Gamedevs not baking in monetization are “fucking idiots”, says Unity CEO • Hacker News Board

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

#301

Post by overgard » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 7:36 PM UTC

philistine wrote: post #279

overgard wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I think there already is a market for that. I know personally, when I buy mobile games, I completely avoid the F2P space. The last mobile game I played was The Oregon Trail (on Apple Arcade), and I gotta say, it was incredibly refreshing playing a game on the phone that was just a game. No annoying timers or things like that to convince me to buy "gems" or whatever currency. (I'm not sure if that game is co…

The dichotomy between cosmetics and gameplay-impacting microtransactions is irrelevant. They both produce the addiction you describe.

I don't think that's true. Take something like Clash of Clans. There's a real incentive to pay for an upgrade to help your clan in your next clan war, or you get into an impatient fuck-it mode because your inferno tower is going to take 10 days to upgrade. After a few weeks of play time and some leveling up the game essentially offers the player a choice: either disengage from the game and accept that most of your efforts were a sunk cost (which is extra sad because your base layout if fairly personal and an expression of yourself), or pony up to get the same feelings you got initially for free.

On the other hand, if I buy a hat I like in Team Fortess, like, I might buy more hats in the future but there's no particular incentive for me to do so.

Addiction generally requires a couple things IMO:

- The product/substance needs to provide some sort of short term relief or benefit

- The short term relief or benefit becomes more expensive over time and less satisfying

- The higher the usage, the more invested or dependent the person becomes

If you spend like $1000 upgrading your base in Clash of Clans, then you're certainly invested and likely to spend more in the future. The benefits also start to dwindle -- you have to spend more for the same effect (ie, upgrades get more expensive/time consuming)

On the other hand, if you buy a hat for $5, none of the above applies. Maybe you're a little more invested in the game but that's about it. And well, if you were buying a hat, you're probably already pretty invested.

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

#302

Post by davesque » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 7:38 PM UTC

The link title doesn't match to the article title so I suspected the comment wouldn't look as audacious in context. But actually it doesn't look much better. Here's the relevant snippet:

    Interviewer: Implementing monetisation earlier in the process and conversation is certainly an angle that has seen pushback from some developers.

    Riccitiello: 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.

    I’ve been in the gaming industry longer than most anybody – getting to the grey hair and all that. It used to be the case that developers would throw their game over the wall to the publicist and sales force with literally no interaction beforehand. That model is baked into the philosophy of a lot of artforms and medium, and it’s one I am deeply respectful of; I know their dedication and care.

Sure, he's not technically saying the fucking idiots and the anti-mtx devs overlap completely. But it would be hard for someone to convince me that he wasn't implying that. Also, it's a crafty bit of voodoo he does when he describes the previous era of well planned, well tested games that stood on their own once handed over to the publisher as having been thrown "over the wall." Makes it sound awfully bad when in reality it often meant the product was just better.

Ah well, he's financially incentivized to say all this crap so what can you do?

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

#303

Post by swarnie » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 7:39 PM UTC

Mainstream gaming is dead to me and has been for 8-10 years. It seems focused on yearly sports releases (which could really be 100mb rooster update packs), endless reskined Ubisoft sandboxes and the latest iteration of that shooter you've already bought 12 times before.

Obviously im in the wrong..... This is what the market wants apparently. My 80k of disposable yearly income can't compete with whatever auts Whale they can catch with "surprise mechanics". The buying public will vote with their wallets and the publishers will continue shovelling in bland paste to fill the demand void.

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

#304

Post by woojoo666 » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 7:40 PM UTC

coryfklein wrote: post #259

Actual title of the linked article is: > John Riccitiello: this industry divides people who shun monetisation and those who embrace what makes a successful product Instead, we get the non-representative clickbait "fucking idiots" in our title, which goes against the HN ethos and guidelines: > Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize. [0] [0] https://news.ycombin…

And looks like the clickbait is working too, this is one of the top posts of the day already. Bit ironic that OP is condemning dark patterns like iAP, when clickbait is a dark pattern itself

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

#305

Post by dcow » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 7:49 PM UTC

akhmatova wrote: post #270

dcow wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Easy to say, for sure.

