Culture Former video game executive sparks debate after claiming players should tip developers - Tipping has seemingly ended up everywhere, with gaming now even being mooted as an option

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With video games costing around $70 nowadays, most players are not thinking: "If only I could pay a bit more..."

Yet one former video game exec thinks gamers are thirsting to tip developers.

Yep, as well as tipping your waiter, delivery driver, barista, hairdresser, etc., this guys thinks you should be tipping video game developers too.

Mike Ybarra, the former president of the major gaming company Blizzard Entertainment and ex-Xbox executive too, floated the concept on X last week.

While acknowledging that most people won't be a fan of the tipping idea, he said the idea could players support games they are 'in awe of'.

"I've thought about this idea for a while, as a player, since I've been diving into single player games lately," Ybarra began in a tweet posted on 11 April.

"When I beat a game, there are some that just leave me in awe of how amazing the experience was.

"At the end of the game, I've often thought 'I wish I could give these folks another $10 or $20 because it was worth more than my initial $70 and they didn't try to nickel and dime me every second.'"

For context as to how that compares to tipping at a meal - a 20 percent tip on a $70 bill is $14.

The ex video game exec added: "Games like HZD, GoW, RDR2, BG3, Elden Ring, etc. I know $70 is already a lot, but it's an option at the end of the game I wish I had at times. Some games are that special.

"I know most will dislike this idea. BTW, I realize we are tired of 'tipping' in everything else - but I view this different from a pressure to tip type scenario many face and give feedback on."

Many gamers have since flocked to the comments section of the video to provide their thoughts - and the feelings are certainly mixed.

"Unless you're tipping an independent Dev.. aren't you really just giving the publisher the money? With the Dev on a set wage?" one person asked.

"Larian is the only game studio that deserves to be tipped imo, but even then it would feel more disrespectful and unipersonal," a second added, while a third remarked: "I like this idea if a game is good and up to our standards, we should have an option to tip the studio/devs."

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[Vlinny-kun]

Here's a tip: Pressing the A button will make you perform a basic light attack.

---

I remember when AAA video games were $50 and came completely functional without any EULA strings attached.

Fuck this faggot for even spreading the idea. You know why you're encouraged heavily to tip waitresses? Because they make below minimum wage. How is that possible? Because tipping allows their managers to pay them below minimum wage out of the expectation that they will make the rest of their salary on tips. Sounds like this guy wants to make game developers the next waitresses. I cannot fucking wait to hear from other companies like Bungie to express their glee in implementing such a bullshit practice to fuck over both their employees and consumers simultaneously allow for more opportunities to make the best content possible while incentivising their team to strive for building better worlds for everyone!!! )))))))

 

[The Last Stand]

Buy our online pass, developers/publishers don't make money off the used game market.
Subscribe to Xbox Live/PSN so that our consoles can sell at a loss.
Pay for our on-disk DLC so that the content can be readily available to sell.
Microtransactions in our fully priced games gives consumers options to support our title long term.
Loot boxes are "surprise mechanics."
You should be comfortable with not owning your video games.

Need I go on with excuses these greedy companies make to milk MORE MONEY from their consumers?

 

[Retink Retunk]

Tips are for personalized service, not for for random bullshit.

 

[Monolith]

I tip one person and one person only, my landlord.

 

[Iron Jaguar]

Here's a tip for you, Mr. Gaming Executive: stop putting niggers, wahmens and trannies into everything, and stop retconning history to make it Diverse©

 

[TheDarknessGrows]

christ, I thought the "Pokemon/AAA game series is made by a poor indie company, please understand" was just a meme.

Doubly funny because when the AAA marketing moniker was developed, the industry intentionally excluded Nintendo (and Nintendo-adjacent developers) from it because they could not compete with the generally high quality of Nintendo's associated products.

Along those lines, I will give these developers the tip they crave:

LEARN TO OPTIMIZE YOUR GAMES.

 

[Dysnomia]

I can see donating to a small developer if you can afford it. But it's not my job to pay the salaries of AAA employees. That's a problem with that system and not me as a gamer.

 

[Napoleon III]

Why not simply pay your employees more?

Aggressively monetizing any contact point with the consumer is not the sign of a healthy or sane industry.

This is a sign that AAA game studios are dying or at least feeling a lot of pressure.

When a lot of big studios started adding microtransactions I think that was a version of a normal company being taken over by private equity. For those that don't know the way private equity basically works is you take a formerly functional company that has hit a bit of a rough patch invest in them for cheap and then rape them in order to get as much short term profit out of the company by basically destroying their brand and their infrastructure.

