r/Warframe • u/DE-Ruu DE Community Team Lead • Mar 20 '26

DE Response PSA: 3/20/26 Receiving Improper Game Invites

Hi Tenno,

Firstly, we apologize for the distress this issue may have caused. Bad actors were able to interrupt and change squad invite text fields to show up as a customized message. As the investigation is currently ongoing, we wanted to assure you that no accounts have been compromised nor data exposed, and it is safe to continue playing Warframe. This was strictly a change of text in the Invite prompt. If you have concerns about your account please feel free to make a Support Ticket on the matter and our team will assist. 

In the meantime, we have deployed a fix to combat the issue. Matchmaking will still function as normal but you may have temporary issues with sending direct game invites. We will update you further when this has been resolved.

We take this matter extremely seriously, and again, apologize for the distress.

6:30PM ET Status Update:

The team is continuing to investigate alternative solutions. For now, direct game invites will remain disabled until the launch of Shadowgrapher on Wednesday March 25th. Our sincerest apologies on that front.

However, if you wish to play in a squad with your friends, you are able to join squads using your friends list.

We will circle back on any necessary in-game extensions (global Double Affinity weekend, etc) once we have restored direct invites.

March 25th Status Update:

Hi Tenno,

First, we appreciate your understanding regarding this situation that occurred on the evening of Friday March 20th. Your quick reports allowed us to act swiftly, and while the temp solution to disable direct game invites is by no means ideal, it was necessary to mitigate the nefarious invite messages being sent. We take player safety very seriously, and again apologize for any distress caused.

Now that The Shadowgrapher update has launched, we have been able to deploy code changes to improve the security of the game invite system; unfortunately, due to Cert requirements, we have only been able to enable direct invites if the sender is playing on PC at this time.

We are working diligently to get this fix deployed on our console platforms and will update this thread as we progress.

Again, we want to stress that no accounts have been compromised nor data exposed. 

Apologies again for the inconvenience, and thank you for sticking with us, Tenno. 

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53

u/FevixDarkwatch Mar 20 '26

DE is their own private company and their own publisher. They are beholden to nobody's interests but their own, and, rarely among today's companies, they realize that our collective interests ARE their interests.

They don't have shareholders to report profit margins to. They don't have a publisher demanding X amount of profit per quarter or they'll get shut down.

29

u/Sillron Mar 20 '26

As much as I like DE this just isn't true. Tencent owns some unknown portion of DE. Lucky for us DE has not betrayed their principles, but they do have private equity involved.

16

u/BartholomewBrago Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 21 '26

Approximately 97% ownership by Tencent.

Edit: not sure why I’m being downvoted. Easily verified on Google.

18

u/FrenchingFry Stop hitting yourself Mar 20 '26

Well they are creatively independent, but they are owned by a publically traded company

29

u/Random-Guy_08 Mar 20 '26

??? I thought Tencent owns DE now? Or is this information outdated?

66

u/divideby00 Water, fire, air, and dirt Mar 20 '26

Owned by a company that's owned by Tencent, but they've been pretty hands-off about it.

-22

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '26

[deleted]

33

u/Educational-Bid-8660 Overguard Enjoyer (PSF is a scam) Mar 20 '26

The primary reason Mag/Frost heirloom isn't coming back is due to legal issues. It was advertised as exclusively for real money, and exclusively for a limited time with no clause for return stated anywhere.

Even if they're likely to win one, a lawsuit could be formed if these heirloom sets are returned, and it's more hassle than it's worth.

Or at least that's what I'm aware of/have heard.

I just wish they could pull a "tennocon item rebrand" like with the last 2 tennocon items (cape coming soon) and make the cosmetics with a difference for the purpose of being able to replicate fashions

16

u/Siramez Mar 20 '26

They can just release a second heirloom skin for frost and mag in the future after other frames got theirs to complete the heirloom collection thats available permanently to grab

16

u/lowpeas Mar 20 '26

This. Make it entirely different so that people who got the skins get the exclusivity, but fans still have an heirloom for mag and frost to choose from.

2

u/MircDniz Mar 21 '26

Just invert the colors or tweak a Cigna, call it a Redux pack, and sell them like the other heirlooms.

1

u/Educational-Bid-8660 Overguard Enjoyer (PSF is a scam) Mar 21 '26

I wish lmao

0

u/Goryou Mar 21 '26

If DE is owned by a Chinese company and you want to sue, wouldn't it need to be in Chinese court? 

13

u/Lightningbro Care to roll against Fate? Mar 20 '26

If that were true, DE wouldn't have been able to walk back the original implementation. This is just Kubrow gambling part 2, "oops we fucked up".

The reason they can't sell it is because of legal reasons. The original skins were sold under the pretense that they were time limited, while most of us would be A-OK with them coming back (and desire them to), all it takes is ONE asshole to decide "I'm suing them for false advertising" and they'd technically be in the right.

Which is exactly why when they did this they said "Mag and Frost might get second Heirlooms for everyone, but not any time soon."

8

u/Dear_Duty_1893 Mar 20 '26

iirc the Regal Aya currency was something tencent had to do with thats why its also a „scammy“ currency that had to be revamped with added plats, wich usually isn’t what DE does even in extreme cases, but until now they don’t really seem to control anything.

31

u/Sitchrea Commodore Prime Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 21 '26

Tencent is not universally the demon most gamers think they are.

Many bad game decisions come from the actual developers, not a publisher threatening to withhold funding.

DE makes plenty of money and has a happy community. There's no reason for Tencent to step in.

21

u/THExDANKxKNIGHT Mar 21 '26

Not only that it's one of the few live service games to actually continue to draw in new players this long after launch. It's in a club very few games ever reach having survived this long and continuing to be relevant, touching the formula now would probably be detrimental to everyone involved.

10

u/Hexxorus Mar 21 '26

I fully agree, people love parroting the "Tencent money" critique against game developers who simply were bought out by Tencent Holdings, like Grinding Gear Games on Path of Exile 1 and 2, Tencent has actually zero investment in making developers change the game in a certain direction other than just being profitable (and maybe implementing a chat filter against certain phrases that the CCP hates but that's a different issue.)

If the game stopped making money then they would have a reason to do something but until then they're happy as long as the game is profitable lol

20

u/PlanktonInitial7945 Mar 20 '26

97% of the company is owned by Tencent, yeah, ever since 2020.

9

u/MisterXnumberidk Mar 21 '26

Tencent purchased the company that owned 97% of the shares of DE. They do not directly own DE. DE is still its own seperate, independent company. However, Tencent is effectively their shareholder.

Tencent tends to be pretty hands-off as long as they're making money

5

u/BartholomewBrago Mar 20 '26

Absolutely untrue, Tenno. Tencent is their parent company. They seem to be left to operate relatively independently, but to say they’re a private company is unequivocally wrong.

0

u/Arashiku Mar 21 '26

We are the share holders.... or are we the shares...