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SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Unity (NYSE: U) (the “Company”), the world’s leading platform for creating and growing real-time 3D (RT3D) content, today announced that John Riccitiello will retire as President, Chief Executive Officer, Chairman and a member of the Company’s Board of Directors, effective immediately. James M. Whitehurst has been appointed Interim Chief Executive Officer, President and a member of the Board. Roelof Botha, Lead Independent Director of the Unity Board, has been appointed Chairman. Mr. Riccitiello will continue to advise Unity to ensure a smooth transition.
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My only complaint is such maneuvers tend to come with golden parachutes - his mismanagement of Unity leading to the whole fee debacle and erosion of trust deserves no such soft landing.
Yeah I can almost guarantee that the original plan was always for him to leave. He was going to be the scapegoat with a golden parachute, allowing the company to keep the unpopular changes while disbursing the bad publicity. It’s exactly what he did with EA too.
Basically reddit’s Ellen Pao plan. Bring in someone unpopular to make the unpopular changes, then let them go with a massive payout while keeping the unpopular changes.
But then Unity realized that the companies weren’t going to forget about the unpopular changes and it wasn’t going to blow over. Companies started bailing left and right and switching to other engines. At that point Unity realized that the smoke was actually a full blown fire, and started doing whatever they could to try and regain some trust. But by that point it was too late, because companies had already seen the potential for abuse. And as the saying goes, when someone tells you who you are, believe them. So now companies are unwilling to go back to Unity, and Unity is grasping at straws.
He’s been there for 9 years, not like he was just recently hired.
And he was at EA for several years before it was voted Worst Company in the World two years in a row.
They were winning somewhere I suppose
I haven’t followed the topic beyond the initial backlash - has Unity totally / partially gone back on the changes?
Yes, they retracted the original policy changes with one of those boilerplate “we’re listening to the community” apologies. But the fact still remains that they have done it once and could just as easily decide to do it again in the future. One of the biggest reasons people shifted to Godot is because it’s free and open source. Godot (like many other free open-source softwares) had struggled with adoption until now. But now that Godot has exploded in popularity and game devs have begun learning it, the hardest hurdle is already passed and there isn’t much incentive to switch back to Unity.
It’d be like if there was a mass exodus from Windows to Linux. And then Microsoft apologized for whatever caused the exodus, but everyone had already installed and learned the basics for Linux. There would be very little incentive for everyone to change back to Windows, because as Linux gets more popular and development progresses, it gets easier to use and more robust.
The biggest hurdle for switching to a new platform is overcoming user apathy. After all, users will choose to use what they already know, even if it’s slightly inconvenient. That’s why the first phase of pretty much any software launch is making it look similar to something that already exists. If you can greet users with a familiar UI, they’ll be more likely to consider adoption. But Unity managed to actively drive users away from their platform (and into the arms of an open-source competitor) so the biggest hurdle has already been jumped.
Somewhat… Not completely but most of the really bad parts were changed https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/09/unity-makes-major-changes-to-controversial-install-fee-program/
Mostly. The runtime fee now only kicks in after $1 mil, and you are limited to a 4% cap, and they are honoring the old EULAs, so if you want to avoid the fee, you just stay on the current version of Unity. They can still eat my farts, but this is much better and won’t kill a bunch of games the way it would have before.
Yeah I can almost guarantee that the original plan was always for him to leave. He was going to be the scapegoat with a golden parachute, allowing the company to keep the unpopular changes while disbursing the bad publicity. It’s exactly what he did with EA too.
I hadn’t considered that… fair point. Pay someone handsomely to take the immense PR hit and move on.
Yeah I can almost guarantee that the original plan was always for him to leave.
I don’t think so, mostly because of how long it took for him to be “retired” after the whole fiasco, almost a full month. Had it taken only a week, I’d find that more plausible, as that’d actually make it look like it was his fault and that Unity as a company “saw the error in their way”
Or it could be that they suck even harder at saving face than we thought.
