Post Lock: if anyone has any real questions about the perspective, feel free to PM me. Some level of maturity required. I will also answer any unrelated questions about China if you want.
TLDR: Tencent very unlikely to be responsible/involved and is not to blame for features/concerns/issues you don’t like. Sorry.
Buying majority shares in foreign companies does not mean Tencent sent a manager to Stockholm to control or push anything that Fatshark wouldn’t independently have final say on. (but a lot of negative reviews may get some involvement to push for things to be fixed). Say what you will about China’s typical game mechanics or game business practices, doesn’t matter. Fatshark most definitely has full control over their third tide installment. The one thing I will say is that in China, player feedback is serious and Tencent’s game studios’ marketing departments absolutely go to bat with player concerns against the studios’ design departments.
So, without any comments on specific people. If you’re curious about how a former Tencent (Aurora Studio) mobile game designer on a 200 person team in China would think with regards to the features or systems or state of the Darktide game itself, ask my wife anything.
Let’s try to keep the topic of your curiosity from a Chinese Tencent designer’s perspective on the state of Darktide, in-game systems, features. If you’re not curious or think you know more about Tencent(100% you don’t unless you worked for Tencent) then move on
I am not here to explain basic ABCs of how a business is structured or give you tax advice.
So long as a company has the majority of voting shares, which should come with the majority itself, they CAN SAY what Fastshark HAS TO DO.
Otherwise there would be no benefit of having the majority.
True, Fatshark said in the past that they can “do what they want”, but never answered regarding the voting shares or supplied additional data.
Besides, the fact that Tencent has the majority is not know by all users (as I had the opportunity to find out (in my experience it was max 4 of 10)).
Meaning: So long we get no official documents and/or at least two independent statements that Fatshark has done everything as they see fit, it is to assume that they were told what to do and what to say (not 100% but in parts).
Current data indicates this at least.
This is absolutely not true. I own multiple businesses. Contracts exist, company operating documents can mean more than outright ownership shares. Company types differ, legal systems in Sweden vs US vs China differ. I can have majority control in my LLC but can’t open a bank account without minority member signatures.
Having a majojrity does not mean you control design decisions. It would probably be better if Tencent had control because Tencent is extremely receptive to reviews and feedback, which doesn’t seem to be case here with DT.
Compare the game quality between Fatshark and Riot Games, which is a subcompany of Tencent, and then you will realize how much influence Tencent actually has in the development.
Why would Tencent buy Fatshark? Is it likely that Tencent could sell Fatshark at some point? Or is Tencent a company that doesnt really sell subsidiaries?
Personally I’d have liked to see Games Workshop buy Fatshark as it would have made way more sense from like ten different angles, and I don’t really understand why they did not.
Investors invest to make money. Someone in Tencent’s acquisitions department ran numbers on VT1 and said “I bet we can make money if we invest in that team” I belive they invested in VT2 before aquiring stake in Fatshark the first time.
You definitely don’t buy a McDonald’s on main street and then change managers and change it to a popeyes. You buy a working business, maybe juice it up and enjoy the profits. juice: Tencent likely bank rolled the entire marketing budget, but FS would have internally decided what to put in their videos/announcments/etc.
Hey guess what, you have listed another foreign subsidiary, like Fatshark, not a tencent internally developed game, and you stated “they don’t care feedback of comunity.” … sounds familar… Korean dev, Korean dev responsible for feedback and response.
Doesn’t refute what I have said: Tencent doesn’t get involved in FS design choices. It’s a literal parallel to what I’m saying. FS is responsible for reviewing feedback and making changes.
Tencent’s foreign holding divison is Infinite, officed in Singapore. It’s and investmen company, an office full of number crunchers not devs/artists/programmers/designers. Likely large majority of Singapore citizens working in the office, headed by a big wig Chinese citizen that was previously Shenzhen.
The Chinese game studios in Shanghai, Shenzhen etc. and the philosophies, thought processes for MTX and in-game systems from those internals studios are not lurching over Infinite and trickling down to foreign game studios. FS is in charge of their game and their responses to feedback. Hold FS accountable.
It boggles my mind that Games Workshop didn’t do the exact same math that Tencent did and acquire Fat Shark. It’s a match made in heaven.
I’m not gonna lie, the shareholders who own GW and are squeezing them like a lemon for short term dividends, while reinvesting far too little, are complete fools. GW could have been a billion pound profit company by now if they weren’t so short sighted and cowardly.
GW is notorious for making dumb/weird business misteps.
Their primary interest is in selling little plastic mans, then licensing their IP. They put a lot of stipulations on what companies can/can’t do with the IP, but they don’t care so much about the quality of the end product.
It’s true what the poster said, tencent is actually not the bad guy here. It’s fatsharks management and design team. Tencent can maybe be accountable for the release date but on the other side, they also life from the feedback of FS.
But the state of release is not the only Problem we face, when look at the chore design out of combat we have a huge problem, mission selection system, Progression/Loot System, Class Balance/Difference, Weapon Balance and so on.
Nothing of those major problems can or would be Tencent’s fault.
Its wierd to think the censoring of post game information was not chinas doing. Good to know fatshark employees are just complete idiots for not adding a scoreboard.
Ha. They only censor games for touchy words inside mainland China from the constantly changing gov. blacklist. Drove her insane because she was responsible for enforcing that list at her most recent company.
Her(team’s) most successful game was a gamebox on US apple store at her first job at triniti interactive. The company went from 50 to 200 people from it. Zero censorship from China.
Steam is pretty much up to publisher for availability and pricing in China. 99% are the same games for PC at cheaper prices. Some pubs egion lock language or availability but don’t censor. My store is still set to China and all my games are just the regular game.
Yeah, tencent may be literally the devil(nobody remembers a programmer who committed suicide there) but people are generally wrong about it, another game that tencent should really slap around a bit is Squad and it really shows how bad it can get despite tencent funding.
Tencent is actually too hands-off at times.
Nobody knows gamers more than tencent does.
If Tencent actually had the control people thought it had over fatshark, I bet there would be lots of beautiful female faces, hair, and probably boob size slider in addition to bodyheight.
And head cosmetics probably would have been much more well-done instead of making character bald on release.
Let’s say you’re right. But that has no effect on the RNG, rewards loop, armory store, crafting, mission board or plethora of gameplay concerns that are not part of the MTX. Where are flash missions? Definitely unrelated to the art team making costmetics and store UIs.
the mission and drops designer, ordo docket economy designer, crafting designer are likely not the same person as the MTX designer. There are probably 8-12 designers, 40-50 client and server programmers, less than 5 quality assurance, maybe a handful of marketing, and the rest are probably artists (UI, textures, cosmetics, clothing. There would be virtually no backlog for the crafting designer by the MTX system designer making the store and the art teams doing the Aquillas icon and UI for it.
