A still from Path of Exile, created by Chris Wilson's Grinding Gear Games. Image / Supplied
A still from Path of Exile, created by Chris Wilson's Grinding Gear Games. Image / Supplied
West Auckland-based Grinding Gear Games' Path of Exile has won "Best Evolving Game" at the 2020 Bafta Games Awards - beating a lineup of blockbuster fellow nominees that included the likes of Fortnite and Final Fantasy XIV.
Bafta (the British Academy of Film and Television Arts) is best known for its film awards, but Since 2003, it has included computer games alongside film and television in its annual award ceremonies.
This year's event was due to be held at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall, but with the city in a Covid-19 lockdown, it was live-streamed on YouTube, Twitch and Twitter earlier today from the living room of its host - comedian Dara O'Briain.
Grinding Gear Games founder Chris Wilson said in a pre-recorded thank you speech, "Our dream was always to create an RPG [role-playing game] that we'd love to play ourselves."
A still from Path of Exile, created by Chris Wilson's Grinding Gear Games. Image / Supplied
In a profile late last year the Herald noted that the self-effacing Wilson rules the world - - or at least a virtual version - from Grinding Gear Games' modest office beside a West Auckland Pak'nSave
Path of Exil - its sole title - has some 2 million players worldwide. Wilson was playing another RPG a decade ago when chatting to a player who was logged on from Sweden: Erik Olofsson.
The pair fantasised about creating their own fantasy world. But unlike most such chats, it didn't stop at mere fancy. Olofsson — a designer — actually jumped on a plane and flew down to New Zealand to collaborate with Wilson, who was wiling away his post-university years on a series of contract-programming jobs.
A 2012 kickstarter campaign raised US$200,000 to develop Path of Exile. A US$2.5m round followed in 2013 as enthusiastic fans shelled out to back the game on the crowdfunding site.
Grinding Gear Games had grown to 114 staff by May last year when China's Tencent took a majority holding for an undisclosed sum beyond the $100m threshold that triggers Overseas Investment Office involvement.
Wilson, who had a 43 per cent holding ahead of the Tencent deal, says he still owns a minority stake and, more importantly, negotiated to keep operations in NZ. In fact, his first order of business after revealing the Chinese investment was to hire another 15 staff - putting Grinding Gear Games neck-and-neck with another Tencent holding (Rocketwerkz) as NZ's largest game developer.
In a sign of the times, Rocketwerkz is poised to take the two top floors of New Zealand's most expensive building - the new PWC tower at Commercial Bay; space that in an earlier era would have been taken by a top law shop or accounting firm.
Today, in his Bafta acceptance speech, he noted that he and other Grinding Gear Games staff have worked on Path of Exile their entire careers.
He also looked forward to its next major release ... Path of Exile 2. Like movies, games can have sequels. Don't mess with a good thing.
