Ex-EA CEO responds to backlash after calling devs \u201cf**king idiots\u201d over microtransactions Flickr: Web SummitControversial comments from Unity CEO John Riccitiello incited a negative reaction from the public and he has now reacted to his \u201ccrude\u201d choice of words. Monetization in gaming has been a sore point for players for many years now with the controversial business model becoming commonplace in the industry. With NFTs proving to be the latest craze affecting gaming, the idea of having to spend more money on top of the base fee for games has never been fully accepted. So it was quite startling when Unity\u2019s CEO not only encouraged the notion of monetization but chastised people for not incorporating them more into their games. Unity CEO John Riccitiello\u2019s thoughts went down like a lead balloon and he has performed a u-turn on his comments. Unity CEO apologizes for monetization comments In an interview with PocketGamer, the former EA CEO, Riccitiello, said: \u201cFerrari and some of the other high-end car manufacturers still use clay and carving knives. It\u2019s 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 \u2013 they\u2019re the most beautiful and pure, brilliant people. They\u2019re also some of the biggest f**king idiots.\u201d The comments pertained to a potential merger between Unity and ironSource, a company that specializes in app monetization and distribution, to expand the company\u2019s scope and vision. Unity has proved to be a successful game engine used for plenty of well-liked names including the mega-popular Pokemon Go. The gaming community was unanimously outraged at Riccitiello\u2019s comments, so much so that the CEO addressed his comments in a Tweet. The apology pushed back some of the criticism, but it wasn\u2019t enough to undo the severity of his comments. \u201cI have never seen so many people in the community seriously considering switching engines after having used Unity for years, because of everything that has been happening,\u201d said one disgruntled user. Due to the overwhelmingly negative reaction, Riccitiello issued a full apology: \u201cI\u2019m going to start with an apology. My word choice was crude. I am sorry. I am listening and will do better.\u201d The CEO goes on to say that he has respect for game developers and they \u201cwork incredibly hard and want people to play their game.\u201d Riccitiello surmises near the end: \u201cIf I had been smarter in choosing my words I would have said just this\u2026we are working to provide developers with tools so that they can better understand what their players think, and it is up to them to act or not, based on this feedback.\u201d It\u2019s commendable that an apology was issued, but you have to wonder how much damage has been done already. We\u2019ll have to wait and see if there\u2019s any reaction and fallout to Riccitiello\u2019s apology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ex-EA CEO responds to backlash after calling devs \u201cf**king idiots\u201d over microtransactions Flickr: Web SummitControversial comments from Unity CEO John Riccitiello incited a negative reaction from the public and he has now reacted to his \u201ccrude\u201d choice of words. Monetization in gaming has been a sore point for players for many years now with the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80721\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}