Kirun
Buzzfeed Editor
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- 17,999
Even GGG eventually had to accept the reality of modern gaming and add asynchronous trade, and they fought it every step of the way. The PoE devs were famously hostile to QoL, external tools, and information transparency early on, but the playerbase dragged them into the modern era because the alternative was pretending third-party tools didn't exist while everyone used them anyway. Loot filters, trade APIs, official ladders, atlas tools - none of that happened because GGG suddenly loved convenience. It happened because they realized players were already doing it, and surrendering UX control to random websites and scripts was worse than embracing it.
That's the core issue here. Players will optimize, second-screen, datamine, and externalize systems whether you like it or not. The only real choice devs have is whether they want to own that experience or outsource it to ad-ridden sites and Discord bots. Pretending that withholding tools somehow preserves purity or immersion hasn't worked in 20 years, and PoE is a great case study of that evolution.
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