Studio Announcement

[JoeW 36712]

2 hours ago, t0panka said:

It would be nice to hear what this mean for real and not just "This partnership helps us navigate a changing industry" which is just PR BS. The changing industry is full of microtransactions and YES Tencent is really good with milking people for more money

I'm not going to go into the ins and outs of how the game industry works, but it shouldn't be hard to understand that being an independent studio is hard and unpredictable. Ultimately the decision was made because that's what was decided was best for the studio to keep doing what we do.

If people think we're going to just up and start doing all kinds of crazy stuff despite what we said, we can't really do much about that except do what we said we were going to do.

Our priority is and always has been our players and our employees. As far as what changes for the players. I do think that was covered. We're going to keep doing what we do, the way that we do it. We would like to do more, but we're also not going to suddenly increase the studio size or changing the scope of our projects.

[Chesmu 212]

36 minutes ago, t0panka said:

Lol i want Klei to be successful but im not their open wallet. I made post in first 10 pages where i explained that i actually fully supported Klei to this date. I have all their games several times, all art, all soundtracks, everything they released, multiple plushies and i also had 100% of the skins they released. I put more than healthy amount into Klei because i believed in this company because they were user friendly and not another cancer company milking everything from their users and doesnt even bring new content like we see these days with popular games.

Now this is where your point completely sinks my friend, you didn't just give those money for Klei, it's not like giving a homeless some money! You gave them money, and in return you got soundtracks, listened to them and had fun, you got the merch that made your room look good, and the skins that made your character look good while gaming.

You put money and time in this "Game", and had your fun in it, it's like you bought Pizza from a place, eat it, and a day later they close up and you complain about how much Pizza you ate there last night!

TLDR: Traded Money + Energy , Received fun. If you can't do the same now for any reason, you just lose the potential fun you could have now, so no need to bring the old trades up. 

36 minutes ago, t0panka said:

All i want to know if this is our future so i dont need to waste my time here

We can't know the future; What wastes time is worrying about something that isn't happened.

Not to rush you in your decision, what needs to be done in this case is to not buy anything for now if you are not comfortable, and buy when you are.

Since you didn't subscribe for monthly stuff like in some games, nothing is lost.

Edited January 28 by Chesmu

[t0panka 1643]

17 minutes ago, JoeW said:

I'm not going to go into the ins and outs of how the game industry works, but it shouldn't be hard to understand that being an independent studio is hard and unpredictable. Ultimately the decision was made because that's what was decided was best for the studio to keep doing what we do.

If people think we're going to just up and start doing all kinds of crazy stuff despite what we said, we can't really do much about that except do what we said we were going to do.

Our priority is and always has been our players and our employees. As far as what changes for the players. I do think that was covered. We're going to keep doing what we do, the way that we do it. We would like to do more, but we're also not going to suddenly increase the studio size or changing the scope of our projects.

JoeW thanks for answer i appreciate that

Lets be honest here tho. You dont need to explain to me how stuff works i have my own business too and there are more ways how to do stuff (you have been doing them better than other for long time). You working especially in this industry know what im talking about when companies make this kind of deal and what comes next. I always saw "we wont change" but that is basically impossible since majority of your shares changed and it is expected to make more money from your investors. This is a fact

Since you said you wont be going bigger and keep doing what you are doing then in my "calculator" that equals only to make stuff more expensive or get money trough other means which is more microtransactions and less updates

Most importantly i WOULD believe you if it was some time ago but i have been burned even from you guys couple times before. 

• you said Hot Lava will be on steam for macOS (like every game you made) but that was a lie and i didnt even get answer how this Apple Arcade works from you guys when i asked
• you said your IP is your IP and now we have some to me very very bad version of DST on mobile for chinese
• at that time you said dont worry its just this and just for chinese and nothing will change for us here and BAM Tencent "owns you"

Before this i would believe you since i think you know me and i was HUGE fan of yours. Now i have very very little hope

11 minutes ago, Chesmu said:

Now this is where your point completely sinks my friend, you didn't just give those money for Klei, it's not like giving a homeless some money! You gave them money, and in return you got soundtracks, listened to them and had fun, you got the merch that made your room look good, and the skins that made your character look good while gaming.

Now this is where you are wrong my friend

I bough several stuff from Klei ONLY to support them. I bought their games multiple times over, I never played any of the soundtracks, i never used 95% of skins, i didnt even play Invisible Inc. because its not my kind of game but i bought it with DLC and everything. Im never ever gonna play Griftlands because i hate those kind of games but it was Klei so i supported them. And you are new here but i made other crazy stuff just to support Klei in the past

Edited January 28 by t0panka

[Chesmu 212]

3 minutes ago, t0panka said:

 I always saw "we wont change" but that is basically impossible since majority of your shares changed and it is expected to make more money from your investors. This is a fact

 

So the Founder itself comes here explaining, assuring you, but you call the man a liar in face and add a period to it. What else can be done now I'm curious, do we deserve apologies? mass refunds?

