But the seeds of its development were first planted in an unlikely location -- a high school library. At ExileCon 2019, Jonathan Rogers Grinding Gear Games founders Chris Wilson, Erik Olofsson and author Nick Kolan sat down to discuss the founding and continuing success of POE Currency from its humble beginnings.

When discussing the inspiration for the match, Managing Director Chris Wilson recalled a time in high school where he learned coding through Microsoft QuickBASIC on the library computers. As Wilson describes this led to a fateful meeting with now-Technical Director Jonathan Rogers, who shared his love for coding.The love eventually transformed into a desire to launch a game after university, and in 2006, work started on what was shortly to become Path of Exile. Despite this, Wilson acknowledged pervasive feelings of being less experienced and knowledgeable compared to giants of the business.

This is Jonathan considers they survived the tougher times of growth, and at a industry landscape. "We're at the perfect time, the right place and with the ideal product," he clarified. While their original timeframe and budgets were blown out in development, and Jonathan described the growth period as"rough" and"very bad", the group continued to function, motivated by their love for its ARPG genre, and also their desire to see it increase.

In 2019, if a developer with no experience or knowledge should happen to come to Wilson and inform him they were making an online game made to compete with large businesses like Blizzard,"he'd tell them to get a real job," he said.Eventually, the pair teamed up with artist and Creative Director Erik Olofsson, who'd met Wilson on an online forum, to make Cheap POE orbs   vision and leadership. They had been inspired by a desire to fill a gap in the market, although By 2006 to its release in 2013, the group struggled.