Ex-Blizzard Exec Suggests Players Tip Games Like Elden Ring

Former Blizzard president Mike Ybarra recently made waves when he suggested that players could start tipping their favorite games more. “I’ve often thought, ‘I wish I could give these people an extra $10 or $20 because it was worth more than my original $70 and they weren’t trying to squeeze a penny out of me every second.'” he tweeted last week. It was a well-intentioned thought experiment that seemed to neglect the forest for the trees.

Ybarra has apparently had a lot of free time recently after Suddenly ‘leaving’ Activision Blizzard amid massive layoffs following its acquisition by Microsoft, where he also worked as a corporate vice president for many years. The longtime gaming businessman is branching out into huge single-player PC games like Horizon Forbidden West, The last of usAnd Final Fantasy VII Remake And Tweeter thought of leader trial balloons like “I’ve always fundamentally believed that if you make good games, the rest of the business and other problems are minimized.”

His latest idea is to add a tip button to games so players can shell out a few extra bucks after watching the credits roll on games that left them “awed” and didn’t try to nickel and dime them with microtransactions. “Games like HZD, GoW, RDR2, BG3, Ancient Ringetc.” Ybarra wrote. “I know $70 is already a lot, but it’s an option at the end of the game that I sometimes wish I had. Some games are so special.

Gamers immediately began criticizing the former executive for what sounded to some like a request for a charity button for major gaming companies. Some panicked at the thought of being asked to spend even more money to play a game. Others balked at the idea of ​​giving away money that might never reach people’s pockets who actually created the game.

IGN Video director Destin Legarie probably put this criticism most succinctly. “I think companies that are billions and billions of dollars can manage paying their employees fairly instead of relying on a tip from me,” he said. wrote in response. “Because it’s not like my money is going to the combat designer or the level artist. This goes into the company’s piggy bank.

The fact that the source of this thought experiment is the former boss of Blizzard, whose employees were recently decimated by layoffs and apparently would have declined their most recent bonuses. Although he has only been with the company for a few years, Ybarra reportedly led a particularly “demoralizing” question-and-answer session with staff in early 2023. in which he announced a reduction in bonuses and conditions for returning to power.

Ybarra’s recent switchover suggestion captures a central tension in the current state of the game, but seeks how to fix it. Gamers hate buying a game only to load it up and find out there’s another store inside that asks them for even more money to unlock additional features. A lot big budget single player games cost too much to make and it will probably require a higher price. But until better rules are in place for profit sharing and “vote with your wallet” logic actually benefits the creators it’s supposed to support, it’s hard not to consider the extra payment as just another gift to shareholders.