Eleventh Hour Games | New Partnership

That’s really sad to hear that Tencent has reached its corrupt fingers into my next favorite up and coming game. I had high hopes for the future of this game and gave happily to be a part of its growth. I will not support anything under the chinese communist party, they have taken over enough and people need to stop selling out to them, or regret the consequences later. I wish you all the best at EHG.

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I can’t in good faith give money to a company, knowing that I’m almost directly supporting the oppressive Chinese government.
So similar to what I did with PoE - and sooner than what I hoped for with LE - I will NOT buy any packs or MTX. I`ll still play the game, but I won’t be supporting you directly.
That’s just my personal opinion.

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I am not here to debate anything, just to leave my feedback. I purchased the game and have requested a refund due to the lack of ability to create and customize a character or even choose a gender. I know this is not a big deal to most people and may seem silly to some, but I just wanted to give feedback on why I chose to give it a pass. Best of luck to the game and its success.

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Torchlight, Grim Dawn, and Titans Quest are all amazing, logged many hours with them. Haven’t tried Wolcen, but thanks for the suggestions.

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I understand the limitations and again wish the game success, I just wanted to leave feedback on why I chose not to purchase.

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Been a little absent lately from the forums, so late to the party on this.

My opinion on this is that I am quite literally 50/50 on the whole topic.

First, politics for me doesn’t come into it. I think it’s hugely oversimplistic to try and assign political events/beliefs to either a video game, or to a business. I have no time for those opinions that think that a business partnership with a company from any country automatically assigns a political viewpoint to you. It’s a naive view. It’s no different from saying if I eat McDonalds I support the U.S Gov stand on something, or if I buy anything “made in China” I support the Chinese Gov stand on something. Both daft. As consumers we are constantly buying/using products that come from countries all over the globe. Doing that is not actively condoning anything political, it’s merely a fact of life that major countries own the most manufacturing, and being major they come with political baggage.

So, as far as the Tencent announcement goes for me…

On the gaming model stand, I am undecided. I totally hate the thought of P2W creeping in due to outside influence. On the other hand you could argue that PoE hasn’t really overtly seen any ill effects from TenCent’s involvement (only the insanity of the devs & CW).

On the business side, again I’m undecided. I think it very much depends on the super tiny “small print” of the agreement. I really, really, hope that tons of time was spent reading that, and really understanding it.

If TenCent bought in purely to receive a future dividend or ROI from dividends, then great. I think that’s a smart move from 11th. However, if there’s any penalising small print that gives TenCent any other “options” in the event of a failure to perform, then that would be really bad, possibly really, really bad.

I guess it’s the motivation from Tencent that I am concerned about. If it is a purely a fiscal ROI arrangement, then all well & good, but only the small print of the agreement would clarify that for certain. If, however, it’s a " we want nothing more than ROI, but here in the small print it says if you don’t perform then we own 25% of your soul" then that is not the same thing at all.

So, at this time, I’ll have to put faith in what Judd has stated in this thread, alongside all the goodwill that the LE team has bought in my soul thus far. As of now, I trust the 11th & LE guys and I hope that I don’t end up having to revise that viewpoint. I am though always hugely cautious of any AAA studio wanting a stake in any indie studio.

On the positive side, I’d much rather 11th creating ties with Tencent than EA, Ubisoft, or any of the other Western AAA’s. I’ve lost count of the number of games I once loved which have been utterly destroyed by EA or Ubi due to pure & utter greed and a necessity to control & monetize.

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Oh, and P.S. if the statements in here are true and Karv has been taken on I am super pleased. I’ve long been a silent follower of Karv, and I admire his talents for analysis. His gaming viewpoints have also historically been very close to my own.

Karvarousku is on the QA Team of EHG for as long as I can think.

At least 1 1/2-2 years I would say, but I could be off.
Since I do not actively follow any content creators I did not recognize him, until I heard some1 saying his name in PoE Context and then I connected the dots and I think he was already on the EHG team, when I become more active on the official discord. (He is clearly associated with EHG through discord roles)

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Yes, I just looked into it and found a vid he did from Dec 2019.
This is me all around. I seem to miss major things (this is major to me anyway) due to walking around obsessing about little things.

I now realise what an idiot I sounded making that last post.

