Unity CEO Insults Game Developers Who Don't Prioritize Monetization

gamerant.com:

The choice of a game engine is one of the most important decisions a developer could make during the pre-production stages of game development, and the contemporary state of the industry has led to a bit of consolidation in this regard. While most studios used to build their own, bespoke engines that were purpose-built for specific genres, generalized toolkits such as Unreal Engine and Unity have become the go-to option as of late, instead.

While the latest iteration of Unreal Engine has always enjoyed a certain amount of prestige, Unity has come a long way over the last couple of years. Unity CEO, John Riccitiello, spoke about the company's recent merger with the business platform ironSource in an interview with PocketGamer.biz, where he had a few choice words for game developers who aren't overly keen on aggressive monetization mechanics.

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Specifically, Riccitiello said that developers who don't implement monetization systems early on are «the most beautiful and pure, brilliant people. They’re also some of the biggest f***ing idiots.» The former CEO of Electronic Arts didn't mince words about the importance of clever, engaging monetization in contemporary video games, and holds the belief that developers should opt to bake them into their titles and focus on building a correctly tuned «compulsion loop» that keeps players coming back for more, over and over again.

With companies such as BMW introducing microtransactions for cars, it certainly seems like Riccitiello is voicing an opinion that's reasonably commonly held in the tech industry. The CEO believes that modern video games ought to be finely tuned to accommodate an optimal engagement loop for long periods of time,