I was curious about a supposed leak that happened on 4chan's vg board today, so against my better judgement I went to check out if the leak could've been legitimate. I expected it to be rancid because it's 4chan, of course, but I was surprised to see that there's a relatively large Path of Exile community in that board.

That was perhaps more surprising than it ought to have been. POE is distinguished from its competitors for being the darker, grittier, more hardcore ARPG. If UlyssesT was still with us he'd probably have a lot to say about the grimdark garbage in the game (DAE have very very racist Aztec depiction!? so-true ). But the fact is that this was a whole board with tons of lingo, their own breeds of brainworms, transvestigating conspiracy theories about certain community streamers, the works.

So it got me thinking, did this worm-riddled and detestable sewage monster of a community originate from gamergate or what? Why are there so many reactionaries that are heavily invested in this game? I can't really remember much about what was happening in 2016 for POE, but IIRC the game grew a good amount around then. Did it take a ton of gamergaters or something?

  • NephewAlphaBravo [he/him]
    ·
    17 hours ago

    PoE in 2016 got ascendancy classes, an atlas expansion, and the labyrinth, and in 2015 it had just gotten act 4. So my first guess is it just got more popular because it got a shitload more content.

    • FunkyStuff [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      17 hours ago

      Ahh I didn't realize that it coincided with Ascendancy. I bet that the GamerGate audience probably hopped on board around that time though.