Still, I’m not proud, and quite used to being an idiot on occasion. :smile:

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do you know how weird it sounds to be ok with 5% but not 25%? As though the $35 you’ll probably spend on the game would make a difference either way

Thank you for LE, it was more than worth the money EHG put on the price tag a few years ago.
Removed the game, because I don’t support the CCP.
Good Luck.

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Oh God. Why?!?! Terrible decision. The CCP funded Chinese spyware that will most certainly be injected into the game is simply not worth it.

Hell, I quit POE because of this. Really sad to see them gobble up the competition.

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You know. This is not something I enjoyed reading.
Last Epoch is the game I invested in and had huge plans for investing even more in. Now that Tencent is involved, I do not think or am not sure if I actually want to invest anything more LE Packages, then in the one I already have.
Back in the day I was a player of Path of Exile, and I even enjoyed some of the Special and Founder Packages. Then suddenly Tencent came into the Picture and snatched up Grinding Gear Games. They bought and now owns 80% of the entire company of Grinding Gear Games. Many back then said no worries, but of course there became changes over time. How can one even say that nothing will change after Tencent´s involvement?!
Well, changes was PoE was introduced to the Asian part. Asian Packages is different then the Western ones in many aspecys, and we will never ever see any of it. Seasons became very and more and more repeatable of each other. Prices of Packages was slowly rising. Content of Packages was slowly but surely shrinking. Today you are paying more for less content. And Tencent is slowly and more pulling in the strings, and it is being noticed.

And you mention some small investment for help from Tencent. Is this some kind of small loan? Are you going to be able to pay it back, when the playerbase has invested enough money in Last Epoch? And what happens when you have paid it back? Shoving Tencent aside or getting another loan all the way up to the point that Tencent can say and tell you to suck their balls. Or quite simply own you so much as they can fire and replace you quicker then you are able to snap your fingers.? They have done it before. They have done it with GGG. Other big companies have done it and doing it with other small companies too.
Do you really think they will not do it with you?
And you say you are excited as hell.
No, seriously. I do not like this, and I´m a bit worried for the Last Epoch game and what will influence it in the future.
But what I do hope for is that Last Epoch is gonna be great in all the ways possible. But not in the Tencent way of great.

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Concentrations matter. Though Msoft has a net gain in money against China, so even less money spent with blizz goes abroad as soon as that closes. At least a while back I heard Washington state was one of the few states that had a net positive trade with China.

The reason the CCP has been able to wreak havoc on our economy is because it’s been to the benefit of the wealthy. I don’t understand EHG well enough to know their long-term intents and with them being private, I’ll know even less. You can judge all you want. I’ll do me, you do you.

Imagine supporting Ukraine, but then supporting the CCP.

EHG’s ethics are out of wack.

This is gaming, it has nothing to do with politics. To compare the 2 is simple mindedly simplistic.

I’m sure if you look around your house you will find hundreds of things “made in China”. Does this mean you are a supporter of their politics? Of course not, it’s a daft thing to say.

While I’m not a fan (as I expressed above) of this move, it is not out of politics, but a disdain the for way in which Gaming finance “whales” often change/corrupt/ruin games due to greed. EHG went shopping for finance, they found finance. You want a vacuum cleaner, you buy a vacuum from what is offered. Do you only buy vacuums if they are made in certain countries?

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if i had known you would be owned by tencent i’d never have bought last epoch …
now i regret this buy and my investment of attention.

sadly it is a fact, that partnering with a corporation from china means you partner with their goverment. hard for us westerners to wrap our head around, but still … thats how it works there.
because i want to game not deal with politics i remove my attention from games partnering with the chinese goverment.
did you have to do that? did you need money? where you understaffed?

why did you do it?

one of the main reasons i got curious about last epoch was it WAS independently made, without the corporate rat tail attached. damn do i need to check every week if a game i might fall in love with is linked to an entity that i want as little to do with as possible?

did you struggle with your multiplayer more then you let on? is tencent helping you out with your servers? im curious - please be more open about your arrangements or at least state that you are forbidden to be open about them.

im glad i will always have heroes of hammerwatch at my side for my arpg itches… my fault should have investigated more before i bought. i just trusted you would be always independent due to your origins and naively did not follow up research.

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The reasons are mentioned in the main post. Also there were a lot of questions that got answered by Mox. Just scroll the first few posts and you will easily find it.