Fantasy X). Alpha started around June 2010, and ended when 0.9.0 was released in August 2011. Following a period under closed beta which players could pay to join, the developers started an open beta (ver. 0.10.0) on 23 January 2013 which was free to play with purchasable microtransactions. The game was patched for release version 1.0.0 on 23 October 2013. On this date, it was also made available on Steam. The game continues to be updated with new content and fixes on roughly a monthly basis. The developers of Path of Exile stated that one of their core goals is to provide a genuinely free-to-play game financed only by "ethical micro-transactions". Players can create multiple accounts and even have more than one logged in at a time. Path of Exile mainly offers cosmetic item skins for players willing to spend money on the game, but it does also gate specific account features such as semi-automated public trading inventories or additional character slots behind a paywall. It is also possible for players to pay to create private, invite-only leagues, each secluded in its own economy. On 18 January 2017, Grinding Gear Games announced they would be expanding into the console market. During closed beta, by 21 January 2013, Path of Exile received US$2.2m in crowd-sourced contributions. During Exilecon in November 2019, Grinding Gear Games announced that a version of the game for mobile devices was also in development within their studio. One of the main topics discussed in the reveal video was the current trend in free-to-play mobile business models (such as "pay-to-win microtransactions, time gates, energy bars, random nag screens, notifications, video ads") and that POE Mobile would aim to avoid that approach, and retain the full gameplay of the desktop version. However, it was also stated that the mobile version was "experimental" and that continued development will be dependent upon the feedback from fans. The game started with DirectX graphic rendering which supports a wide array of video cards. During Delirium league, February 2020, Grinding Gear Games (GGG) released a beta support version of Vulkan graphic rendering with the goal of providing more consistent game play and to collect feedback from players to improve the new mode through bug reports. Vulkan support implementation provided a smoother experience, reducing the number of times the games frames-per-second would drop or bottom out during high intensity game play. Vulkan beta support continued