Typically written into the contract, it’s not like they are doing it out of love
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Yeah he’s definetely not innocent, but this is 100% the board at Unity throwing the CEO under the bus to try and control the damage
You’re not wrong; I suppose my criticism is as much of that practice as it is of this individual specifically.
You’re looking for blood you’ll never get unfortunately
The board that allowed him to present and push the idea forward is still there. The power structure that wanted this change is still there.
Riccitello is gone (and fuck him for many reasons) but Unity isn’t changed, it just has a different face.
I mean the board that HIRED him is still there. No one hires a guy like that and would be surprised about what they got.
“You’re the guy who put Microtransactions into FIFA? Come on in and sit down!”
They always knew.
busts into company
destroys reputation
refuses to elaborate
multi million severance
leaves
Just chad shit.
Did the same at EA (IIRC).
EA is still around though
This totally off topic, but back in the day Chad used to mean taking a giant dump or being a little piece of shit. So to me, you basically said the same thing twice.
I feel like the whole reason that changed was a Dad told his son “stop being a Chad kid”. So, when the kid asked what that meant, the Mom stepped in and said it means a cool dude. Then started telling all his friends “My Dad thinks I’m a Chad!”
So now its a giant Dad joke that has whooshed a whole generation.
How many millions in umbrella severance for this? Remember kids, just get the highest position in any company ignoring your morals and no matter how badly you screw it up, your rich!
Ignoring morals and basic empathy is probably the hardest part. Which is why psychopaths are perfect for those kinds of positions.
Look, Unity that backed the changes of the fall guy have removed the fall guy they backed. Now they wait a couple years and use the idea later to hopefully less backlash with a new fall guy who they can remove if the backlash is bad again.
And what a sweet deal it is for the fall guy.
“Hey we need to roll out an unpopular policy change. If you agree to take the PR hit we’ll give you $30 million”
Best gig in a lifetime.
Probably too late for Unity. A commercial game engine only makes money if there is a constant influx of new games to sustain it. I bet a lot of developers, large and small, have already decided to dump the platform either immediately or for their next project. So revenues are going to go into free fall.
Devs will move to Unreal (powerful) or Godot (free) and Unity will die. And it’s all thanks to John here and the other members of the board who thought squeezing people for $$$ who have choices was a good idea.
Unity is not going anywhere, even in a bankruptcy it would get acquired by the likes of Microsoft or Meta. The “good guys startup” Unity is long gone, and it’s been replaced by the same corporate structure you would expect anywhere.
Tying yourself to Unreal would be just as naive, and Godot is nowhere ready to fill the niche Unity is filling. I would place the opposite bet as yours, the vast majority of actual game devs are not rich enough nor care enough about corporate drama to ever switch engine for possibly worst. Also, experienced C# Unity devs and experienced C++ Unreal devs are not that interchangeable. Unity made this move to survive and they know there is no true alternative.
This is my pov, I worked in the industry for over a decade and I am an Unity ex-employee.
Who on earth would rely on a game engine in bankruptcy? Would you get support? Would you get product keys? Would backend services get turned off? Who would collect revenues and would the terms change again? I think Unity has already done itself irreparable damage and if it ends in bankruptcy then blame the outgoing CEO. Engines need a constant conveyor belt of new games to sustain their revenues and I don’t see this happening. If the company is bought it will just be to pick the bones of a dead platform, collecting revenues from games out in the wild.
And yes there is pain and a learning curve to moving to other engines though I think most programmers would be able to cope with change and if they’re that incurious and inflexible that they can’t then maybe it’s time to find new programmers. I expect most teams will jump to another engine at a natural break in the development process, e.g. after completing a game and moving onto the next and they might start on a smaller project and work up to familiarise themselves with their new tools.
As for Godot, I am sure it is not a 100% feature for feature replacement for Unity. But it sure as hell is capable of powering 95% of indie games out there no trouble whatsoever and I daresay some more challenging titles. Another compelling reason for devs to reevaluate their relationship with Unity.
Who on earth would rely on a game engine in bankruptcy?
