Former EA CEO, John Riccitiello, spoke out on microtransactions in the video gaming industry and attacked developers who don’t focus on implementing the monetization system early on in the creative process and called them ‘idiots.”
Riccitello made the statement to PocketGamer.Biz when he was asked about the pushback developers are facing when they focus on monetizing their games early on in games production. He spoke clearly about his dismay with developers who don’t prioritize microtransactions, but also called them “the most beautiful and pure, brilliant people.”
“Ferrari and some of the other high-end car manufacturers still use clay and carving knives,” Riccitello said. “It’s a very small portion of the gaming industry that works that way, and some of these people are my favorite people in the world to fight with – they’re the most beautiful and pure, brilliant people. They’re also some of the biggest f****** idiots,”
“But this industry divides people between those who still hold to that philosophy and those who massively embrace how to figure out what makes a successful product. And I don’t know a successful artist anywhere that doesn’t care about what their player thinks. This is where this cycle of feedback comes back, and they can choose to ignore it. But to choose to not know it at all is not a great call.
“I’ve seen great games fail because they tuned their compulsion 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 tremendous fail, but for this tuning and what it does to the attrition rate. There isn’t a developer on the planet that wouldn’t want that knowledge.” said Former EA CEO, Riccitello
Microtransactions continue to be a hot topic in the gaming industry. The practice of selling in-game items in an already fully priced game has always spiked conversations and debates among the industry’s professionals and consumers.
Many developers have since opted for a free-to-play model that is solely monetized by microtransactions like Fortnite, Warzone, and Halo Infinite. But some games really take advantage of that, like Diablo Immortal, where players would likely have to spend over $110,000 in order to max out their character
Source: PocketGamer.Biz