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Former EA CEO John Riccitiello has commented on microtransactions in video games, saying that those who avoid implementing monetization early in the creative process are some of the “most beautiful and pure, brilliant people” but also ” some of the biggest damn idiots.”
Riccitello is now the CEO of Unity Technologies and spoke to PocketGamer.Biz on the subject after announcing the upcoming merger of Unity and ironSource. When asked about the resistance some developers have given to implementing monetization early in a game’s development, Riccitiello didn’t hold back.
“Ferrari and some of the other high-end automakers still use clay and carving knives,” Riccitello said. “It’s a very small part of the gaming industry that works that way, and some of those people are my favorite people in the world to fight with — they’re the most beautiful and purest, most brilliant people. They are also some of the biggest damn idiots.
“I’ve been in the gaming industry longer than most – down to the gray hair and all that. It used to be that developers would throw their game over the wall and throw it to the publicist and field service with literally no prior interaction. This model is burned into the philosophy of many art forms and media, and it’s one that I deeply respect; I know their dedication and care.
“But this industry divides people between those who still hold onto that philosophy and those who are massively committed to figuring out what makes a successful product. And I don’t know of a successful artist anywhere who doesn’t care what their player thinks. This is where this cycle of feedback comes back and they can choose to ignore it, but choosing not to know at all is not a good choice.
“I’ve seen great games fail because they set their forced loop to two minutes when it should have been an hour. Sometimes you wouldn’t even notice the product difference between a massive success and an enormous failure, but for this tuning and what it affects the turnover rate. There isn’t a developer on the planet who doesn’t want that knowledge.”
Some developers were upset by RIccitiello’s comments. Last Night developer Tim Sore tweeted that he was “destroying the unity we all loved.” Metal: Hellsinger developer David Goldfarb called it a “Pretty dramatic bed shit, even by CEO standards.”
I’ve had enough of his bullshit.
He destroys the unity we have all loved.
I suggest two hashtags.#FireJohnRiccitello & #SaveUnity https://t.co/ZQdpfYp5VY— Tim Soret (@timsoret) July 14, 2022
Monetization indicators early in focus are very important for Unity as it has worked to say it has “democratized creation”. That mission is one of the reasons Unity believes there’s a “beauty in tools that people can figure out they want to use for a living.”
“When we look at ironSource, they come up with the same ideas,” said Marc Whitten, senior vice president and general manager of Unity Create. “Make feedback and publishing more transparent instead of being locked in a black box of marketers. Now developers can access minute monetization information and feedback just as they would view load times or optimization needs of their C# code.”
Microtransactions have always been a hot topic for the gaming industry, and there has been a constant battle between developers/publishers and customers over which is the right way to go. EA in particular has been in the microtransaction hot seat in the past, and one of the most notable incidents involved Star Wars: Battlefront 2.
For more information, see our look at how addiction to loot boxes and microtransactions is destroying lives, and Valve’s thoughts on microtransactions and their place in the industry.
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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and further Pull out.