Please note that I'm not trying to pressure you t0panka, this is really interesting for me that sometimes we just want to feel betrayed and enjoy it; I did that a lot during some point in my life.

[t0panka 1643]

18 minutes ago, Chesmu said:

So the Founder itself comes here explaining, assuring you, but you call the man a liar in face and add a period to it. What else can be done now I'm curious, do we deserve apologies? mass refunds?

Please note that I'm not trying to pressure you t0panka, this is really interesting for me that sometimes we just want to feel betrayed and enjoy it; I did that a lot during some point in my life.

Either reply to my whole comment or stop making snippets from what i wrote. Answers you are looking for are in the same comment you quote me from. Im not asking for apology (lol) or refunds and if you took my comment listing what i bought from them that is not the point. The point is im not here first year and that i supported them through good and bad times. Most of the time there was more info and that is what i was looking for. I already know the evil side of things (from experience) and i was looking (and hoping) for the good side of things if there is some. JoeW provided something so im ok now

And also what else was here to do from the Founder. I was pointing this out that lots of founders made those claims and we got slapped after. What do you think he would wrote "We got bought by Tencent and we need to make more money so expect in couple months more micro transactions and less content updates"? I already made some examples where they said something but it changed ... because of money. But i guess you are right there is nothing they can say (legally) so this is pointless

Edited January 28 by t0panka

[Toros 2074]

1 hour ago, Chesmu said:

1) You call it faith, I call it realism! If things haven't changed recently, nor announced that way, then they are not. Yes, I will scream and run when my house is on fire, but why freak out when I'm not going to BBQ in a week? In my opinion it's better to live at the moment and be realist than to be paranoid and constantly worry about what "Might" happen, without any evidence.

2) It is not negativity that should stop, but the misinformation and worrying without a reason; Imagine such a person in real life, could you live with them in a single house? They constantly ask you question like: Do you think Climate change will end our world? do you think we will get to see Sun burning out? and similar subjects. Considering a lot of people living at forums, including myself, that is the feeling we get.

3) They don't mean you literally can't, they mean it is impossible to hit the launch button / press play of the games and not be supportive of those companies and what they do. (This one was a little bit of wordplay that I solved for you.)

You totally have right not to play any game or spend money on them; Nothing wrong with that.

1) This is nonsense.  Realism is recognizing that causes lead to effects.  Do you not have smoke alarms because your house is not on fire right now?  That is the argument you're making.  It's not paranoid to have foresight, you being unable to see what I see is your limitation.

2) None of this is "worrying without a reason."  Tencent has a history of anti-consumer practices and massively dwarfs Klei in size and budget.  There's a massive power imbalance when a company has majority shares and when that company has a history of anti-consumer actions there are excellent reasons to worry.  Again, you not understanding the context doesn't mean other people also don't understand it.  I understand and reject your position for the same reasons I reject Mike's as unreasonable given what we know.

3) Hyperbole is not how you craft a reasonable argument.  There are many developers who are not owned in part by Tencent, and many, many more that are not majority owned by Tencent.  Even if that was the case, not playing video games that enrich demonstrably unethical companies is always an option.  You're moving the goalposts to a place that doesn't exist.  He said it was impossible, I said not only was it not impossible, it's not even difficult to avoid supporting Tencent.

25 minutes ago, JoeW said:

I'm not going to go into the ins and outs of how the game industry works, but it shouldn't be hard to understand that being an independent studio is hard and unpredictable. Ultimately the decision was made because that's what was decided was best for the studio to keep doing what we do.

If people think we're going to just up and start doing all kinds of crazy stuff despite what we said, we can't really do much about that except do what we said we were going to do.

Our priority is and always has been our players and our employees. As far as what changes for the players. I do think that was covered. We're going to keep doing what we do, the way that we do it. We would like to do more, but we're also not going to suddenly increase the studio size or changing the scope of our projects.

As a consumer I appreciate this information but from reading this it sounds like Klei has given up their autonomy and won't be able to grow as a company or accomplish goals they weren't already on pace to accomplish.  The assumption some people have made is that with Tencent backing Klei will be able to do more for their customers they otherwise wouldn't, instead of business as usual but without legal autonomy.

[Chesmu 212]

9 minutes ago, Toros said:

1) This is nonsense.  Realism is recognizing that causes lead to effects.  Do you not have smoke alarms because your house is not on fire right now?  That is the argument you're making.  It's not paranoid to have foresight, you being unable to see what I see is your limitation.

