RIFT's Ffinch on monetization and playing incognito
RIFT senior design director Simon Ffinch spoke to PCGamesN about the fantasy title's free-to-play conversion recently. Ffinch said the switch has "been amazing," and he also offers a few quotables with regard to both F2P discourse and the perils of playing a game you've developed.
"I just hate that word 'monetize,' Ffinch said. "'Let's monetize our players!' They're people and they're playing a game because they want to have fun, they're not a frickin' ATM machine. I don't like that attitude at all, and in the business world you can't help but hear it."
He also drops a few interesting tidbits about his in-game experiences. "I'm in a guild and they don't even know I'm a dev," Ffinch says, before adding that he avoids voice chat but tries to "gently probe" his fellow players for useful feedback. "Some of the responses just make me glow inside," Ffinch explains," but then there's also the other side of it, when they respond with 'I don't know what those devs were doing, they're frickin retarded!'"
