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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

#351

Post by spookie »

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…

Oh please, defending predatory, manipulative behavior and calling others fools for not indulging in such morally corrupt actions? There are "baked in monetization" practices that went so out of hand, that have become illegal in several democratic, and free countries. Let's just think about that for a second.

I'm ashamed to even have to reply to this.

These "brave", utterly perverse statements, given out by these decadent businesspersons, shouldn't be met by anything other than criticism, and disbelief.

He's totally calling out for developers to embrace these ill practices. It's fucking disgusting, manipulative behavior.

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

#353

Post by dang »

woojoo666 wrote: post #336
dang wrote: post #220

Url changed from https://mobilegamer.biz/devs-not-baking-monetisation-into-th... , which points to this. Submitters: " Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Should the title be changed too?

Probably, but I couldn't find an obviously better one, and so much of the thread was already in reaction to this one, that I timed out on it.

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

#354

Post by akhmatova »

dcow wrote: post #327
akhmatova wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Is the dude an asshole? I don't know anything about him other than this discussion here. I'm certain most people have said something to the effect of "those people are fucking clueless" in their lives. Does that make them assholes?

Does that make them assholes?

No -- in this guy's case it's the other things he's saying, and the broader context which brings him into that territory.

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

#355

Post by nmfisher »

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…

To me, "monetization" means everything except for just selling your product for an upfront sticker price. When it comes to games, that means subscriptions, ads or microtransactions. Arguably, the latter two aren't inherently scummy, but I find it very distasteful when a game's design is fundamentally changed to push them.

This is the reason I completely avoid F2P games to begin with. I can't deny it's financially very lucrative though.

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

#356

Post by ruskyhacker »

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…

This guy gets it.

Fortunately and unfortunately (we likely won't see him be burned at the stake) he'll be out of the game soon. Throwing shade at the devs as well as pissing off the consumers, pure marketing GeNiUs

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

#357

Post by jayd16 »

411111111111111 wrote: post #319
jayd16 wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your point? My point is that they're not incentivized to push games towards abusive MTX like the parent hypothesized.

And you based that point on unity's licence being per seat, implying that they don't have a profit incentive to push for IAP/ads. Their point was that this implication isn't correct, because unity does indeed have a profit incentive for ads and IAP, as they're providing a platform for such. It's one of the features unity mentions on the pricing page.

What do you think the IAP incentive is for Unity? It's just one of the cross platform features they wrap. It's surfaced on the pricing page because it sells the engine but there's no monetary incentive to Unity if you use it or not.

Unity takes a cut from its ads business but it just does not do that for IAP any more than the animation system.

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

#358

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

jayd16 wrote: post #357
411111111111111 wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you based that point on unity's licence being per seat, implying that they don't have a profit incentive to push for IAP/ads. Their point was that this implication isn't correct, because unity does indeed have a profit incentive for ads and IAP, as they're providing a platform for such. It's one of the features unity mentions on the pricing page.

What do you think the IAP incentive is for Unity? It's just one of the cross platform features they wrap. It's surfaced on the pricing page because it sells the engine but there's no monetary incentive to Unity if you use it or not. Unity takes a cut from its ads business but it just does not do that for IAP any more than the animation system.

So fundamentally, ad prices in the mobile game ecosystem are driven by life time value. IAP is the biggest contributer to LTV, this Unity care about this. I'd like to know which portion of their revenue is bigger, but I can guarantee that the ads business is growing faster.

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

#359

Post by kthartic »

pugworthy wrote: post #215
kthartic wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how I understood his words, like at all. He means that monetisation should be considered as part of the creative process. Many indie devs could've been sitting on gold mines, but that those rewards (which could've lead to the creation/evolution of more games) weren't reaped because they didn't consider it. Now of course some of those devs wouldn't care about that at all, but I bet there's also some whose j…

> ...monetisation should be considered as part of the creative process That mindset is the antithesis of open source. And believe it or not, not every game dev is into it to make money. There was some classic interaction between Nimblebit and Zynga back when where Zynga offered to buy Nimblebit, who politely turned down the offer. It could have made a huge amount of money for the founders, but they preferred making t…

> That mindset is the antithesis of open source.

Aren't 99% of successful indie games closed source?

> And believe it or not, not every game dev is into it to make money

Oh absolutely, did you not read my comment?:

> Now of course some of those devs wouldn't care about that at all

My point is x% don't care about the money and just want to make great games. Cool! I'm all for it. But y% probably would care about the money if they knew how much they could've gotten had they considered monetisation as part (keyword being part) of the creative process.

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

#360

Post by t-3 »

dylan604 wrote: post #207
pcurve wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are very fair points, and I agree. For me personally, authenticity is more about choosing to speak vs. laying low on certain topics. Sure you can still lie when you speak to it, but at least you're being truthful on your desire to express.

You can lie..but at least you're being truthful?!?! Care to enlighten me on how to achieve this?

It's more about reacting to being called a liar, I think. React with evasions or moving goalposts, and people will think you're a slimeball trying to fool them, even if you're not. Double down and stick to your guns, and people will respect you, even if they think you're an idiot, a liar, or batshit insane.
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