2) None of this is "worrying without a reason."  Tencent has a history of anti-consumer practices and massively dwarfs Klei in size and budget.  There's a massive power imbalance when a company has majority shares and when that company has a history of anti-consumer actions there are excellent reasons to worry.  Again, you not understanding the context doesn't mean other people also don't understand it.  I understand and reject your position for the same reasons I reject Mike's as unreasonable given what we know.

3) Hyperbole is not how you craft a reasonable argument.  There are many developers who are not owned in part by Tencent, and many, many more that are not majority owned by Tencent.  Even if that was the case, not playing video games that enrich demonstrably unethical companies is always an option.  You're moving the goalposts to a place that doesn't exist.  He said it was impossible, I said not only was it not impossible, it's not even difficult to avoid supporting Tencent.

 

1) Realism is being real, simple as that. I have smoke alarms so I can stop worrying about fire! Otherwise why bother; Good thing about that, I had a reason and evidence to install it.

2) So we are back to Tencent's horrible history of things they don't do; You have 100% right to not play games you don't want to or spend on them, but I personally never ever accuse individuals and companies of terrible things without having any evidence;

But if I do have evidence:

3) I will also do the same for other similar individuals and companies, if my only reason for all this is being "Ethical". That's where it gets difficult to even open the Internet.

Edited January 28 by Chesmu
Grammar

[Toros 2074]

19 minutes ago, Chesmu said:

1) Realism is being real, simple as that. 

I stopped reading here because it's clear you're either unable or unwilling to have a meaningful discussion.  I assume you're ok with me mentioning you in the future if I have definitive evidence you were wrong?

[Chesmu 212]

7 minutes ago, Toros said:

I stopped reading here because it's clear you're either unable or unwilling to have a meaningful discussion.  I assume you're ok with me mentioning you in the future if I have definitive evidence you were wrong?

See as a realist I would read other 2 points no matter what the first point is; Because If I don't read them, they will not disappear.

[Toros 2074]

1 minute ago, Chesmu said:

See as a realist I would read other 2 points no matter what the first point is; Because If I don't read them, they will not disappear.

I knew they existed, and also that they weren't worth worrying about.

You didn't answer the question though.

[Chesmu 212]

Just now, Toros said:

I knew they existed, and also that they weren't worth worrying about.

You didn't answer the question though.

Calm down, no need to have a bar fight.

So are you willing to have a meaningful discussion about the actual topic, which are 2) and 3), about Tencent and stuff?

[Mike23Ua 9638]

2 hours ago, Toros said:

As a consumer I appreciate this information but from reading this it sounds like Klei has given up their autonomy and won't be able to grow as a company or accomplish goals they weren't already on pace to accomplish.  The assumption some people have made is that with Tencent backing Klei will be able to do more for their customers they otherwise wouldn't, instead of business as usual but without legal autonomy.

well now I’m just really really confused, if there’s going to be no changes to staffing, content updates, advancements in technical hardware etc and everything is just going to keep going at the same pace it always has, what was even the point of giving off ownership to Tencent? 
I was under the assumption that with their new found partnership this would allow Klei to do things they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to do without it (As that logically makes the most sense of why anyone would do it) 

I’m still hopeful for a 2021 Roadmap that restores some people’s faith & shows why this is a good thing for them as a company, and for us as the players that support their company.

I was hopeful they would outline what they plan to do for the foreseeable future, giving me exciting announcements that are going to help me much more easily convince my friends to buy and support their games.

With new PS5 & XSX consoles out there: I was even hopeful they would announce something on how they plan to support those consoles. (such as having higher world Gen options above being locked at default, or the world itself having more flora/fauna/atmosphere whatever you wanna call it: I’ll just call it pretty stuff for me to look at & further involve myself into the World around my character)

But now I hear that it’s not really going to change anything they weren’t already doing. So then, why was this change made to begin with?? So many mixed emotions all at once.. but I guess I’ll just have to wait & see what happens.

[00petar00 253]

2 hours ago, Toros said:

I knew they existed, and also that they weren't worth worrying about.

You didn't answer the question though.

Have to give you props for trying to convince so many of these young people on the forums that don't believe that Klei has no authonomy anymore. So many of them don't even realize what "Majority stake" means. So many of them don't even care that Tencent is partially owned by CCP and how big power imbalance is in China between CCP and private sector, they literally have to submit to everything CCP says, no matter the percentage of ownership. They also don't understand what atrocities China is committing in this day and age and are bringing back what other countries did in the past, instead of trying to not support something that is happening currently. 

Honestly i've read like first 28 pages of this thread and i only wrote my thoughts at page 12 or somewhere around there. There's literally no point in this topic being open anymore. In the first 10 pages you will know what are community's thoughts.

I can see why everyone wants to repeat what has been said just because they don't like this decision like many of us do, to express their disappointment in Klei's decision, there's also like 10-20 pages of people not understanding the situation.