Now that the microtransaction phase is beginning to be unprofitable I think the big studios are moving into the death phase. There is a lot of evidence of this elsewhere but this is another piece of it.

LEARN TO OPTIMIZE YOUR GAMES.

The problem is that developers just aren't given the resources they need and aren't allowed to build things in a performant way. It also doesn't help that big game studios will not pay for the best developers and will instead try and get cheap but not very good developers.

Well if budgets are the biggest they have ever been why isn't there enough resources? Part of this is just because these companies are not managed very well and there is a massive amount of waste generated by wasting time for stupid and bullshit reasons. Part of it however is because a lot of resources are spent on things that don't involve making games. Think of hiring diversity consultants.

This leads to things like

Aren't players the ones that are doing most of the QA testing now anyways?

Eventually all of these video game companies are going to die and they are probably going to be replaced by companies that are not quite so retarded.

 

[dustbuster]

I'd tip developers if the system were voluntary.
You'd see an IMMEDIATE market-based reaction to any game dev willing to NOT bandwagon the AAA studio propensity to ugly-up women for "inclusivity"

I already use "cash shop" transactions as a proxy for this for certain titles.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

Doubly funny because when the AAA marketing moniker was developed, the industry intentionally excluded Nintendo (and Nintendo-adjacent developers) from it because they could not compete with the generally high quality of Nintendo's associated products.

Along those lines, I will give these developers the tip they crave:

LEARN TO OPTIMIZE YOUR GAMES.

i find it funny that the only AAA games i play are kinda old now. think the newest one I play is like. . .

Civilization 6?

 

[Seventh Star]

I agree with Mr. Pink, tipping is for faggots.

 

[WelfareNiggerQueen]

Poor consumers must revolt against the greedy workers of the world.

 

[FILTH Tourist]

Isn't DLC already a tip feature? Most of the time they are overpriced in terms of cost/content when compared to the base game, but people go along with it to support the devs.

 

[anustart76]

Your games are so shit that I don't want to buy them, I don't want to even pirate them, and you want me to tip? Maybe try putting out a product that's actually worth the fucking money first.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Tipping should become illegal because it became just another tax that's completely unrelated to someone's quality of work

 

[ZazietheBeast]

AAA needs to die. If the game is legit good, fun, not requiring constant internet access to play and not gonna get axed like so many live service games... people will shell out money for it big time.

As this is the industry that is demanding 70$ games, they can suck off a shotgun.

 

[Angry Alt Right Nerd]

Gamers are the most retarded consumers in the world so this will probably become a wildly successful idea.

 

[Google.com]

I'd tip developers if the system were voluntary.
You'd see an IMMEDIATE market-based reaction to any game dev willing to NOT bandwagon the AAA studio propensity to ugly-up women for "inclusivity"

I already use "cash shop" transactions as a proxy for this for certain titles.

Interesting point actually my kneejerk reaction was this is retarded and game devs are 100 times worse than they were just a few years ago. But maybe it could actually improve the gaming industry. Though I doubt steam, play station, Microsoft, even epic will actually implement this... But I guess there'd be nothing stopping the devs from adding it themselves.

But wouldn't things like the game soundtracks and premium packs with wallpapers and books be considered tips too. We already have a lot of those with little effect.

 

[Day of the Cope]

Here's a tip: Finish your fucking game before you release it.

It's not enough for them to release day one DLC. It's not enough to have $20 skins in full priced games. It's not enough to jack up the price of games because "muh inflation" when every game released for $70 has been hot fucking garbage. Now you expect me to give you extra money beyond the sticker price because you can't be fucked to pay your employees enough? It's bad enough that fucking Subways ask you for a tip. Fucking Subway.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

I know this is obvious as hell, but tipping a mechanic or plumber for doing a good job when you normally wouldn't tip them becoming more common is not the same as paying a partially state funded mega-corporation for buying a $70-$90 video game with micro transactions and piecemealed content!

I do view spending like 5 dollars once in a high effort "free to play" game like Genshin Impact as an equivalent of tipping though. if you ever played the game you'd realize you literally don't have to pay anything for the gacha shit and the open world gameplay is better than shit that costs more I've played despite being pretty much just as simple. This though? Not the same as a one time "good job for making this thing" in a game where dumbasses are whaling and never actually playing the game.

Rebuying things youve bought before achieves the same. In my case I actually did wind up needing the Pc Version when my PS4 died, but I did that buying PC Transistor after getting PS4 Transistor for free.