The CEO of the company reflects on the direction of the industry and talks about video games and politics.
Tim Sweeney, CEO and founder of Epic Games, has charged the loot boxes and pay-to-win elements in video games. He has done so during a speech delivered on his DICE Summit panel, as Hollywood Reporter says: “We have to ask ourselves, as an industry, what we want to be when we grow up. Do we want to become Las Vegas, with slot machines, or do we prefer to choose to respect the creators of the products that customers trust, he wonders. "I think that there will be more and more publishers who put aside the loot boxes," he says.
According to Sweeney, video game companies must be reluctant to create experiences in which the benefit is based on "spending money." Loot boxes "play with mechanics" of bets, with the end that you can not get "more money." The manager has also criticized that many businesses are based on damaging the customer. “We have businesses that benefit by hurting consumers. Facebook and Google have been the leaders in this. They provide free services, but then they make you pay for their service with the loss of privacy and freedom. ”
Epic Games believes that all users must have equal access to the games. “In Fortnite, the player who enjoys with friends plays double and spends more money. The cross-platform game is the future, and we all have to be part of it. ” Sweeney explains that in the next decade, video games will become "a first class social activity", so games are also "a communication platform and an entertainment experience."
And when a company operates an ecosystem where users and creators can express themselves, they should be a neutral moderator. Else the potential for undue influence from within or without is far too high.
– Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) February 12, 2020
Video games and politics
The end of the talk has focused on a controversial point that touches the influence of politics in the process of creating video games. "We must get marketing departments out of politics," he says. “We live in a world where your political affiliation determines the restaurant you are going to visit. There is no reason to transfer those issues that will separate us to video games. ”
According to the founder of Epic Games, it is necessary to clearly separate “the Church from the State”, since “employees, consumers and everyone else” have the right to express themselves. "As companies we have to divorce politics, the platforms should be neutral."
Before the commotion that these words have caused, Sweeney himself has come to the passage of the comments in his Twitter account to clarify his words. He pointed out that political ideas should be transmitted "from the heart of the creative" and not from "the marketing departments", which seek to "capitalize on the division." When “the company operates an ecosystem in which users and creators can express themselves, they have to be a neutral moderator. Otherwise, the essential to exert undue influence from inside or outside is too high. ”
