Comment by barrysteve | Hacker News Reader

Comment by barrysteve | Hacker News Reader

Frank Stephenson who designed the Ferrari F430, some BMWs and the good looking Mini from 2004, has a youtube channel. He sticks to pen and paper because computers lock him in too early in the design process.

I don't get what Mr Riccitiello is on about. Clay is a great way to sketch car ideas.

Mike Morhaime of Blizzard fame sees indie games as a space where the small guys can try out games that have never been made before. What is the unity CEO pushing for? Cookie cutter games?

There is a GDC lecture from way back in 2017-2018, where one man did his thesis on what motivates people in video games. When people see the 'victory screen' or story cutscene or audiovisual reward feedback for an action, what are they responding to deep down inside?

He did a metastudy of 70-something studies on this topic and they barely agreed on anything. Nobody really has a firm answer for why people are motivated to play video games and you end up with a lot of handwaving around dopamine.

Why is Mr Riccitielo still pushing compulsion loops like we should be yanking players into addiction? Games are so much more than that. See the recent Ocarina Of Time beta showcase at GDQ.

It's a bit of a non-sequitur, but a charitable reading is that he's saying Frank Stephenson can do this with cars, and maybe Lucas Pope and Jon Blow can do it with games, but most indie devs aren't generational talents, so they should spend some time thinking about how they might convince the public to buy their game.

> What is the unity CEO pushing for? Cookie cutter games?

Not cookie cutter. Cookie clicker.

> What is the unity CEO pushing for? Cookie cutter games?

Does Unity take a cut of any microtransactions run through their ecosystem?

Nope, licenses are paid up-front and per-seat. I think they optionally had a free tier where you could pay nothing except a royalty on your overall earnings, but I don't think that exists anymore (and even if it did, it always made sense to just buy the licenses). Broadly speaking, though, no. Unity does not offer any payment services that he would directly/indirectly benefit from. This just seems like a bizarre offhand attack at his customerbase.

Most of Unity's revenue does not come from licensing the engine. It comes from their "services" portfolio, which includes advertising and other tools for monetizing, including via IAPs (although they don't take a cut of IAPs, they offer tools to help implement them and improve monetization e.g. A/B testing). I agree it was a bizarre attack at his customer base, but it makes sense given Unity's merger with Ironsource (mobile game advertising giant).

The message seems to be clear: Unity is for people who want to make games that make money, not for indies who want to create for the love of craft.

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