tab because the stacks are too low (and the currency tab circumvents that limit, for $7.5). Same with map tabs. You need 3 maps to fuse into higher tier map, that means loads of map you'll have double of until the third comes by, and they don't even stack. Then you get a map tab, that stacks them to unreachable limits, for the horrendous price of $15, the price of a game FFS. Sure you don't *need* them, but prepare to lose hours of micromanaging your stash if you don't buy them. Also I've said above the currency tab cost $7.5, but that's not even true because you can't buy anything directly, you have to buy points pack, microsoft style, for $1=10pt, except packs are only $5, $10 and $20, so if you want just the currency for instance, it will cost you $10 contrary to the "mere" 75pts($7.5) displayed. Truly it's like a dream. Of getting swindled.
@@SPTX. So you would rather a game that sells hundreds of different types of potions and has vip only areas? its a free game. they need to make money so they add things that those in the community who can afford them can buy. completely optional and does not affect gameplay. No pay to win aspect at all. People who expect everything for free forget that the devs need to eat as well. They can't work for free. If you thing the game is swindling you, remember you are not forced in any way to spend one penny on it. Its your choice if you do. There are loads of ways around storage, use them instead. 23 FREE character slots not enough for you? delete some characters or get another account...
@@sexybl7 Don't be disingenuous. I'd rather have a game I paid for once and get everything from it, without it costing $10000, yes, including "cosmetics". Pretty sure stash tabs affect gameplay though. Especially the map and currency ones. "remember you are not forced in any way to spend one penny on it." Exactly what I did, but don't pretend they don't try to. "There are loads of ways around storage, use them instead." Such as? Spending a full day on trading, selling to merchants for scaps and deleting items. It's like saying a way around dying of hunger is to eat mud. "23 FREE character slots not enough for you? delete some characters or get another account..." If this wasn't an online game there wouldn't be a limit at all. And your "solutions" are blatantly insulting. This is not really better than the likes of EA do.
@@SPTX. So you would like 7+ years of additional content for base game price of ~$60? 4 free expansions per year included? Let me know if you find that. For now, I will continue to enjoy PoE, which has by far the best monetization model of any free to play game I know of. And of course it is just an incredible game otherwise as well.
suddenly i felt strange warmth on my heart when he shown "Breach" on the graph. Because it was the time i started playing PoE. And i know ill be coming back to it every league for next couple of weeks to play this awesome game. Great job GGG! love ya!
you can feel the passion comming off him in waves, thats how you want the head of your company to be. still the young adult that sat at his computer for hours, playing diablo.
Arpg Dungeon crawler; 1000 possible passive skills, max level 100 (1 skill/level). The asendency system also helps make each class have more endgame options. It gets quarterly updates with seasonal league servers, so evereone has motivation to start fresh and try something new I can see it as a "forever game" for any Arpg fan really.
in 22:04 he doesnt give credit to a few things that happened at the time. they started to experiment with powercreep. each league had a lot of very powerful new rewards that gave you massive benefits and basically forced you to play the newest content (rip standard). the quality and amount of content went up because they stopped releasing 2 leagues simultaneously and likely general growth. each new league was as big as a big expansion before. also this was around the 3.0 update which was a huge change to the core game. a lot of things changed and it turned out to be exactly what players wanted. they removed difficulty modes and instead improved the endgame and made it a lot more fun and replayable.
Back in the days i played both Diablo 1 and 2 for manny years each and i enjoyed the heck out of it. When i found this game i instantly fell in love .I always have and will still buy a supporter pack for each league to support this awesome game so it can remain for manny years to come. Lots of love, all hail Christ Wilson
26 years old, been PC gaming since my dad got me hooked at around 7-8. Have to say PoE is one of the best F2P games i've ever played, right up there with big hitters like Runescape and LoL. Not surprised to hear the developer speak so amazingly well about what makes a game good and re-playable, it reflects in his product.
This is why they can charge 20$ for cosmetics. Because there's nothing else to spend money on. No subscription no p2w items you need...no log in limit... No need for loot boosters.. Xp boosters. Naw Sell a 1$ loot boost? Naw. Make 1/20th the amount of sales but at 20x the cost. The playerbase will reward you Obviously
Heh, looking back at the times when you had to have a subscription to play a mediocre online game feels like a fever dream, I'm sure there are some still doing their business that way but I've never encountered something as good as path of exile and not flooding you with popups and clunky user interfaces. I just came back to path of exile after a year hiatus and it feels like a brand new game. The only downside is that I can never progress far in the game since I'm tight on time.
@@vermin5367 One thing that helped me a lot was following a hardcore build guide but playing it on softcore, these builds are usually easy to level up while maintaining a good balance between defense and offense and it only gets better once you find/buy better equipment, knowing exactly what to do and what items to use saves a lot of time and, because it was meant to be played on hardcore, you will not die often and can rest assured that it can take on the endgame (or at least fund the next build that can do it).
@@llrennanll god why are you people everywhere. He said time, not willingness to ignore what attracts people to the game to grind some streamers league starter and grind so you can make an actual build thats only viable because its budget is 200ex.
@@danielbr93 Well if one league or arguably two leagues where decent to good from the last seven i wouldnt say thats a good track record. Its hard to not see how much the base game has to suffer because they have there focus on PoE2.