Devs not baking monetisation into the creative process are “fucking idiots”, says Unity’s CEO John Riccitiello

[Amibguous Cad]

This is sort of trivially true - obviously you design an arcade game differently than a home console game, and obviously you design a f2p game differently than a boxed product. You can use that extra design time and effort to make your game more predatory, of course, but you can also use it to try to make the monetization of the f2p game as unobtrusive to the core gameplay experience as possible while still generating money.

Given Riccitello's history, though...

 

[sbenji]

The love for clickbait outrage is exhausting.

Seems like a reasonable if indelicately phrased comment given the state of the market.

 

[sbenji]

Wrong thread post.

 

[DinkyDev]

View: https://twitter.com/johnriccitiello/status/1548326529217679365

 

[Teeth]

Hollow Knight, one of the best success made with Unity, was sold at a low price because devs wanted that people without a lot of money (or simply because of the lack of regional pricing) could buy and play their games.

So one of the most anticipated game is made by fucking idiots. They must appreciate that.

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Hollow Knight ran a kickstarter to monetize and fund the project they were working on. They thought about monetization earlier than most indies. They had a smart business plan and were very successful with it.

 

[Dreamwriter]

I'm genuinely interested in how this company is bleeding money when their engine powers two of the biggest games in the world right now, Fortnite and Genshin Impact

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Ignoring the wrong game, Unity doesn't make more money when a game made in it sells more. Unreal gets a percentage of game royalties, Unity does not. Unity charges an annual fee to use it in development. So a game made in Unity could earn $1 billion/year, Unity would only get $1800/year for each development seat. And if that $billion game was made by an indie, they wouldn't have needed to pay a dime to Unity until the following year, as Unity charges based on how big your company already is.

Unity *does* get a percentage of ad revenue, if you use their ad system. But there's nothing forcing you to use Unity's ad system except convenience. As I understand it this is Unity's main revenue stream.

If a game made in Unity becomes wildly successful, such as Hearthstone, Cuphead, Cities Skylines, Ori, all Unity really gets is good publicity to attract more developers.

 

[derFeef]

That letter is pathetic. What's with the non capitalized I'd and the other stuff? Why does it have bad grammar? Why is it a screenshot of word with grammar check on and still having errors? Lol.

 

[Musubi]

Not sure I believe that "apology". I've seen people use a bad choice of words before to try to say something but what he originally said and what he claims to have wanted to get across are a chasm apart.

 

[Corleth the Fey]

Even old Johnny here wasn't mtxed-up enough for EA. So they replaced him with an android who stole their great monetization idea from a lowly UEFA football dev and ran all the way to the bank.

Don't be a fucking idiot like me, is what Mr Riccitiello is actually saying here.

 

[SigSig]

bro really posted that nonpology with the grammar squiggly lines and all

 

[Dreams-Visions]

Welp time to rewrite my code in C++

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you mean C$$

 

[medinaria]

Not sure I believe that "apology". I've seen people use a bad choice of words before to try to say something but what he originally said and what he claims to have wanted to get across are a chasm apart.

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yeah it's truly bizarre, and whoever wrote that for him is very bad at their job (it might be him!)

there are ways to reframe what he said and make it relatively anodyne. literally all you have to do is talk about how thinking about monetization from the start allows you to make games that can be profitable while also having them retain the spirit and design that you intended. treating the monetization as part of the game and designing it with that in mind keeps you from having to just bolt on monetized bits or strip out content for sale later. you increase potential spend in a non-exploitative-feeling manner, which is good for the developer + the publisher + the player (if you assume the alternative is increasing that spend in an exploitative-feeling manner). this is a message that is not necessarily "we love game developers, they are my favorite" but is defensible business advice and also, crucially, actually related to what he originally said lol

 

[wwm0nkey]

I've actually mostly just conceded to learn UE5, pretty good at my Unity job but for personal projects I'll just be trying to use that from now on unless something changes

 

[Buckle]

Guys like this never stop thinking about how they can nickel and dime you for everything.

Parasite.

 

[Tendo]

That letter is pathetic. What's with the non capitalized I'd and the other stuff? Why does it have bad grammar? Why is it a screenshot of word with grammar check on and still having errors? Lol.

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I think its a planned PR move. Like celebs with "notes" apologies. It looks "authentic" and like they wrote it and not PR. Which I don't believe for a damn second. Its like when you get junk mail that has a handwritten looking address on it, but is just printed to look that way.

 

[LumberPanda]

Hollow Knight ran a kickstarter to monetize and fund the project they were working on. They thought about monetization earlier than most indies. They had a smart business plan and were very successful with it.

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I think I'm going to be sick. This post has completely ruined my outrage and feeling of moral superiority and I don't know how I'm going to deal with it. If you don't say sike I'm gonna lose it.

/s you're completely right. Hollow Knight was exactly "thinking about monetization during the creative process". People here really want to inject outrage into everything, more than publishers want to inject MTX.

 

[Alvis]

View: https://twitter.com/johnriccitiello/status/1548326529217679365

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before this post, my sentiment towards this guy was "eat shit"

after this post, my sentiment towards this guy is now "eat shit"

 

[Fiery Phoenix]

Remember this is the same guy who once suggested charging $1 per bullet fired in BFMP.