The chief executive of Electronic Arts is anxious about losing his job, according to an account of a conversation he allegedly had with Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter.
James M. Whitehurst named interim CEO as the board begins its search for a permanent replacement.
"Gee whiz, can't imagine what brought this on..."
Nowadays, *retirement* for CEOs from big gaming companies is a fancy term for *you f* up and now your fired!"
This bag of dirt probably got a big check to make this move. Very sad that the scummier you are the bigger the golden parchute! Hopefully he is done for good with the video game industry !
Saw it coming. Only way they can begin to regain trust is by having this guy step down. Well at least that'll help their image, corporate greed is gonna bring everything down eventually.
damn, the backash was so big that he, presumably, had to retire.
i mean, it was a scummy move
From MobileGamer: "Unity CEO John Riccitiello has said that if you’re not thinking about monetisation during your creative process, you’re a “F***ing idiot.”
The comments came in an interview with our friends at pocketgamer.biz just after it was confirmed that Unity and IronSource are to merge.
When Riccitiello was asked about some of the heat Unity and IronSource has received around the idea of including monetisation ideas earlier in the development process, Riccitiello responded:
“Ferrari and some of the other high-end car manufacturers still use clay and carving knives. It’s a very small portion of the gaming industry that works that way, and some of these people are my favourite people in the world to fight with – they’re the most beautiful and pure, brilliant people. They’re also some of the biggest fucking idiots.”"
I agree! One of the highest Metacretic games of all time came out this year. Elden Ring has sold more copies in one month than any EA game will this year (13+ million copies). Zero Microtransactions and will win hundreds of Game Of The Years. My guess is that God of War will do the same with zero Microtransactions.
My point, stop chasing short-term profits because you are sacrificing long time gains. The Dark Souls series has sold a total number of 27 million. The reason why Elden Ring sold so much was the good faith buildup with fans from previous titles. God of War Greek Mythology Trilogy sold roughly 16 million all together. God Of War Nordic theme sold roughly 20 million…. Again with good will. Even CyberPunk sold well on good will before it was squandered.
Your just hurting yourself with stupid transactions.
And how have countless more great games with 0 Microtransactions completely failed?
That's basically what the guy was referring to when he mentioned Ferrari as the needle in the haystack.
Here are some great games that you will probably not see a sequel out for a long time
Control, Days Gone, Guardian of the Galaxy, Prey, Wolfenstein, Evil Within, Metroid, Alien Isolation, Dishonored, etc.
And that's not counting the 10000000000000000 indies singleplayer games that need to release on a subscription service to gather awareness and become commercially successful.
Control, Days Gone and Alien Isolation actually sold very well. Control is considered a success by the developer. As for Days Gone and Alien Isolation: Days Gone was considered a "flop" not because of sales, but because of little award potential, same with Alien Isolation.
Also, if you are considering every game a failure for being SP and not selling millions upon millions, you can probably say the same about any and every MMORPG, MOBA and GACHA that are not FFXIV, League of Legends and Genshin Impact. That is not how it works. Every game has a different intention, some are for profit, some are for continuous profit (aka. the live services), some are for awards, some are just because. It's a case by case, not a one and done formula.
I'm sorry but Control is not a commercial success hence why it's been given for free or made available on all services possible, the only success Control is having (by financial result) is in the awareness category since the initial failure was attributed to ppl not knowing about the game. Now ppl should be reminded that a company will never acknowledge a flop hence also why that Quantum Break is a success according to MS.
As for Wolfenstein and Dishonored, yes both games received sequels due to name brand quality and initial Metacritic score and both sequels failed commercially.
https://gamingbolt.com/why-...
Oh and I forgot to add Deathoop to the list.
Here's a quick easy way to gauge the success of a AAA game.
If you see a AAA game always offered on a subscription service or reward service then it's because it failed to meet standards.
And as for Day's Gone well should I remind you what Days Gone creative director and writer John Garvin said "if you love a game and want a sequel, you should "buy it at f****** full price."
That will go way over his head, he would happily have the lowest metacritic score game ever made as long as it turned into a cash cow. This is coming from the guy that famously said "When you are six hours into playing Battlefield and you run out of ammo in your clip and we ask you for a dollar to reload, you’re really not that price sensitive at that point in time"
Yeah I don’t know why they can’t see this great games not always sure but generally sell. If it’s really good and well made it’ll sell millions making them billions but that’s not enough apparently. I mean they could do merch etc after but for me a dev that’s chasing money from their game day1 is not a game I’m about. The quality games are not made because they wanna make money they wanna make great games that’s why rockstar make epics like Red dead and GTA5 that last years or multiple gens but scored solid 9-10/10’s against day Ubisoft Ea assassins creed fifa every year and never clearing a 7-8/10 not saying rockstar aren’t in it for money but it was clear from campaigns on both games they made great games first and foremost same with naughty dog and uncharted 4 or last of us they went to make phenomenal games not just a load of money
@pete
Thats such an odd gamepass way of thinking. That indies gotta be on a subscription to do well and be noticed. Theres been hundreds of successful indies maybe even thousands.
