 On April 26, 2018, the Paragon servers were shut down for good, officially ending the game. However, if you ask me and a vast majority of the community, you would hear that the game we knew as Paragon died long before that date. Steve Superville's original vision of a MOBA that actually lived up to its cinematic trailers had become increasingly distorted by outside influences. That vision was slowly being twisted into a soulless cash grab that placed more emphasis on quick profit than player experience. That outside influence is known as Tencent Gaming. Today we'll take a look at Tencent and how these games, all of them, not just the Parazombies, can learn from where Epic went wrong and what we can do to help them avoid this particular pitfall. So who is Tencent? Tencent is a massive Chinese conglomerate that owns subsidiaries that specialize in the tech industry. Anything from phone apps to ISPs to artificial intelligence. Imagine if Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Tesla were all rolled up into one company. That would be Tencent. They are massively successful, showing a stock growth since 2004 of 11,000%. Tencent permeates every facet of Chinese tech culture. Their phone app, called WeChat, serves the same functions as Facebook, instant messenger, email, Tinder, Apple Pay. If you could think of it, WeChat can do it. People in China don't email or call or text, they WeChat. What does that have to do with the topic at hand? It establishes that Tencent has found the most success through a mobile first market. Developing products specifically designed to be used with a smartphone has proven to be a very successful strategy for the company as a whole, and especially for their gaming subsidiary, Tencent Games. So why is it that you don't hear more about them? Well, it's commonly known that it's difficult for a Western company to penetrate the Eastern market, and it's equally hard for an Eastern company to access the Western market. Tencent Games is the exception. However, their methods for dominating the Western gaming world are much different than what we're used to. Back in the 80s, Nintendo took the entertainment market by storm. They quickly became the largest gaming company in the world about building upon their own intellectual property and developing their own hardware. They're a company that was able to create a market and make money by focusing on enriching the player experience and making people want to buy their games and systems. Tencent Games has since taken that top dog title. They are now the largest gaming publisher in the world, but they took a bit of a different route. Instead of relying on their own games, they simply bought large shares of established Western studios. This is why you don't hear about them. They don't advertise themselves. They advertise the companies they own. Ever heard of League of Legends? Of course you have. Did you know that Riot Games is owned outright by Tencent Games? Probably not. Ever play any of the Clash of Clans games on your phone? Those games were developed by a Finnish company that is almost 90% owned by Tencent Games. And of course we have Epic. Tencent purchased 40% of Epic Games back in 2012, meaning that not only do they benefit from the massively successful Juggernaut Fortnite, but they also had a hand in the decisions that led to the death of Paragon. We may never know the truth behind Steve Superville's departure from Epic Games, but we do know that he was replaced by Donald Mustard, who had proven himself to be adept at piloting mobile games towards profit. Now, everything I'm about to say here is complete hearsay and it is simply my analysis of what went on. This is not fact. I believe that Tencent leveraged Epic to replace Steve Superville with Donald Mustard in order to shift the focus of Paragon from being an unreal engine showcase and true MOBA towards being a faster-paced moneymaker that would draw in a larger audience. It was at this time that Monolith dropped and certain skins became gated behind loot crates. Paragon started down a mobile gaming path of sacrificing player experience for the chance at making more money. Paragon's game code had cracks in its foundation, but instead of taking a step back to address those weak points, the decision was made to keep building on that faulty base by releasing new content and massive changes with an emphasis on faster, less skill-based gameplay and a reliance on cards that new players would not have immediate access to. Now yes, you could grind those cards by playing the game and attain them without spending money, but that's true of the items of any mobile game. If you want to be competitive in a reasonable amount of time, you're going to have to shell out some cash for loot crates. Paragon had problems that affected the player experience, but decisions were made to ignore those problems and press on with new content that would attract more players. This is why I'm glad that they shut down the Paragon servers. I would rather that the game I love be killed off completely than to see Steve Superville's vision continually twisted into a deranged mobile gaming cash grab. While I wish Epic would have advertised Paragon more from the start, I'm immensely glad that it never turned into RAGE SHADOW LEGENDS. While my memories of Paragon are tainted with what it was becoming, I can still look back at my experiences fondly. I don't know if that would be the case if they would have kept the game going in the direction they were taking. I've made a lot of harsh jokes about Tencent and Donald Mustard on my channel. I can't help but feel a little resentment towards who I believe destroyed my favorite game. However, thinking through things logically, all they really did was their job. Tencent is interested in making money. There's nothing wrong with that. They expect a return on their investment, and they have the right to take actions that they believe will increase their chances of making a profit. Donald Mustard was hired to do a job and he did the best he could to produce the results asked of them. Neither the company nor the person had a vested interest in Paragon, it was nothing more than a game to them and they treated it as such. I can't fault them for that. But this is where we come in. In order for any of these indie-developed third-person games to be sustainable for any amount of time, they will need money. That money can either come from us, or they can sell their souls to a larger publisher that is probably partially owned by Tencent. I'm not saying that you should immediately start throwing money at the first Paragon remake you see. Use your head, look at what they have accomplished, look at what they offer, compare them to what other studios have, and then consider investing in the future of whatever game you prefer. Not everyone has to, not everyone has the expendable income to chuck at a project that may or may not succeed. But if Studio Fal can raise millions of dollars for their game that's a mash-up of XCOM asteroids and x-rated ass, then I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that we can help fund one of these games and keep the dream of the developers firmly within their control, instead of forcing them to sell their souls to a company that cares more about our wallets than our gameplay experiences. This is the man goose signing off, you guys have a good one. MAN GOOSE!