Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

pocketgamer.biz

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 370 posts

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

#361

Post by formerkrogemp »

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…

> Suffering. Really? All those poor suffering souls, forced to slave away playing... er... video games. Talk about first world problem.

People in Venezuela were forced to play RuneScape in order to make money for quite a few years. Prior to that in China, people were forced to play world of warcraft to farm gold to make money. I don't think it's just a first world problem.

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

#362

Post by smaryjerry »

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.

We’re talking about gaming here and the fact someone said “fucking idiot.” You’ve just used asshole is your response, so collectively we should get off our high horses, and recognize that in the real world people swear constantly. It’s not even like this was laser focused at one specific person, in my opinion this title is more evil and misleading than what he said.

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

#363

Post by bastawhiz »

jerf wrote: post #70
bastawhiz wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: Minecraft did essentially zero marketing and is monetized only in the sense that you need an account to log in (which is easily bypassed for single player) and it was/is the biggest and most valuable game of all time.

"Minecraft did essentially zero marketing and is monetized only in the sense that you need an account to log in" No, Minecraft has been monetized for a while: https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/catalog That said, I've found it on the inoffensive side. It's got a plug on the title screen but my kids zip past it easily enough. Most of what you can buy involves a reasonable amount of work, they're not selling slight retext…

Minecraft was sold for $2B before it had any of that.

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

#364

Post by bastawhiz »

Xeamek wrote: post #47
bastawhiz wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: Minecraft did essentially zero marketing and is monetized only in the sense that you need an account to log in (which is easily bypassed for single player) and it was/is the biggest and most valuable game of all time.

>"Most valuable game of all time" Is it though? Yes, it did sell the most copies of any game ever, but how are you justifying to call it "the most valuable"?

By valuation and number of copies, it sold for more than any game. It defined an entire genre. It's culturally relevant a decade on. There's almost no metric that you can't define it as the most valuable.

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

#365

Post by antifa »

scotty79 wrote: post #295
BbzzbB wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

I have no idea why so many games involve walking. I'd have thought it gotten old by now.

TBF if the world is extremely scenic and not a micro-transaction cash grab the walking part could switch from bad to cool for me.

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

#366

Post by DonHopkins »

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…

It's not gambling simply because there is no possible way you can come out ahead, therefore you are just paying for entertainment. Nobody ever got quarter out of a PacMan machine, no matter how well they played.

But games with persistent inventory like World of Warcraft are different than PacMan machines, because you could sell your items for real money.

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

#367

Post by 1ark »

Riccitiello is a class A sociopath. He managed to almost drive EA to the dumps, before getting sacked. For exactly the same practices he advocates here. It would have been so much better if David Helgason made someone who he built the company with as CEO, instead of a serial executive. EA learned from their mistake. The kind of posturing Riccitiello has to do in this article is exactly what narcissists do. Obviously, after being cut from EA, the kind of smooth talking he must have done to get this job is beyond me. Did they just ignore his track record? The people here defending him shows how good he is a persuading people, unfortunately.

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

#368

Post by 1ark »

theandrewbailey wrote: post #163

I remember this guy. John Riccitiello was the CEO of EA when they got the Worst Company in America twice. I can't tell if he was the mastermind of driving EA into the ground, but he accelerated it. He was just as scummy and profit driven then as now.

The ability for him to get another CEO position after getting canned from EA is mind blowing.

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

#369

Post by akhmatova »

smaryjerry wrote: post #362
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.

We’re talking about gaming here and the fact someone said “fucking idiot.” You’ve just used asshole is your response, so collectively we should get off our high horses, and recognize that in the real world people swear constantly. It’s not even like this was laser focused at one specific person, in my opinion this title is more evil and misleading than what he said.

We haven't been talking about the mere fact of someone saying that -- but rather the context in which it was said, and to whom it was addressed.

These being very, very different things.

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

#370

Post by mod »

DonHopkins wrote: post #366
sirmarksalot wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's not gambling simply because there is no possible way you can come out ahead, therefore you are just paying for entertainment. Nobody ever got quarter out of a PacMan machine, no matter how well they played. But games with persistent inventory like World of Warcraft are different than PacMan machines, because you could sell your items for real money.

Not really a counterpoint, but a neat aside: pinball machines used to be actual gambling machines, back when they took nickels. They were common in pool halls my father frequented.
Post reply on HN