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

pocketgamer.biz

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

#261

Post by s1artibartfast »

OskarS wrote: post #52
morley wrote: post #25

The full quote for context: > Ferrari and some of the other high-end car manufacturers still use clay and carving knives. It’s a very small portion of the gaming industry that works that way, and some of these people are my favourite people in the world to fight with – they’re the most beautiful and pure, brilliant people. They’re also some of the biggest fucking idiots. Their CEO is certainly not calling everyone an…

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…

Key words are "earlier in the process".

If you are going to have monetization mechanisms, ignoring them during development and trying to bolt them on at the end is indeed idiotic.

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

#262

Post by mulmen »

dylan604 wrote: post #218
mulmen wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing arcade machines to gambling is a sore spot, especially for pinball. Ostensibly arcade machines are skill based. They are not random. You may be able to win an award or prize but that will be based on some objective measure of performance with little to no randomization. This is important because arcades operate where gambling is illegal, so suggesting they are anything like gambling threatens the security o…

>Ostensibly arcade machines are skill based. That's also a slippery slope of an argument. Poker players claim that they are not gambling. Early stage addicts claim they are not addicts and can stop any time. Gaming, whether the player is earning money or points, all keys in on the same addictive traits of their players. Some game devs go all in on that because it is fish in a barrel stakes for making money.

Sure. Modern arcades even survive by selling alcohol as a 1-2 punch. But now we are talking about addiction in general, not gambling specifically.

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

#263

Post by [deleted] »

TameAntelope wrote: post #230
morley wrote: post #25

The full quote for context: > Ferrari and some of the other high-end car manufacturers still use clay and carving knives. It’s a very small portion of the gaming industry that works that way, and some of these people are my favourite people in the world to fight with – they’re the most beautiful and pure, brilliant people. They’re also some of the biggest fucking idiots. Their CEO is certainly not calling everyone an…

I think he says "the biggest fucking idiots" in the way some of us say, "aren't thinking of all the angles". If folks are getting wrapped up in the insult, they're not reading his tone correctly. He says it lovingly, and even if you disagree with that kind of tone, it's disingenuous to say he's literally calling these people "fucking idiots".

[deleted]

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

#264

Post by selfhoster11 »

scratcheee wrote: post #247
wahnfrieden wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you suggesting that game dev labor should be valued by society in other ways than via the market? the market finds that this type of monetization is more profitable. why does HN turn anti-capitalism when it comes to games?

The way the psychology of gambling has entered the games industry has indeed produced more money, but at the same kind of costs that the gambling industry has always created. I don't advocate for killing this new gaming industry, just as I don't advocate for killing the more traditional gambling industry, but both need much stricter supervision than most markets because they attack a weak point in human psychology, a…

In all honesty, I would advocate for killing this "new gaming industry" in its entirety. We already invented gambling, and it's called "gambling".

I'm sick and tired of dark patterns winding their tentacles into every aspect of our digital lives - it's tiring, and predatory on the little self-control and attention that I have remaining. We didn't need casino-isation of our games before, so we don't need it now.

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

#265

Post by jeffwask »

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).

Just in case there is further confusion here he is talking about how cool it would be if you could charge per reload in shooter.

https://youtu.be/ZR6-u8OIJTE

"You are really not that price sensitive at that time"

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

#266

Post by rowanG077 »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #256
rowanG077 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying don't charge what is necessary. I'm saying monetization shouldn't be part of the experience you are creating.

If you are going to have it, still better to consider implementation and mechanics early, opposed to try to bolt it on to a mostly finished game. I would agree that intentionally planning to do the latter is idiotic.

That's the answer to the wrong question. You shouldn't even be considering adding monetization into the game. Because you are "fucking evil" if you do.

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

#267

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

cmelbye wrote: post #214
actinium226 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compulsion loop does sound rather dystopian and "attention-hacking" but it's interesting that he says "two minutes when it should have been an hour," instead of the other way around. An hour long compulsion loop sounds like it could be an immersive experience. That said, I'm not hearing nice things about IronSource and it sounds like maybe there's better ways to get user feedback than the particular implementations t…

From what I've seen of mobile games, in practice it means that it starts off fun and well balanced. Then after [x] minutes it starts to get a bit frustrating, and suddenly you're unable to make progress without sitting and waiting or banging your head against the wall. This presents a choice to the player. They can choose to put the game down until they unlock some power up that helps them pass the level. Or, they ca…

Yup, and these scummy games will leverage social connections as well. They'll show your friends progress in a way designed to produce FOMO, without showing you that they're buying their way past the pay gates too.

To my way of thinking it's only slightly more reputable than bitcoin slot machine crap like stake.

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

#268

Post by overgard »

simonh wrote: post #89
yoyohello13 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The maximization of profit over everything else is the cause of much suffering.

Suffering. Really? All those poor suffering souls, forced to slave away playing... er... video games. Talk about first world problem. I mean sure, game addiction is a thing, but I remember people shovelling coins into arcade machines. PTW and micro transactions are just the modern equivalent. Nobody's holding a gun to these people's heads. If you ask me indie and art games are in a renaissance period. It's amazing ho…

So, just straight facts here. In F2P games, (and gambling), the vast majority of the profits come from a very small minority of people called "whales". The vast majority of users never spend a dollar. These whales are usually people with a gambling addiction or some other psychological issues, and they can and will bankrupt themselves and their family. Yes, they have some of the responsibility here, but people that design games to prey on these people deserve some responsibility too.

Just a personal anecdote, I used to work on a F2P game years ago before I knew these things. Once, I wrote a visual effect for some dragons that players had to pay for which used some pretty fancy shader code. As a consequence of said fancy shader code, some low-end devices with poor ES2 standard support didn't run the shader properly. One day, we had a crazy lady drive to our office across interstate lines, about a 16 hour drive, and she threw a tantrum because she thought that we had "scammed" her out of getting the visual effect she paid for (I guess she was older and didn't realize it was just a bug). Some people get way too invested in this stuff, and as moral human beings we have to be mindful of that and not just blame the crazy person.

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

#269

Post by selfhoster11 »

janoc wrote: post #109
whateveracct wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the same reason people turn anti-capitalism when it comes to art and music. There's more reasons for a game to exist besides making big bucks.

The problem is that those AAA games people demand are not possible to make without those big bucks. People demand to be paid and that work does cost a ton of money. So careful what you ask for. Even an indie developer needs to pay bills and put food on the table somehow. Very very few game developers got rich developing games, in most of the studios burnout and attrition because of the extremely toxic work environmen…

> The problem is that those AAA games people demand are not possible to make without those big bucks.

I question this premise. Do people demand the production values of AAA games, or are they just used to expecting it? I remember reading some article about how much more expensive it is to build photorealistic games now that you need to add so many more details to everything, and it makes sense. Maybe the fix is not to keep the current unsustainable system, but to readjust people's expectations and downgrade production budgets. Indie games are already doing this, because they cannot compete on production value.

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

#270

Post by akhmatova »

dcow wrote: post #233
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 mean, like it or not, it kinda sounds like this is the guy who should be in charge of Unity. Strong leaders are willing to tell people things they don't want to hear. Weak leaders regurgitate PR and marketing softball garbage and have no vision. To him, with all the data and knowledge he has, it's probably night and day obvious the difference in sustainability between studios that incorporate a recurring revenue mo…

Strong leaders are willing to tell people things they don't want to hear.

Right, we get it. But if they can't manage to do that without being condescending to their customers (and like this guy, generally sounding like a bit of an asshole) -- they shouldn't be in charge of anything.

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