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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

#281

Post by bob1029 »

reb wrote: post #212
rowanG077 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There should be no monetization design in a video game. The design should be make your game good so people will buy it. How ridiculous would it be for other forms of art to have "monetization design". A chef that styles their dishes in such a way that there clearly is a gap in the dish which should contain a nice piece of steak or something else. When you are eating the dish the waiter comes with that piece in hand a…

Hard agree. "Monetization design" is almost universally a euphemism for casino-style addiction mechanics whose sole purpose is to habituate users to continue feeding quarters into the slot so the good feelings don't stop. I pulled my (meager) rev contribution out of their subscription service following the IronSource acquisition and this makes me confident that was the right call. All due to respect to the fine folks…

> I pulled my (meager) rev contribution out of their subscription service following the IronSource acquisition and this makes me confident that was the right call.

Yesterday, I took a 5 figure loss on my Unity position to get out from under this horror show. Still feel fantastic about it.

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

#282

Post by BbzzbB »

sosodev wrote: post #200
bakuninsbart wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've developed to be a terrible gamer: Great games that are finished in 7 hours usually don't feel worth the money, while games that do these compulsion loops quickly feel like a waste of time. I think I'm not alone in that, and the few games I really enjoyed in the last couple of years were significantly text-based and/or complex simulations for this reason.

Why aren't shorter games worth the money? I really dislike the way modern games inflate their length because it's usually tons of padding.

When a game dev says "vast area and lots of things to do", I hear "lots of walking across empty lands with sporadic fetch quests".

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

#283

Post by phkahler »

sirmarksalot wrote: post #244
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…

You are factually correct, but the intentions are a bit murkier. The explosion of video arcades in the 70s and 80s was due to how lucrative the machines were as an investment, not due to any passion on the part of the owners. The value proposition for arcades at the time was basically like gambling, but not illegal. While arcade games have always been skill-based, that's not the same as "fair," at least in the modern…

>> While arcade games have always been skill-based, that's not the same as "fair," at least in the modern game design sense.

Well sure the games tend to be skill based, but arcade machines were also novelties, like the little peep-show movie clips where you turned the crank and looked inside, or the "fortune teller" and some others. Skill games seem better because there is more replay value though.

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

#284

Post by Spivak »

philistine wrote: post #278
revolvingocelot wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 microtra…

What we call things is fluid and flexible, like our language. So there might be a discussion about calling the main loop in a game something different. But redefining the gameplay loop as the compulsion loop is oh so wrong in my mind; one implies no nefarious intent, and the other is clearly meant to describe the loop of a game focused on selling microtransactions.

> of a game focused on selling microtransactions.

Or a game that is engaging and doesn’t fall into the trap of making the player non-productively frustrated or bored.

It’s really hard for me to play video games at all because of my ADHD and so I feel it so hard when games fail to get this right because it makes them basically unplayable; I can’t “power through” the luls.

Games like Minecraft, World of Warcraft, Slay the Spire, Binding of Issac, Don’t Starve all are A++ because they either have tight game loops with lots of variety or they make it so the player always always has something meaningful to do.

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

#285

Post by noobermin »

crayboff wrote: post #159
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 seen much of what he says in general so I don't know if he has a really antagonistic trend in his he talks. I interpreted what he said to mean "I have respect for devs who approach this for just the art, but if you don't consider monetization into your design from the beginning, you are self sabotaging your chance at business success". He just said that with less politically correct talk, which is easily ta…

"Less politically correct"? He called his own customers "fucking idiots" for not liking what he's selling. It reminds me of impotent men who blame feminism for their lack of a sex life, it's ridiculous. Perhaps you meant "irreverent," which is a more apt description.

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

#286

Post by bluescrn »

jl6 wrote: post #23

Did you know there is a market for pre-war steel? This is steel manufactured before 1945 that is uncontaminated by radionuclides: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-background_steel There will soon be a market for pre-microtransactions games. Also: I used to hate on the casino industry for using the term “gaming” to euphemistically refer to gambling, but now they’re not so different so I’ll let them have that one.

> There will soon be a market for pre-microtransactions games.

It's already too late to get into the hobby of collecting retro games/hardware. eBay prices have been shooting upwards for a good few years already.

Thankfully, the classics are well-preserved via emulation (and in some cases, FPGA recreations of older hardware). But there's an ever-increasing number of games that simply aren't able to be preserved due having no access to server-side components, and many others lost from the early days of mobile gaming (e.g. 32-bit iOS games from before F2P took over), with no way to run them on modern hardware and no emulation solutions yet, even if the games themselves have survived somewhere.

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

#287

Post by MrYellowP »

People who don't want to use the results of decades of scientific research to psychologically abuse mindless morons into giving them money are fucking idiots.

Okay. Well, he's probably not wrong, but I'd rather be a fucking idiot than taking advantage of so many people.

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

#288

Post by MrYellowP »

noobermin wrote: post #285
crayboff wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't seen much of what he says in general so I don't know if he has a really antagonistic trend in his he talks. I interpreted what he said to mean "I have respect for devs who approach this for just the art, but if you don't consider monetization into your design from the beginning, you are self sabotaging your chance at business success". He just said that with less politically correct talk, which is easily ta…

"Less politically correct"? He called his own customers "fucking idiots" for not liking what he's selling. It reminds me of impotent men who blame feminism for their lack of a sex life, it's ridiculous. Perhaps you meant "irreverent," which is a more apt description.

What's ridiculous here is what it reminds you of, which makes you look worse than him.

He's just open and honest about his thoughts and feelings about some people, but you, on the other hand, are definitely, at least, weird.

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

#289

Post by techdragon »

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’ll be as blunt as he is.

With the full context … he still sounds like an asshole.

Admittedly an “authentic” asshole I genuinely believe that’s how he feels, but he strikes me as a corporate suit wearing asshole … a real Bobby Kotic (I think his name deserves to be a pejorative for assholes in the gaming industry)

He can talk nice about it, but he’s saying anyone who isn’t focused on the money is and idiot, the stupid thing about that is that he clearly thinks “pay once” is for fucking idios and just let the mask slip to show this disdain for customers that want quality games that aren’t trying to productise the players. He’s saying if you don’t want to be sold, avoid anything built with Unity. Which is to bring it full circle… fucking stupid of him.

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

#290

Post by janoc »

selfhoster11 wrote: post #269
janoc wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

>I question this premise. Do people demand the production values of AAA games, or are they just used to expecting it?

Well, look at what sells most e.g. on Steam or Epic's store, etc.

No, those aren't indies with "Minecraft" or "Nintendo" graphics. Ultimately it doesn't matter at all whether people "demand it" or "are used to expecting it" when it is what they are putting their money into.

And it isn't for lack of other choices.

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