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

#306

Post by causi » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 7:51 PM UTC

phendrenad2 wrote: post #238

causi wrote: post #10

In the eyes of the MBA, the ideal business is one whose customers hate it as much as possible while still using it.

Why would they want customers to hate it? Don't they want word-of-mouth sales?

First you become indispensable, then you squeeze as much money as possible from the customer without them leaving.

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

#307

Post by akhmatova » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 7:58 PM UTC

dcow wrote: post #305

akhmatova wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Easy to say, for sure.

It's also pretty easy to do, actually. The not being an asshole part, anyways.

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

#308

Post by runevault » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 8:02 PM UTC

overgard wrote: post #273

srvmshr wrote: post #12

Famous last words. Unity is doomed with the malware company merger

I doubt it; I can't imagine this is going to affect the engine/editor itself in a way you can't opt out of. Companies that want tools like ironsource would have already been using a package or custom code to do these things anyway. It does speak to the priorities of the company though -- Unity used to be about indies, but it seems like their focus is more on mobile and services. I don't think that means they're going…

The problem is a LOT of developers are starting to second guess using Unity which means no seat licenses and likely not using their ad network for in game monetization on mobile games.

Will people stick by that or will they try something like Godot, not like it instantly, and jump ship back despite their concerns? Only time will tell, but the concern seems pretty widespread in the gamedev community.

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

#309

Post by BlargMcLarg » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 8:06 PM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #277

BlargMcLarg wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the general theme among turn-based RPGs. The games are either too undertuned to warrant grinding for skilled players, or they are tuned so they do require some form of grinding. It's an inherent problem with stat sticks and fairly simplistic strategies. Almost no moderately difficult RPG is tuned to not have some of its player base grind, bar introducing difficulty selection. Pokemon is absurdly easy because t…

> The games are either too undertuned to warrant grinding for skilled players That's a good thing. Players who figure out the system "properly" shouldn't have to grind. Ex: Atelier series generally have "alchemy engines" that create absurdly powerful creations, if you spend some time mapping out how alchemy can pass back and forth and mastering the alchemy minigame (main game??). Yeah, you can grind another +10 level…

>A decent speedrun of Pokemon is only a couple of hours long at the most. I don't think any skilled RPG player would call any decent run of Pokemon (of any game) a "Grind".

I'll articulate what I mean, since it hasn't come across. The problem isn't with grinding itself. It's with the things associated with grinding.

Grinding itself can be immensely fun and satisfying. Doing the same repetitive, thoughtless actions to advance the game, not that fun for most. I can sink hours into Monster Hunter grinding because I'm still put on my toes with most endgame monsters. It does get annoying, but it gets annoying way later (and for different reasons, mostly).

Pokemon? Let's set aside speedrunning, since that implies I already have a strategy prior to even booting the game. You'll go through various non-random battles with trainers which have Pokemon with no random moveset whatsoever. They all have the same algorithm-determined moveset or some inferior version of it. Most of the time, they play out the exact same way they do at the current point as they did 10 levels ago. Most of these battles aren't mentally challenging past first occurrence, they just drag the game out. The clear exceptions are trainers with Pokemon you've never seen, and story-relevant trainers (hopefully not for the former reason, but for having unique movesets / themes). Remove all those trainers, and you could probably cut the level curve in half along with the playtime.

You either care enough about that padding to dump the game over it, you bite through it despite the padding, or you like the padding. But it's the same thing as grinding: it's padding. It isn't inherently necessary beyond ensuring players have garnered some experience with the battle system before giving them a larger challenge. And even there, it's entirely up to the designers to ensure previous challenges match the current state.

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

#310

Post by joe463369 » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 8:09 PM UTC

barrysteve wrote: post #80

Frank Stephenson who designed the Ferrari F430, some BMWs and the good looking Mini from 2004, has a youtube channel. He sticks to pen and paper because computers lock him in too early in the design process. I don't get what Mr Riccitiello is on about. Clay is a great way to sketch car ideas. Mike Morhaime of Blizzard fame sees indie games as a space where the small guys can try out games that have never been made be…

It's a bit of a non-sequitur, but a charitable reading is that he's saying Frank Stephenson can do this with cars, and maybe Lucas Pope and Jon Blow can do it with games, but most indie devs aren't generational talents, so they should spend some time thinking about how they might convince the public to buy their game.