The game engine Unity has recently caused huge controversy for changing its pricing model and trying to charge game developers based on the number of game downloads. Unity has been the engine of choice for independent game developers for many years. This strategy has frightened and confused independent game developers, and many developers are already considering changing engines. Unity’s decision is inseparable from its CEO John Riccitiello. This executive has proposed some quite ridiculous ideas and is notorious in the gaming industry.
Before joining Unity, John Riccitiello served as CEO at EA. At a shareholder meeting in 2011, John Riccitie llo once proposed the idea of letting players charge $1 for reloading in the Battlefield game . He said: "When you play "Battlefield" for six hours and the ammunition in the magazine runs out, and we ask you to spend $1 to reload, you are really not that sensitive to price."
John Riccitiello believes that pay-per-bullet is very beneficial to the gaming industry: “This is a great model and it represents a better future for the industry.”
At that time, John Riccitiello was also the main promoter of EA's expansion into game micro-transactions. Although the charging-by-bullet strategy was not implemented in the end, it still profoundly affected EA's development route. John Riccitiello left EA in 2013 and later joined Unity. EA's stock price fell by 60% during his tenure.
In 2022, John Riccitiello, then Unity CEO, once again made shocking statements, He didn’t understand why developers would make zero-profit games, and claimed that developers who did not take full advantage of monetization were “stupid idiots.”
In addition, after Unity announced its new pricing strategy, John Riccitiello was picked out by the investment media GuruFocus, T AGPH23 He sold 2,000 Unity shares a week before the announcement. After this week’s announcement, Unity’s stock price plummeted, falling from $39 to $36, a drop of nearly 10%. And John Riccitiello also sold 50,610 shares during 2023, but did not increase his holdings of any other stocks.
John Riccitiello's history as a villain in the game industry is even reflected in some game works. In Goichi Suda's "No More Heroes: Travis Strikes Again" and "No More Heroes 3", the image setting of the villain Utopia CEO Damon Riccitiello comes from John Riccitiello. It is said that this character comes from Goichi Suda's experience in cooperating with EA to develop the game "Curse of Shadows". Goichi Suda imitated John Riccitiello's character and designed the character "Damon Riccitiello", a ruthless business tycoon addicted to power.
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