I still believe that Klei Enterntaintment developers would not go around and start massively changing the game or monetization. What needs to be understood is that this decision is no longer in their hands, that's the most important sentence that has been repeated countlessly in this thread and denied by many.

I am in no way here to deny people being optimistic about the game though, i think that Klei Entertainment is probably going to do well with Tencent as they usually just buy companies and let the current devs work on their games, they may influence the decision in which the development will go but i think that game will overall be fine. I am mostly not supporting the decision because of CCP and what is currently happening in China. Honestly even if this wasn't the case, we all loved Klei for always being there for the consumer, so it doesn't matter which company buys them out, we know that they won't have control anymore and there's no company that will be as nice to us like Klei has been over the years.

Edited January 29 by 00petar00

[Marfoo 222]

Uhm... guys?

[TaschDraws 702]

7 days and 42 pages of this is more than enough.

 

 

 

 

[viberr 1211]

7 minutes ago, TaschDraws said:

7 days and 42 pages of this is more than enough.

 

 

 

 

well people will continue anyways

[KEY1422 2]

I don't want to run dangerous programs influenced by Tencent.
Please tell me the starting option that does not update the program.

 

[viberr 1211]

12 minutes ago, KEY1422 said:

I don't want to run dangerous programs influenced by Tencent.
Please tell me the starting option that does not update the program.

 

nah i don't think so 

but i might be wrong

[Serena Tsukino 5335]

5 hours ago, Marfoo said:

Uhm... guys?

Oh my, well was there any sort of announcement for a hotfix about DST? I'm sorry, but I haven't logged into Steam for a while.

[Monkey Cups 525]

15 hours ago, Chesmu said:

1) You call it faith, I call it realism! If things haven't changed recently, nor announced that way, then they are not. Yes, I will scream and run when my house is on fire, but why freak out when I'm not going to BBQ in a week? In my opinion it's better to live at the moment and be realist than to be paranoid and constantly worry about what "Might" happen, without any evidence.

There's a reason history is taught in schools. So people can learn from past mistakes. So they can avoid repeating them in the future. Large companies have bought small ones before and, generally, that does not go well. It being perfectly fine would be the exception not the rule and preparing for the exception is how you get caught with your trousers down.

[Chesmu 212]

12 hours ago, 00petar00 said:

I still believe that Klei Enterntaintment developers would not go around and start massively changing the game or monetization. What needs to be understood is that this decision is no longer in their hands, that's the most important sentence that has been repeated countlessly in this thread and denied by many.

 

Hmm, we know that Klei wouldn't go massively change the game, but we have to Believe they lost the decision, even tho we don't see any effect of it Irl.

I still see that freaking out people can't explain the situation and their point; All I hear for days is this: "Go read the Wikipedia", "Go to school", "Grow up", "CCP", "but CCP", "go read what I said", etc; All of this expresses a fear of conversation, and most importantly lack of evidence.

Here is what I suggest you do: Play your game, because you can always stop playing it.

 

2 hours ago, Monkey Cups said:

There's a reason history is taught in schools. So people can learn from past mistakes. So they can avoid repeating them in the future. Large companies have bought small ones before and, generally, that does not go well. It being perfectly fine would be the exception not the rule and preparing for the exception is how you get caught with your trousers down.

To disappoint you, that's not why they teach history. I would say why but this is not the place.

[Machine Reaper 2401]

3 minutes ago, Chesmu said:

Hmm, we know that Klei wouldn't go massively change the game, but we have to Believe they lost the decision, even tho we don't see any effect of it Irl.

I still see that freaking out people can't explain the situation and their point; All I hear for days is this: "Go read the Wikipedia", "Go to school", "Grow up", "CCP", "but CCP", "go read what I said", etc; All of this expresses a fear of conversation, and most importantly lack of evidence.

Here is what I suggest you do: Play your game, because you can always stop playing it.

 

why don't you do the same and stop worrying about us people going monkey on a company that has just set itself on fire.

[Chesmu 212]

1 minute ago, Machine Reaper said:

why don't you do the same and stop worrying about us people going monkey on a company that has just set itself on fire.

I'm here to offend you by reality. 

[Machine Reaper 2401]

3 hours ago, Chesmu said:

I'm here to offend you by reality. 

offend me what for?

not supporting Klei and your views?

are you really that shallow?

[Wayfarer22 7]

Oh no 

Good luck Klei. I wish that it will work out for you and that you'll be able to retain autonomy indeed. We were in the same situation in my previous company. After 2 years, the mother company started to push their processes and mindset to our team and started to influence our vision and development. 1 year after that, the team fell out as everything we loved about the job was stripped of and replaced by everything we wanted to avoid all along. I wish you better ending then we had. Stay awesome