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Gamedevs not baking in monetization are “fucking idiots”, says Unity CEO

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Re: Gamedevs not baking in monetization are “fucking idiots”, says Unity CEO

#181

Post by Mezzie »

ohgodplsno wrote: post #28

I knew I remembered the name John Riccitiello from somewhere as a dumbass. And it turns out, it's 1997 to 2004 and 2007 to 2013 at Electronic Arts. The two periods known as the absolute worst times in terms of quality and scumbaggery when it comes to monetization of games for EA. Oh, and also as someone who was fired because EA was bleeding out money, fucked up not one but four consecutive high profile game launches…

Oh, the man who helped tank my favorite game studio (RIP Maxis).

Yeah, I wouldn't listen to him about much of anything.

Re: Gamedevs not baking in monetization are “fucking idiots”, says Unity CEO

#183

Post by tjchear »

hmmazoids wrote: post #136
OskarS wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the full context does him any favors. The way he talks of gamedevs that are not engaging in predatory behaviour ("beautiful and pure, brilliant people") is incredibly condescending. Like, "yes children, once you grow up you'll realize how foolish your idealism has been and you'll stuff your game full of gems you can overpay for!". These are his customers he's talking about. And later talking about "comp…

> "yes children, once you grow up you'll realize how foolish your idealism has been and you'll stuff your game full of gems you can overpay for!" As someone who has worked at a start up that really took off, didn't truly think out monetization and prayed at some point the free users would be willing to play assuming we gave the right features and benefits, I would say you're incredibly naïve. So in retrospect, this i…

He's right one should think about monetization earlier in the development process.

But it's a poor take because the kind of monetization he's talking about taps into an addicted person's dopamine pathway.

Most run of the mill SaaS work like utilities instead as far as monetization goes.

Re: Gamedevs not baking in monetization are “fucking idiots”, says Unity CEO

#184

Post by revolvingocelot »

RosanaAnaDana wrote: post #148
revolvingocelot wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There will soon be a market for pre-microtransactions games I'd argue there already is -- what's currently called "indies". IMO the greater threat is the "compulsion loop". Plenty of excellent games, both historical and modern, are content to challenge the player without much in the way of enticement. But in this late year, we're having to contend with things like Vampire Survivors [0], which, while being microtrans…

Every game has a compulsion loop. In chess its a full game of chess. In Street Fighter II it is one full fight with up to 3 rounds. Its a very dystopian sounding but very central component to almost all games.

>Every game has a compulsion loop

Of course, but in non-Skinner-box-speak, we call that the "gameplay". Refactoring an old concept like "gameplay" to wield the tools of war usually associated with gambling -- that's the crux of the matter. That's what I and the root-level commenter fear.

Vampire Survivors itself isn't the problem -- it costs $3, and doesn't require any more (non-temporal) investment, neither microtransactions nor additional quarters. But it's a harbinger of things to come. Remember horse armour, and how harmless it was?

Re: Gamedevs not baking in monetization are “fucking idiots”, says Unity CEO

#185

Post by munificent »

SpaceManNabs wrote: post #125
OskarS wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the full context does him any favors. The way he talks of gamedevs that are not engaging in predatory behaviour ("beautiful and pure, brilliant people") is incredibly condescending. Like, "yes children, once you grow up you'll realize how foolish your idealism has been and you'll stuff your game full of gems you can overpay for!". These are his customers he's talking about. And later talking about "comp…

he used to be pretty high up in EA. He also worked at a PE firm that especialized in media, although I think better of PE firms than most people. Point being is that I am not surprised at his revenue driven perspective.

He's the Larry Ellison of games.

Less a functioning human and more like a mid-sized neural net trained only on making game company short-term stock evaluations increase.

He's the game dev equivalent of Nick Bostrom's paperclip maximizer thought experiment.

Re: Gamedevs not baking in monetization are “fucking idiots”, says Unity CEO

#186

Post by epups »

jayd16 wrote: post #132
epups wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is the model that's being criticised as archaic and stupid here.

