I think this is a good article, but ironically I think all three tribes would actually describe themselves the same way many times (whereas this article implies they'd describe themselves, or what matters to them, differently).
To use an example from the article, I think Jonathan Blow would absolutely argue that he wrote his own game engine because it was best for his user. Whether you agree with him or not, he is whole-heartedly convinced by his assertion that it could not be done in Unity trivially. Having listened to him a fair deal, and his feelings on games (vs. programming of games), I very much believe that he cares a tremendous amount about the experience of the game above quite possibly all else. So, while you can certainly argue that the way he chooses to implement that goal is misguided (I don't believe this, but an argument exists), I don't think its fair to give "The UI is more important than anything else" to the third camp and not his. I think he agrees with this statement, and feels that what gets you the best UI in a game happens to be low level work (to avoid frustrating lag, etc.).
Similarly, I think Bret Victor might take issue with this as well. Much of his work is centered on creating innovative UIs to help people think, and often against the (current) abstract ways of representing knowledge. In particular, from the maker perspective, he cares deeply about empowering people to make things -- less so I would say than some sort of mathematical purity.
All this to say, I think there may be less difference in goals than we think, and more difference in what we believe influences those shared goals.
Re: Jonathan Blow,
I don't think it's a stretch to say different/better tools can have a profound effect on the industry and resulting games as a whole. As someone in games, quite a lot of software has had far-reaching impact that influenced games on a noteworthy level. Speedtree, Zbrush, and the substance package have basically defined modern AAA art assets. And while the major public engines have had a profound impact, even things like Source mods, RPG Maker, and Game Maker have had a profound impact in terms of enabling development of breakout indie hits or introducing people to game development as a whole who are now in the industry.
So I don't think it's a stretch to say a performant alternative to C++ with a game engine out of the box could have an impact which has broader reach than speedier development of his next game.
The logical extreme of camp 1 would be researchers who are more interested in creating Haskell language extensions/conducting research than doing work for which UI/UX is very important.
I think most people don't fit squarely in any of the camps. Most people are making compromises between virtues of all the categories, they might just weight them a bit differently.
To use an example from the article, I think Jonathan Blow would absolutely argue that he wrote his own game engine because it was best for his user. Whether you agree with him or not, he is whole-heartedly convinced by his assertion that it could not be done in Unity trivially. Having listened to him a fair deal, and his feelings on games (vs. programming of games), I very much believe that he cares a tremendous amount about the experience of the game above quite possibly all else. So, while you can certainly argue that the way he chooses to implement that goal is misguided (I don't believe this, but an argument exists), I don't think its fair to give "The UI is more important than anything else" to the third camp and not his. I think he agrees with this statement, and feels that what gets you the best UI in a game happens to be low level work (to avoid frustrating lag, etc.).
Similarly, I think Bret Victor might take issue with this as well. Much of his work is centered on creating innovative UIs to help people think, and often against the (current) abstract ways of representing knowledge. In particular, from the maker perspective, he cares deeply about empowering people to make things -- less so I would say than some sort of mathematical purity.
All this to say, I think there may be less difference in goals than we think, and more difference in what we believe influences those shared goals.