Grinding Gear Games (abb. GGG) is a New Zealand

video game developer A video game developer is a broad term for a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large ...

company founded in 2006 and based in

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

. A former independent developer, the studio was acquired by Chinese tech company

Tencent Tencent Holdings Ltd. () is a Chinese multinational technology and entertainment conglomerate and holding company headquartered in Shenzhen. It is one of the highest grossing multimedia companies in the world based on revenue. It is also the w ...

in May 2018, after the Chinese company had published the studio's sole title, ''

Path of Exile ''Path of Exile'' is a free-to-play action role-playing video game developed and published by Grinding Gear Games. Following an open beta phase, the game was released for Microsoft Windows in October 2013. A version for Xbox One was released in ...

'', in China (excluding Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan). The open-beta build of ''Path of Exile'' was released worldwide in January 2013 and the 1.0 version of the game was released in October 2013.

History

Grinding Gear Games games was founded in 2006 in Auckland, New Zealand. The company states that its founding members come from various countries and backgrounds. GGG developed ''

'', which was released on 23 October 2013. During the

open beta A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impro ...

, from 23 January 2013 to release, more than 46,000 people participated. GGG

crowd funded Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance. In 2015, over was raised worldwide by crow ...

''Path of Exile'' through allowing users to pre-purchase in-game microtransactions ahead of the games launch date. In only 6 days, GGG was able to raise over $245,000. The company is now focusing on releasing for more platforms, more regions, and on creating cosmetic items available for purchase through microtransactions. In 2018,

became a majority holder in GGG, acquiring 86.67% of the company's shares. Three of the co-founders hold the remaining 13.33%. Two of the co-founders also sit on the board of directors, alongside 3 appointed by Tencent in April 2018.

Games developed

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grinding Gear Games Video game companies of New Zealand Video game development companies Video game companies established in 2006 New Zealand companies established in 2006 Tencent Companies based in Auckland New Zealand subsidiaries of foreign companies