It's really not. Just making a guess is what he's talking about. You still need to right price a full paid game and I'm sure Unity would be happy to help you figure that out.

What does a game engine have to do with pricing? He is clearly talking about how Unity will soon let you introduce in-game ads/payments.

Re: Gamedevs not baking in monetization are “fucking idiots”, says Unity CEO

#187

Post by jayd16 »

snek_case wrote: post #138
OskarS wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the full context does him any favors. The way he talks of gamedevs that are not engaging in predatory behaviour ("beautiful and pure, brilliant people") is incredibly condescending. Like, "yes children, once you grow up you'll realize how foolish your idealism has been and you'll stuff your game full of gems you can overpay for!". These are his customers he's talking about. And later talking about "comp…

I haven't worked with Unity, but I'm assuming they get a percentage of the money spent through microtransactions and monetized content? They're essentially a platform, kind of like the Apple app store, and taking a cut? In that case, it's obvious why the Unity CEO would say this. He has a financial incentive to get game developers to try and milk gamers for profit (because Unity gets a cut). I think that this could u…

They don't get a cut. It's a per seat model. Everyone seems to think Unity has some incentive to push IAP and they don't.

Re: Gamedevs not baking in monetization are “fucking idiots”, says Unity CEO

#188

Post by ehnto »

karaterobot wrote: post #97
jeffwask wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's saying every game needs to be an MTX riddled nightmare to be successful. As a gamer I reject that and have been with my wallet for a while. There are hundreds of dev teams producing great stuff below the AAA level that only ask me to buy the game once not every day.

> He's saying every game needs to be an MTX riddled nightmare to be successful. Come on, that's clearly not what he's saying in that quote. I don't like microtransactions either, but it makes your position weaker to get hyperbolic. He's saying you have to include monetisation when planning for your game, rather than pretending it doesn't exist. To me this seems so obviously true that it's almost a product design axio…

I think the confusion is in the art vs business part of the conversation. Some people are not making games for business purposes, they are 100% focused on the creative pursuit. Does that make them stupid? Of course not, they're competent adults who made their decision not to prioritize money over the experience of the game. I think it's pretty clear that's who he's talking about as well, with the "pure, brilliant.." comment.

Re: Gamedevs not baking in monetization are “fucking idiots”, says Unity CEO

#189

Post by jsheard »

sylware wrote: post #134
barbecue_sauce wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the current portability proposition of Godot? Unity and UE4 allow indies to cross-platform relatively easily.

ori runs on unity? Why don't we have a linux native build?

The vast majority of Unity/Unreal games don't have native Linux builds despite the engines ostensibly having native Linux support. Developers don't see it as worth the QA/support hassle, especially now that they can do nothing and still get Linux customers thanks to Proton.

Valve are even pushing developers towards Proton by default because they'd rather have a well maintained Windows build running in a well maintained API wrapper, than a half-baked native Linux port that never gets updated, which is often what ended up happening during their earlier Linux-native push. I believe some games that did get Linux ports are now flagged by Steam to ignore that version and run the Windows version in Proton by default, because it provides a better experience than the port.

Re: Gamedevs not baking in monetization are “fucking idiots”, says Unity CEO

#190

Post by munificent »

selfhoster11 wrote: post #117
placatedmayhem wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having read the full context on the original article on pocketgamer.biz, he is, in fact, making the assertion in this post title -- that game creatives that aren't working with sales and publicity teams from the beginning to build in monetization are idiots. Original article: https://www.pocketgamer.biz/interview/79190/unity-ironsource... Edit: I say this because I don't understand how it's not clear that he's drivin…

The confusion is over what is meant by 'monetisation' here. Is is "making sure the game is at all commercially viable so I can afford to keep myself alive and well fed", or "making sure that every drop of money is juiced from the customer". Without a clear statement that he meant the latter, I decided to give him some benefit of doubt unless I have additional context (I never heard of the guy before).

Having worked under Ricitiello at EA, I am fairly confident his brain is not capable of distinguishing these concepts. I don't think he even understands the concept of "enough money".
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