Creator of DayZ and Icarus, Dean Hall, has said that Valve doesn’t get the criticism that it deserves for its role in popularising monetisation methods in its games that have gone on to become quite a bit more controversial. In an interview with Eurogamer, Hall in particular called out the gambling-styled monetisation methods that some games use, and it is a subject that he believes should lead to Valve getting more criticisms by gamers at large.
“It’s something I think Valve does not get anywhere near enough criticism about,” said Hall. “I’m honestly disgusted with gambling mechanics in video games at all – they have absolutely no place.”
He went on to also call out other developers that might not think that predatory monetisation practices aren’t really a problem. To these developers, Hall says that they should start providing raw data to the researchers who are actually interesting in seeing whether or not there is an actual problem that needs addressing.
“My challenge to game developers,” he said, “is that if they think these things are not a problem, they make the data available to universities who are crying out to study this stuff.”
For context, Valve helped popularise many of the monetisation methods that we’ve seen popping up in games over the last decade. While Team Fortress 2 was far from the first title to feature loot boxes, it did popularise the system, which would then go on to play an even larger role in the in-game economy of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Counter-Strike 2. Similarly, Dota 2 helped usher in the concept of a Battle Pass.
Hall also acknowledged that his own game – Icarus – has several DLCs that have been released since the survival crafting title was first released in 2021. Referring to this as the Paradox model – named after the publisher that tends to release several DLCs for its games – he also said that it was the model that studio RocketWerkz needs to use in order to survive.
“I’m not happy either,” Hall said. “I agree with a lot of the people who get mad about the DLC approach. I don’t really like the Icarus approach. We needed it to survive.”
“I actually think a lot of gamers don’t realise that 99 percent of devs out there are sitting there going, I don’t like this. So who’s winning? Because it’s sure not us. There’s a lot of game studios like mine that are just holding on and trying to keep making the games we want to make, but not necessarily happy with how they monetise.”
With the next title that RocketWerkz is working on, Hall has said that he wants to find a different way to monetisation. The title – dubbed Kitten Space Agency – is stated to be quite heavily inspired by Kerbal Space Program, and will have players building rockets and spacecrafts to fly out into space. He noted that he believes that Kitten Space Agency “deserves to be free”, and that it will allow players that like it to pay money to support its development.
“I want to find a different way,” said Hall. “We’ve got to do something. We’ve got to try something. And if there’s ever a game that deserves trying that, it’s a [Kerbal Space Program]-style game. That’s one game I think maybe we can try and do something different with. We say games can inspire, and inspiration should be free, which is kind of a tagline with [Kitten Space Agency]. I think the game deserves better, I really do – I think the game deserves to be free.”
