Comment by karaterobot
3 years ago
> 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 axiom, let alone a priority for businesses. The question is how it should be done, and how well it will be done, which he says nothing about in that quote.
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.
I think the confusion is in the art vs business part of the conversation. Some people are not making games for business purposes, they are 100% focused on the creative pursuit. Does that make them stupid? Of course not, they're competent adults who made their decision not to prioritize money over the experience of the game. I think it's pretty clear that's who he's talking about as well, with the "pure, brilliant.." comment.
> He's saying you have to include monetisation when planning for your game, rather than pretending it doesn't exist.
What's wrong about monetizing your game by, I don't know, selling copies of it?
That only gets you some of the customers’ money, not all of their money.