They aren’t nearing bankruptcy first of all, and I as I mentioned even in this doom-and-gloom scenario they would likely just get acquired and operations would continue as normal. Is that what you think? That Unity is about to go bankrupt? I am not sure what we’re arguing here.
Engines need a constant conveyor belt of new games to sustain their revenues and I don’t see this happening.
What are you basing this observation on? Unity never made money from the volume of games released using their engine. Also, the part where everyone is suddenly dropping Unity is mostly just a narrative here on social media, and the bulk of the reason why it might not be happening is that there is no true alternative.
And yes there is pain and a learning curve to moving to other engines though I think most programmers would be able to cope with change and if they’re that incurious and inflexible that they can’t then maybe it’s time to find new programmers
It is not about coping and being incurious. Changing engine means trashing a part of your team, trashing your content pipeline, trashing your internal tools. It costs a lot of money, money which most studios don’t have. It would make sense if there was a true alternative to Unity for those mid-sized studios, which there isn’t.
As for Godot, I am sure it is not a 100% feature for feature replacement for Unity. But it sure as hell is capable of powering 95% of indie games out there no trouble whatsoever and I daresay some more challenging titles
Again, not sure what you’re basing those numbers on. Godot can’t even do consoles natively so there is definitely some troubles and headache in using Godot in 2023. I would agree that Godot is perfectly fine for solo devs and very, very small teams, but it is not a serious alternative for even mid-sized productions. It is still pretty much a toy compared to the bigger engines, and it lacks commercial support to really attract those studios.
I get it. The popular sentiment here is that Unity is doomed to fail, and the internet as a whole kind of wish it did. I am not gonna gather sympathy and votes by saying otherwise, but I just don’t see it. Godot is not ready, switching to Unreal does not make much sense since it is the same proprietary “garbage”. It is easy to make big statements here on Lemmy and claim how easy it would be for game studios to get rid of Unity, and how this would improve their business, but to be honest I don’t think you guys have a clue. If you are actually a developer or own a game studio then I am sorry for assuming.
You make a great point, and I want to add to that.
The popular sentiment here is that Unity is doomed to fail, and the internet as a whole kind of wish it did.
A lot of people confuse their wishes with the observable reality. There were a lot of people that migrated to lemmy and thought reddit would die in 3 months, tops. Many people are still waiting for Xitter to suffer a “sudden death”. Unity is in a similar situation, it’s too big to simply close down and file for bankruptcy.
The shitstorm made some people migrate away from it, just like people migrated off reddit when fuck u/spez started fucking things around, and twitter when elon musk took over. Yet all of them survived with healthy-ish userbases, despite many people wishing otherwise.
Things a lot of people forget or ignore for whatever reason is the sheer volume of shovelware produced with Unity, aimed straight at Google Play and Microsoft Stores. Asian studios targeting Asian audiences are probably the highest source of income for Unity, due to sheer numbers (China, India and other SE Asian countries are roughly half of the world population). Unity gets money from “per seat” subscriptions and from advertising. Even assuming a 20% reduction of those subscriptions, there’s still enough money coming in to keep the company going, especially if they decide to axe sectors that are “money drains”.
Also, some studios simply can’t afford to let go of Unity because their main income earners are made with Unity and they need to keep the game updated. If their games also use stuff they can’t easily replicate in a different engine, like some plugin, that’s an extra reason for them to put up with Unity’s shit. I also wouldn’t be surprised if Unity’s now previous license of “no royalties” was preferred over Unreal and the reason some studios went with it, as the subscription cost would be lower than paying “success fees”, with Honkai/Genshin Impact being likely examples.
Unlike Twitter or Reddit, Unity is in a better position to make a slow comeback. Whether they’ll manage remains to be seen, but even assuming all the worst choices taken by the higher ups, the company will live for a good 2 years as is, then sell out to someone bigger.
There’s also Bevy, which can infect them with the Rust mind controlling slime that makes them swear up and down that it’s an amazing game engine because it runs on Rust.
