• IWantToFuckSpez
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      8 months ago

      Of course they don’t see synergy. The vast majority of Unity game developer will never need Weta Tools or Ziva FX. And the one that might have been useful, that texture generator tool called ArtEngine, is discontinued. And all their other tools they acquired are half baked. Like that version control system Plastic SCM

      • Ms. ArmoredThirteen
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        218 months ago

        Don’t get me started on Plastic… There’s this weird thing that happens internally sometimes when we get to work on fun projects, like mini game jams kind of thing. Someone in the group will inevitably be like “We should use Plastic” and we all kinda have to go along with it because it feels like we’re not allowed to admit that Plastic blows. Then we end up frustrated and complaining about it but not switching to Git because again, can’t say out loud that one of our own tools doesn’t work well that would just be silly

        • kryllic
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          128 months ago

          Too bad Unity axed that project to create a game in-house using the engine to identify weak points and improve the engine. My guess is they realized how many of their acquired tools aren’t as good as they had hoped and didn’t want to admit they messed up in a few places. I sense lots of tech debt in the engine.

          • Ms. ArmoredThirteen
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            68 months ago

            Gigaya, yeah. I have very little insight on that one it came as a bit of a shock internally too from my understanding. I really wish that project kept going it had a lot of value. From my point of view in my fairly limited position, the tech debt I deal with isn’t too bad but there are wild scaling issues from growing too fast in the last few years.

  • LazaroFilm
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    8 months ago

    Translation: the higher ups fucked up because they’re so disconnected with their own product, so now they are making their employees pay for their mistakes in order to keep their bosses salaries and bonuses intact.

  • @[email protected]
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    978 months ago

    Corporate playbook:

    When the company does well: Reward leadership by giving all the profits to the executives and shareholders.

    When the company fails: Give the CEO a golden parachute and layoff the peasants.

  • TwilightVulpine
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    918 months ago

    Is anyone believing they would not have layoffs anyway? They are likely just trying to pin their cost-cutting plans on game devs who protested against their ridiculous scheme. Comes to mind that the money their clients were already paying is the money that would have paid for those employees’ wages.

    • Ms. ArmoredThirteen
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      178 months ago

      I work for Unity, granted I’m just a lowly worker they don’t tell me shit. I honestly don’t know on this one, or rather I feel there probably still would have been but maybe not to the extent this one is rumored to be. Our change in leadership is the starting point for some internal reworks so it is possible if the pricing scheme worked JR wouldn’t have ‘resigned’ and we’d be operating on a more status quo basis. I suspect layoffs would have come down the pipes again sooner or later though

  • @[email protected]
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    858 months ago

    Man. Bloody corporates. You can bet your ass it won’t be any of the higher ups being let go.

    • 1bluepixel
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      338 months ago

      Not disputing your main point, but they fired CEO John Riccitiello over this.

      • Carighan Maconar
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        968 months ago

        “fired” is a bit of a strong word for stuffing his ass so full of money it spewing out was what ejected him from the building.

      • @[email protected]
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        288 months ago

        They did but unfortunately the idiots that thought hiring him was a good idea are still there

      • zib
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        238 months ago

        Excuse you, but Riccitiello retired. Sure, it was at the last minute with absolutely no transition plan ahead of time, but it was totally voluntary and not at all forced by the board!

        (/s if it wasn’t obvious)

  • Bappity
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    8 months ago

    how many millions of bonuses did the higher ups accept to get to this point

  • Haru
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    528 months ago

    Sounds pretty manipulative to blame the fallout of their own shitty decisions on others.

    • @[email protected]
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      128 months ago

      Any more manipulative than a ceo making the decision to axe a functioning and profitable licensing structure to implement a new one with more dollar signs?

      If you told me the same exact ceo made the layoff decision, I wouldn’t be surprised.

  • @sirdorius
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    388 months ago

    We are committed to creating value for our customers and shareholders.

    Fixed a typo in the report

      • WashedOver
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        38 months ago

        Ford did a nice end run on them eventually. He had to do twice. He never liked investors.

        At least initially Dodge released a upgraded Ford for their first vehicle before things really got into the make them different for each year to create a reason for customers to buy a new one to replace their current one mode.

  • donuts
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    8 months ago

    It’s a shame, but considering that Unity is deep in a hole of unprofitability coupled with high interest rates across the globe, I can’t say it’s surprising.

    Plan A was to rip off all of their users and Plan B seems to be to downsize. I wonder if it’ll be enough to right the ship…

  • @[email protected]
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    208 months ago

    I feel bad for the people that actually make Unity what it is. I hope the C-suite fucking chokes on the money they’ve taken that they don’t deserve. This whole situation is their fault.

  • @[email protected]
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    8 months ago

    Used unity for my last 3 games and I’m getting really really tired of their shithouse performance over the last 3-4 years. They’ve gone from constantly making new features, tutorials and systems to barely doing anything.

    Engines need constant feature packed updates, not bare bones rubbish. For example there’s no DLSS support for URP, it only works in HDRP. There’s also “no plans” for it according to the devs, which boggles the mind considering URP is arguably the better platform for mobile, console and regular console gaming.

    Game engines should be rapidly evolving and supporting these features, they should take 3-4 years to get commonly implements features or to have to rely on third party plugins to make them happen.

    • @[email protected]
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      48 months ago

      Yeah, I hate that my game is far enough along that it would be… infeasible to restart development in a new engine, but still needs enough work that the uncertainty of Unity is going to be with me for quite some time still.

  • Jaysyn
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    138 months ago

    While I hope all the code monkeys land on their feet, fuck Unity with a cactus, sideways.

    • Ms. ArmoredThirteen
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      88 months ago

      We won’t, lol. Also minorities tend to get fired disproportionately and hired less afterwards so that’ll be fun

  • kingthrillgore
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    128 months ago

    These positions were doomed before the licensing fee change. They just want to blame someone besides themselves.

  • @[email protected]
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    38 months ago

    I just can’t help but think how the Unity Engine is a phenomenal product. Maybe our systems don’t work as well as we think they do if this company is foaming at the mouth because the metric says its bad. I used Unity for five years, its great, it didn’t need to change, but green line needed to go up.