Your subscription comment just baffles me and sounds like ms pr
@Shinoff
It's not MY WAY of thinking it's indy devs way of thinking or are we forgetting about this article
https://gamingbolt.com/furi...
"Game Pass is such a fantastic platform for players, so there are possibly more Xbox players than ever interested in indie games,” Leprince said. “Unfortunately, without Game Pass, it is also very hard for many indie games to be visible on Xbox.”"
I'm sorry but you don't know how money works. That's okay, because games journalism is so bad you wouldn't know. But from someone who understands:
Short version - New games sales make very little money. Of a new game sale, maybe 30% goes to the publisher - not back to the developer, just to the publisher who doles it out from there. So $13M sales = less than $4M profits for the publisher. Much like a Hollywood film, half the game's budget is marketing and promotion. So you're saying it must have cost $2M to publish Elden Ring. That's ridiculous.
Microtransaction fests like Diablo Immortal cost a whole lot less to develop - some of the assets are reused and will continue to be reused and recolored for the fabled "10 year plan" online services usually launch with. The publisher ends up keeping a much larger percentage of this cash (50+% depending), and this gravy train never has to end as long as people keep buying.
Or: I've seen one single Diablo Immortal whale who spent $100,000 in the game. That single whale was as valuable to Blizzard as 3,700 new games sales. Just that one guy. And he's not even done whaling yet. If every addicted microtransaction player makes up the same as 1,000 sales would have earned, then even if the player count is 1/1000th what it could have been, you're still breaking even.
Microtransactions make FAR, FAR more money than new game sales. It's not even close.
...that doesn't make them fun, acceptable, or even legal.
@Pete Nah. Developers usually are very upfront when a game has failed to meet expectations, most of the ones you mentioned (not all, because not all of them failed) were directly stated by their developres to have underperformed in sales, Alien Isolation, Control and Days Gone have not failed on that regard.
Several games today, regardless of performance, are available for free in more than one "free" platform, may it be PS Plus, Now, GamePass or as one-time give away on Epic Store, Amazon and etc. Your point regarding that has no basis.
@Petbloodyonion
While I can’t speak for all of these games I can for a couple:
Guardians of the Galaxy - Avengers was a pile of **** (not my words, but the bad word of mouth got me). I wasn’t going to invest into another game like Avengers. Unfortunately, SE ruined the reputation of their marvel products
Metroid - When Metroid 4 releases and if it’s quality like the other 3… it will be the highest selling Metroid game. Every Nintendo game this generation has broken franchise records.
Days Gone - One of the Developers said that it sold just as well as Horizon. There were other issue that stunted a sequel.
Evil Within - That’s a very niche genre that hasn’t done much in a while. Dead Space did great, it’s just not the game a lot of people wanted at that time. I thought it was fun, but not revolutionary as RE… plus it allowed a sequel.
Dishonored - Had sequels and spiritual successors…
Wolfenstein - Several sequels
@Petebloodyonion
Dishonored and Wolfenstein already have sequels and will most certainly get more since they're owned by MS now.
So did Evil Within which was also on his list, although it's not likely to get a sequel.
Replies(3)
(Posted this on a duplicate, but re-posting here as well.)
Whew, must be rough living your life solely around money. I feel sorry for the guy, he's clearly not right in the head. Money is a powerful influencer though. Once you find yourself ensnared by its grasp, it changes you completely. The worship of money, also known as Mammon rules these people's lives. Anyone recall the Mammon machine in Chrono Trigger? Had to reference that. You know, the game that had no microtransactions and is regarded as one of the best games of all time.
those kind are always feel empty inside thats why theyre always cant get enough money, to fill up that void
Contemporary advertising, influencing and the overall lack of gaming journalism makes it hard to not want to buy something these days.
I'll agree on the regards that this is what gaming has become. People are spending money on these microtransactions. He is simply staying the obvious that if you are not doing this you are missing opportunity to make big money. I am NOT saying I like it per se, but it is the reality of gaming today. I am not against all paid add ons. Remember they are there if you want them, no one is twisting anyone's arm. Now if your game is truly a pay to win game, that is crap and I'm against it, but if it is simply things they are fine. But if you like, don't buy if you do choose. People can down vote me, but sad or not, microtransactions must be paying off for developers.
