I simply cannot undestand why did ye not ask for help by Tencent again? Working with them is time-tested.
Likely 10C wouldn’t pay as much as Krafton, also in spite of their reputation 10C don’t go for 100% control of ‘western’ companies usually, Krafton OTOH do … with the results we all know about with PUBG, Subnautica, etc. and soon probably LE.
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Do we know for sure that it will be 100 percent control for sure? Including creative control?
Yes, they acquired 100%
So full control, of everything. EHG has no say at all anymore if Krafton tells them to do something.
Krafton can tell them to do whatever they please and to tell us whatever they please, so not a single word is trustworthy from now on anymore as we won’t know if it’s a order from above for specific type of communication or actually meant words.
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That is quite cynical of you. Just because they are owned, doesn’t mean the owner wants to interfere with the team as long as things go well (which so far they have, there’s no reason for them to intervene).
Do you always distrust everything Jonathan says, or Chris Wilson said, just because Tencent has 100% of GGG? Do you immediately think that they could be saying that because Tencent told them to say it?
It’s the exact same situation.
No, because Tencent has no track record of interacting in severely bad mannerisms with the companies they own. They are a very hands-off company.
Krafton is not.
Hence I’m cynical, it would be insanity knowing their track-record and thinking anything else then an absolute shit-show will happen in one way or another… likely many at once.
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Personally, I think that has long as LE continues improving and growing (like it is currently) that Krafton won’t interfere. After all, growth means return on the investment, and trying to change things is uncertain.
So the likely play from them is that they won’t interfere either, unless LE starts sinking.
EDIT: Also, Tencent has definitely influenced games in the past into a more transaction-heavy route. They just haven’t done that with most western games they own.
True, but is it enough of a RoI, fast enough?
Continued growth is guaranteed. Intervening trying to get better growth is uncertain and can backfire.
Not only that, Judd talked to many (by his own words) before settling for them. I’m sure a guarantee of no interference unless necessary was part of it.
Ultimately, the deal is done. There is no going back on it. So instead of worrying and thinking the worst, I find it’s much better to simply hope for the best and enjoy the game.
If things change for the worse in the future, then I’ll likely just leave. I see no point in fretting and painting dark scenarios that might or might not happen when there’s no way to influence the outcome.
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Oh… you sweet sweet summer child! As mentioned… read up on what Krafton does, who it does it to and then go ahead to repeat that message 
Tera Online was a wildly successful MMORPG, which Krafton ran absolutely and entirely into the ground.
It was beloved by fans, it had massive potential and instead of improvements Krafton actively went into ‘milking’ it. And with that I’m not exaggerating… they did nearly nothing what the community asked for… over several years… and monetized the hell out of it until people started to leave from sheer frustration rather then not enjoying the game anymore until it then finally shut down.
With PUBG Krafton did several things wrong. First off they actively wanted to save money and hence made hefty server merges which caused players to have high pings suddenly while it was long long before fine. And that’s not something which is sustainable for a FPS game. Also they haven’t acted in any meaningful way about their absolutely… atrociously rampant cheating issue. They often don’t even react on reports has been found out.
Krafton has taken over PUBG in November 2018 partially and in 2020 fully and only in recent times - as they finally started updating the game properly - it started recovering numbers. Until they went F2P they consistently lost numbers as absolutely rampant cheating was never addressed and that turned players away, which was the original task of Krafton, to take care of that… and they never anything even remotely viable.
The next thing they did in the ‘major leagues’ is the current ongoing drama related to Subnautica 2.
Much is not yet known, but from leaked documents we know a portion of the situation.
The leaders of Subnautica 2 had a contract to push for EA with a distinct roadmap provided until a specific date. If they succeeded they would get a 250 million bonus.
They succeeded in providing everything outside of… 2 models I think?.. and instead implemented many many building related aspects to make up for it. Miniscule changes.
Krafton then came in and did 2 things.
- The first was to change the roadmap to a degree which makes it entirely impossible to finish at the deadline. Doubling story content demands (Chapter 2 fully implemented instead of only Chapter 1) and demanding 2 new leviathans (they have very high modeling demands) and several extra mobs. Around 40% more then initially demanded.
- The second was to fire the leaders of Subnautica 2 under the allegation that they didn’t work enough and instead took too much time off. Which… so? As long as their job is done their job is done, end of story. This area is murky though as we don’t know the exact contract statements and the fired people are sueing currently.
All in all Krafton ended 1 massive game. Heavily neglected another massive game and is arguing about 250 million contractual obligation - they shouldn’t have ever given in the first place under any circumstances - for a third, making the standing of that game very problematic even before it goes into Early Access.
Yep, exactly, because they know when to keep their dirty hands off the product. The asian market is known for it… but the european doesn’t deal kindly to such things. They simply know what they can get away with.
Krafton doesn’t. They go ‘below the belt’ regularly in their actions. They even went so far as to actively cause fraudulent actions by implementing a crossover MTX event which had a marketed guaranteed 1 in 5 payout for a specific piece of the skin-set advertised… but then put that chance down to 9% without informing anyone.
If someone asks what the situation is then I’ll obviously tell them the most likely outcome.
Were it anything else then a negative one I would gladly love to give that information away… but first off: EHG has showcased before the takeover that they are still struggling with their content pipeline and priorization. Which can be handled but takes immense time which the game might not have as it needs to be profitable.
And secondly: Krafton is known to not accept any timeframe which causes anything else then immense revenue, their actions are that as long as it stays visibly profitable they keep up service, if it’s not wildly profitable they stop investing and instead foxus on monetization to increase revenue to a profit range acceptable for them (instead of improving the game itself) and ultimately shut down when their ill-fitted strategy doesn’t work out.
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“Why you get $96M but not me?!”
lol
Did I miss something? Did a conglomerate buy EHG or what?
Continued growth is never guaranteed, ever. Either in terms of player numbers or income.
To quote Lord Refa from Babylon 5, ink on a page…
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As a company gets acquired, there is less freedom and less creativity because there is money at stake with the new owner, resulting in avoiding risk and sticking to formulas. Just look at Microsoft and Blizzard. When one man calls all the shots, you can have hope. Once it becomes a committee, kiss your game goodbye.
EHG is now fully owned by Krafton, the company that just bought the Subnautica studio and owns PUBG.
This is what I believe. The game didn’t grow fast enough so the CCP overlords didn’t see the value in acquiring the property. Plus, the devs at EHG probably aren’t closely connected enough to any influential people they would like to compromise. So backing the dump truck of dollars up to the studio on behalf of the CCP influence campaign didn’t make a lot of sense to begin with.
The first rule of being bought off by dangerous regimes is to have something they want to buy.
Because neither company is good, but Tencent is WORSE. They’re behind the decline of Ubisoft.
And fired the Subnautica 2 devs. EHG is gone. I will try the new game the devs make when they get a new studio together.
Cuz, this? Last Epoch is done. It’s going to need to make A LOT of money for their new masters. They’ll replace the current leaders with money people. I guess I’ll now have to look for another game. Oh well.
NGL if i made a game and someone wanted to buy it for 96 million USD, i will ask where do i sign my name.
but that said, let EHG/krafton cook.
let time tell
and also dont forget to vote with your wallets. keep them nicely clamped up until you see stuff you like.
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To support EHG’s independence, I tried to buy as many support packs as possible. But now, my previous contributions feel meaningless! Why did you need more money for a game that was already doing well? Why?