Unity CEO Doubles Down On Company's Monetization Efforts
CEO John Riccitiello, who's been with Unity since 2014, had some not-so-kind words for those who don't prioritize monetization.
Unity Technologies CEO John Riccitiello, and Senior VP Marc Whitten, recently sat down with PocketGamer, to discuss their previously announced merger with ironSource. ironSource is a company that specializes in software ad implementation, so it was deemed a beneficial addition to the Unity game engine, which is mostly used by mobile game developers. However, many Unity users spoke out against the merger, mostly expressing concerns regarding the direction the company was taking, prioritizing advancements in monetization over game creation features.
Others also pointed out ironSource’s unfavorable history regarding malware. They are developers of installCore which is a software bundling service that lets users group programs together for download. Though it’s not nefarious on its own, it has resulted in many innocent people agreeing to unwanted toolbars, and other software, that swarm them with ads and slow down their computers.
Unity, however, is of course touting the benefits this merger will have for the development process, specifically expressing their goal to create a “live engine” which will dynamically give teams monetization feedback during the development process. They are looking to create monetization indicators that communicate to users, as early as possible, what their players’ purchasing habits may be.
When asked about the pushback by some developers, who don’t agree with the early implementation of monetization during development, Riccitiello went on to say quite a bit. He stated that “it’s a very small portion of the gaming industry that works that way,” and though he complimented them as ‘pure’ and ‘brilliant’, he did say, “They’re also some of the biggest fucking idiots.”
Riccitiello explained how developers used to throw their games out for publishing without any sort of interaction, but that, even though he respects that model, now the gaming industry separates those who “embrace how to figure out what makes a successful product.” Then saying that he doesn’t know “a successful artist anywhere that doesn’t care about what their player thinks.”
He stated that’s the point of the cycle of feedback they’re trying to create, and that players can choose to ignore it, but choosing not to know it is not a great call. “I’ve seen great games fail,” said Riccitiello, “because they tuned their compulsion loop to two minutes when it should have been an hour.”
Some benefit of the doubt can be given to Riccitiello; after all, a potentially great free-to-play game can bite the dust if it doesn’t effectively monetize itself. But this interview does highlight his particular vision of Unity as a tool for making perpetually monetizable content. Unity is a very broad-reaching user-friendly engine with which many different types of teams make many different types of projects. There are, of course, those who just want to make one-time-purchase campaigns. And even for F2P projects, it’s possible that for some creators, building your game around monetization early on could harm the quality of the game design.
Furthermore, there seemed to be a conflation for Riccitiello between feedback and monetization, as you can have feedback from your players about the game’s quality, via early access and beta builds. Developing without considering monetization can’t be equalized to publishing without interacting with your audience, nor not caring about what the player thinks. This further worries developers who make single-player games with Unity as it doesn’t appear that the company’s investments are aligned with their interests.
Jose Garcia
Jose is an experienced video game analyst and reviewer, who earned his chops producing long-form video essays about the industry, those getting him his first bit of online recognition. His thousands of hours into Smash and Pokemon earn him the well-deserved title of “Nintendo Nerd” (he likes to say expert), but at heart, he, like many of us, is someone who appreciates the art of games in all its forms.
Read more of Jose's articles