It is actually pretty good though the folks developing it are putting their A Game into it even if it’s still technically in the development phase.
Unity was been a massive need of an update anyway and just wasn’t getting it. Something like this was always going to happen. This whole debacle has only accelerated it.
All they could have spent some money and upgraded Unity, but clearly that was never going to happen.
He did what he was hired to. Take the company public, turn the founders into billionaires and become the scapegoat when things go south.
Unless there’s something I’m not aware of (which is very possible), what you said doesn’t make sense. The company was already publicly traded (so no IPO to pump up the numbers for), and none of the recent moves he made increased the stock price.
JR joined many years before it went public
Dude was specifically hired for the IPO, he was hired in 2014 and the IPO was in 2020. So what you said doesn’t make sense. And before you say how do you know he was hired for the IPO. It’s a pattern that you see all the time. Founders step down, hire a CEO with experience, new CEO packs the board and c-suite to make the company seem more legit (probably packs the board with people suggested by the IPO underwriter) and raise capital to pump the value and get the valuation mentioned in the news. And boom company goes public a couple of years later.
Also the founders sold a shit ton of shares when the stock was around the peak. And even with the low price of today the founders are probably still billionaires.
Fucked the whole company and bails
Standard CEO strategy. Probably got a gold parachute lined up
Wonder what kind of severance he’s getting
Roelof Botha, Lead Independent Director of the Unity Board, has been appointed Chairman.
Imagine working in gaming with an actual name that’s just the beginning of a Deez Nuts joke
Guys he didn’t need any severance. Dude was already loaded with shares. He’s sold 421 million USD worth of shares over the past few years.
No one’s saying he needed it. But knowing how corporations work it’s quite likely he got a nice payout.
Paraphrasing from Money Never Sleeps:
What’s your number? The amount of money you would need to just walk away from it and live. See, I find that everybody has a number, and it’s usually an exact number. So what is yours?
More.
I understand. I guess I’m more so pointing out a number that we have already.
I don’t understand people who have money like that and just hop from one company to the next. If I got money like that, I’d start my own company.
As someone with his own company I can assure you that you don’t. Life is a lot easier when it’s not your baby on the line. Do you think he’s going to lose sleep over Unity? Not even a little.
More stressful, but also more rewarding I imagine. Also, I don’t like being told what to do.
Definitely. Still, if I had that much money, I would do something other than start a company to make more money. I’d try to accomplish something that helps others and makes this world suck a little less. Instead, I’ve focused my entire efforts towards the survival of myself and those close to me.
if I had that much money, I would do something other than start a company to make more money.
I wouldn’t be trying to make more money. I see myself operating a small business related to hobbies. Maybe model airplanes or ham radio or something. Breaking even would be fine.
That was fast…
Don’t care, still looking at other engines. Public companies are poison.
It’s one thing to bet “$50” on “it’s going to be fine” like lots of gamers did after what EA did with this guy at the helm, it’s a whole different thing to bet “my company and livelihood” on “it’s going to be fine” after what Unity did with this guy at the helm.
Unity is in B2B, not B2C, so the stakes are way higher for customers and so are the guarantees that customers require to keep on doing business with Unity after such an outrageous attempt at screwing them.
The incompetence level of the Board of Unity must be trully world-beating given that they’re still acting as if the stakes for their customers in trusting Unity again were anywhere near the same as the stakes for teenage gamers to keep on buying games from EA after being basically scammed.
There’s going to have to be some ironclad legal guarantees that this will never happen again and a purge of the Unity Board before at least those customers with the most to loose (i.e. the ones with successful games, either paying Unity directly or indirectly by using their Ad network) walk back from their decision of protecting their businesses from future similar actions by the management of Unity (such protection being mainly ditching Unity for future or early-stage projects).
I’m pretty sure that if they’d actually tried to keep going in the route they were going with the rules they’d have been sued out of existence. It was almost definitely illegal so it baffles me that they tried to do it.
Jim Whitehurst? The guy who sold Red Hat to IBM? Cool, cool, cool. Cool.