Sure be sleazy make your money. But it is not a less than intelligent endeavor to not be sleazy. It called not wanting to be a scumbag. Scumbags can be idiots and intelligent.
Being an idiot has nothing to do with it. It is actually common sense not to try to get over on everyone you see, but in his sh$% world, common sense is to be a vampire, not the cool kind either.
This guy is using manipulative language to get his way. He hopes that people fear being an idiot more than they fear being a scumbag. This stuff is elementary. Once gain a CEO guy rushing to get everyone on the exploitation train. People are actually idiots for listening to guys like this.
It is less intelligent to sabotage your own business. That’s the entire point of a business. If you are not expanding you are dying, there’s no standing still. I’m not saying be sleazy about it but if you, as a game publisher or developer, are not thinking of a way to include monetization in 2022 then you are an idiot lol. It’s true. That’s just pissing away free money.
I respect the hell out of devs that piss away free money, I’m not digging on them. God of war for example I’m buying the collectors edition because they didn’t try to bombard me with that shit. It is still dumb though in a business sense. They would make way more on that than CE sales. They could do it fairly if they wanted to. Not so much randomized shit. People don’t really grasp how much profit this shit generates. It’s wild. In pure practical business terms its dumb to pass it up.
People don’t mind monetization when it’s worth it. When devs include it half assed because it’s a checkbox then I’m with you. It can be very sleazy and is often. I don’t partake aside from expansions and some dlc like characters for fighting games.
They guy is talking about baking monetization into the game. It's sleazy. This guy would destroy anything to make a profit. He is calling beautiful, brilliant people, idiots. Think about that for a second.
A person's propensity to entertain and/or exploit people is not a necessary defining element of intelligence. It is unfortunate that this is a common way of thinking. Therefore, "common sense" should be and needs to be challenged.
Why is it okay to challenge common sense and put a human primate into space but when "social-economic common sense" is challenged the person is an idiot? Why do people rush to defend their exploiters? These are questions that need to be seriously considered.
Money isn't free whether or not it's being pissed away. This is why it's called money.
Normalizing utilitarian means and ends is a common way to think, but it does not have anything to do with high or low intelligence. Once again, common sense can be challenged.
Character DLC's...I am speechless.
Lastly, games are art of which have already been devalued by improvements in mechanical reproduction, baking in a monetization scheme lowers the value of art even further, for gamers not CEOs. Not to mention baking monetization always comes at the cost of gameplay. I go to a casino when I want to play a monetization scheme.
The act of working a steady revenue into your game’s life cycle isn’t sleazy in itself. It obviously works. Finding that balance is the tough part. Selling garbage for quick bucks is sleazy, I agree. You think about it for a second. You are describing the mod community who does it for free, for the passion of it. Which is fine, nobody is hating. Some of them are very skilled and could make a fortune. In business terms (not flat IQ or passion), they are fu*** idiots lol. I’m not calling them stupid, the wasted potential is dumb though. Spend 3 years perfecting a game just to have it shut down by the publishers as soon as they launch. They could have spent 3 years making their own shit and bringing the games you are passionate for back to life. And possibly made a fortune. It’s the same thing here, wasted potential.
I would disagree. I would say a persons sense of humor defines everything about them.
“Why are people easily manipulated into awful shit” isn’t a question it just is. It’s a human thing and always has been, we’re pack creatures. No such thing as common sense, we’re watching 2 different movies on the same screen.
They have to work for it course but the margins are so astronomically different between sales and dlc. The return on investment isn’t even close, that’s what I mean by free money.
I don’t believe in common thought anymore. Does anyone agree on 100% of things? Have they ever?
Why does buying characters from fighting games leave you speechless? Sarcasm? I don’t understand lol. They found a fair way imo. It was an example of not being sleazy with finding a way to monetize. I have no issue with buying more characters. Do you?
Always is a strong word. Cosmetic bullshit has never gotten in my way. Immortals Fenix I loved it. Worst dogshit MTX I’ve ever seen but the game was great and it didn’t bother me. I just don’t buy the shit lol. If I wanted to gamble I would gamble for money as well. Not buy game dlc, I don’t consider them the same. But that’s me, I get it.
@darthmarvin
Sure I can agree. It killed one of my favorite studios visceral. But I think people have convinced themselves that any attempt at monetization is scumbag shit and I just don’t agree with that. Finding a way keep your game alive is not scumbag shit.
It’s your strongly held opinion and I can respect that but I don’t feel that is the reality on the ground.
"It is less intelligent to sabotage your own business"
like being the head of one of the lead indie game engines and insulting half your clients?
Are people going to stop using unity because he called them an idiot for not monetizing their game? I doubt it.
Unity CEO, John Riccitiello, has been announced as the first the keynote speaker for the Augmented World Expo 2022.
