How Y Combinator made it smart to trust founders

Re:How Y Combinator made it smart to trust founders by spacemarine1 on Monday January 05, 2026 @02:57PM (#46503933)

I think it is possible to be successful in games without being predatory. Humble Bundle was a demonstration of that.

I don’t believe that ultra-predatory mechanics are long-term sustainable. They usually yield a “ring of fire” effect that creates a growing ring of users for a while but really you’re burning out all your core users and will implode. This is how many describe the original Zynga model.

Supercell (founded around the same time) has cultivated longterm ecosystems and IP by respecting their players.

EGG takes a similar long-term perspective.

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Re:How Y Combinator made it smart to trust founders by dpoloncsak on Monday January 05, 2026 @04:07PM (#46504978)

>I don’t believe that ultra-predatory mechanics are long-term sustainable

I don't think they're trying to be. I think they're whale hunting, find a few high spenders, and milk them for all they're worth. Then they spin up a new IP (or license one out), rinse and repeat

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Re:How Y Combinator made it smart to trust founders by YetAnotherNick on Monday January 05, 2026 @03:35PM (#46504542)

> Humble Bundle was a demonstration of that.

No idea what it is, but it has double digit million in revenue, across everything. How is it being successful.

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Re:How Y Combinator made it smart to trust founders by Loughla on Monday January 05, 2026 @04:41PM (#46505389)

It's successful in my opinion by offering really good value with fair practices. It's not a secret, I think.

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Re:How Y Combinator made it smart to trust founders by bigstrat2003 on Monday January 05, 2026 @09:51PM (#46508189)

If you don't consider tens of millions of dollars in revenue a success, your definition of "success" is completely out of whack.

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Re:How Y Combinator made it smart to trust founders by YetAnotherNick on Monday January 05, 2026 @11:56PM (#46508898)

Depends on development cost, no? If game development costs 10s to 100s of millions of dollars, 10 million in revenue is a failure.

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Re:How Y Combinator made it smart to trust founders by Espressosaurus on Monday January 05, 2026 @11:15PM (#46508662)

It’s not successful for a VC.

VCs are looking for the billion dollar exit. 10s of millions is 100-1000x off what they look for

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