Arkane Studios - Hiring Monetization Designer

PCGamesN reports that Arkane Lyon is looking to hire a monetization designer.

The posting might not be too surprising within the wider industry, but it does mark part of a significant change in Arkane Lyon's strategy. Until October, sister studio Arkane Austin had been explicitly hiring for multiplayer projects , but that changed when Arkane Lyon started hiring QA testers with "experience in [...] GAaS [games as a service]." Many of parent company Zenimax's other internal studios - including Bethesda, id Software, and MachineGames - have been making a greater push towards multiplayer in recent years.

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Thanks Farflame!

More information.

Multiplayer/Co-op = Bite Me.

And so hopes for a well-done Arx Fatalis sequel continue to diminish. All hail our Zenimax overlords.

I care about games, not how they're funded.

I don't quite have this imagination-driven power of turning great games into bad games because I don't understand the realities of the industry.

I don't mind not having that power, though

If I had no food to eat, maybe, just saying maybe, I'd leave my morality behind and become a scammer too. Maybe. I still believe I'd try to get a decent job instead of parasitic bleeding people dry.

But I have a decent life. Forgive me, I do not understand and will never understand anyone's urge to scam other people on a mere whim.
This practice that just doesn't want to die, a cancer that's spreading exponentially, just as things the civilization got rid of, slavery for example, needs to be regulated. A life imprisonment for scams, just like USA's law in kidnapping cases which are modern type of slavery, would do.

Darth Tagnan said:

I care about games, not how they're funded.

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Still, games need funding. And funding influences game design (and quality).

Cacheperl said:

Still, games need funding. And funding influences game design (and quality).

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Yeah, and before we invented microtransactions, the publishers and suits didn't influence game design in the slightest, right?

They just donated their money to game development as a kind of charity, not expecting something in return.

It's like coin-up arcades, right? You know how the games were deliberately hard to inspire you to put more coins into them - only because the money was donated to the homeless afterwards

Not like today, where game design is all bad because of how awful suits are in how they're greedy - unlike what they used to be.

What did I tell you last time - there's no point in going around and around in circles.

You want to tell yourself that games are worse because the suits are following the money in a new way - that's your business.

Personally, I go by the games themselves - instead of my imagination. I'm a big fan of reality over paranoid delusion in that way

As long as entertainment has needed funding to exist, we've had both good and bad examples of that combination.

I mean, look at Hollywood and the Marvel factory. For some strange reason, they don't seem to need microtransactions to influence movie scripts. Maybe you should give them a call?

I focus on the good examples, because I enjoy playing good games.

That said, I fully understand that if you enjoy being depressed about the bad examples and pretending it's somehow a new concept - then it makes sense to make it out to be worse than it is.

All I know is that there's a lot more fantastic games coming out than there ever was. Right now, I'm having the time of my life in a game with tons of cosmetic microtransactions.

Poor me, right?

Let me guess, I can't see how terrible the design is and how irrelevant cosmetics are ruining my game

That's probably because I don't know much about games and I've never played that many.

Adults are talking JDR, go play your new shooter or something

Damn, now I need to find a butthurt meme.

Oh snap!

Remember Dishonored 2 it's expansion and Prey were failures according to Zenimax. I don't need to post a meme or video about the age old below expectations excuse.

If you need an example look at EA calling Battlefield 5 a failure while it sold 7.5 million copies, but it fell short the ten million projected sales they gave to share holders.

"Below expectations".

Not sure why DH2 wasn't selling, the game is absolutely awsome and there is no friend of mine I didn't urge to buy it. Assuming it wasn't selling, didn't see any numbers.
Prey? Forgettable mediocrity with trashmobs respawning for no reason other than serve as annoying filler. Of course it failed.

That's what happens when people don't buy great games. Suits like money, for some reason.

Personally, I'm a little amused by the concept in itself. I mean "monetization designer"? Seriously?

Anyway I'm not surprised by this news as it was leaked last year that Arkane Studios was facing a a bunch of difficulties with Zenimax, and a few key staff leaving.

Following the ‘disappointing’ releases of Dishonored 2 and Prey, Zenimax decided that they didn’t do well because no one buys single player games, a sentiment that one source stated was “dead ass wrong.” This mindset has led to a hard pivot by Zenimax to focus more on multiplayer and live service experiences, with only a few single player games in the pipeline.

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@Darth Tagnan;

You are putting words in my mouth. I prefer pizza.

I do not doubt that they need to make money, and I can see that microtransactions do not always ruin the game. Yet they might.

And that aside, it's a very simple fact that the amount and kind of funding influences the game. We can debate about what that influence is, though.

Couchpotato said:

Anyway I'm not surprised by this news as it was leaked last year that Arkane Studios was facing a a bunch of difficulties with Zenimax, and a few key staff leaving.

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That same Zenimax is most probably thrilled with FO76 success. Everyone and their mother bought it and is playing it 24/7, right?

Cacheperl said:

@Darth Tagnan;

You are putting words in my mouth. I prefer pizza.

I do not doubt that they need to make money, and I can see that microtransactions do not always ruin the game. Yet they might.

And that aside, it's a very simple fact that the amount and kind of funding influences the game. We can debate about what that influence is, though.

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Well, we're not going to disagree that funding influences the game. That's like saying water influences wetness

Also, we completely agree that microtransactions can hurt a game - if it's not done well. I'm not sure I've ever seen a game literally RUINED by them, but I've certainly played games that seemed to extend the grind to "inspire" people to buy shit.

Warframe is a prime example.

Of course, the irony is that most people seem to think Warframe has one of the most fair F2P models out there.

Go figure.

However, I think the suits have figured out that they still need to make good games to have people play them.

I think a much, much bigger problem within this industry is the obsession of the big boys with selling zillions of copies for anything to be considered a success.

Microtransactions represent a very small part of the equation there, for the most part.

Number of copies sold is still king of the hill here, and that's worse. That's where all the toxic standards of marketing and hype comes from.

Of course the suits want to make good games. They just may not know how to do that.

And you may have to elaborate on how a focus on number of copies sold is that much more of an issue. That's some fairly obvious number to wave at investors.

Of course that does not measure quality or enjoyment. But what really does?

Cacheperl said:

Of course the suits want to make good games. They just may not know how to do that.

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Of course not, they're suits. That's what developers are for.

And you may have to elaborate on how a focus on number of copies sold is that much more of an issue. That's some fairly obvious number to wave at investors.

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Have you played Prey or Mankind Divided? If so, you should know the answer to that already.

Of course that does not measure quality or enjoyment. But what really does?

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You tell me.