General Gaming Gaming Company Self-Immolation of the Day: Unity have lost their fucking minds, update: Unity announces 25% reduction in workforce (1,800 employees)

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Robot Gentlemen 

 

Steam Developer: Robot Gentleman

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🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Recent videos/podcasts featuring Rami Ismail who has really been the pointman for reporting on this debacle:

 

 

 

[Ghost_MH]

I don't think I saw this one. When Unity says charity sales won't count, well maybe we should have asked them what counts as a charity.

 

Orgynizer - UNITY, consent is key and you don't have ours. - Steam News

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A tech company wants to take away around 30% of our charity revenue. Surprisingly, we are not too happy with that.

 

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It was stated that Charity games would be spared, so we asked Unity to get a confirmation that we would not be affected, but they believe our targets (Planned Parenthood and C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital.) would NOT counts as “valid charities” and more “political groups”...
I speak on behalf of all of us when I say: GET F*CKED!

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

7 minutes ago, Ghost_MH said:

I don't think I saw this one. When Unity says charity sales won't count, well maybe we should have asked them what counts as a charity.

 

Orgynizer - UNITY, consent is key and you don't have ours. - Steam News

STORE.STEAMPOWERED.COM

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A tech company wants to take away around 30% of our charity revenue. Surprisingly, we are not too happy with that.

 

 

 

Ahem...

 

 

[Ghost_MH]

1 minute ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

Ahem...

 

 

 

Missed it

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Interactive Ontario (trade association representing 100+ video game and digital media companies):

 

[Keyser_Soze]

I was about to say, "TIL Hitman is on Unity"

[legend]

They're rolling back on it, sort of.

An open letter to our community | Unity Blog

BLOG.UNITY.COM

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An open letter from Marc Whitten to the Unity community in September 2023. 

 

 

 

No more retroactive policy change, only on new editions. And it looks like the charge is now either revenue based or the runtime fee, which ever is lower. But if they're doing that, they really should just switch to the revenue model to make it simpler.

 

This may be too late. Developers don't trust them anymore.

[Mr.Vic20]

Unity needs to become a cautionary tale of consumer power. 

 

 

Just change that to a 2023 and we're done here. 

[legend]

38 minutes ago, Mr.Vic20 said:

Unity needs to become a cautionary tale of consumer power. 

 

 

Just change that to a 2023 and we're done here. 

 

There should be a GotY for biggest corporate blunder. Unity and Hasbro would definitely be leading the pack.

[Spork3245]

18 hours ago, Mr.Vic20 said:

Unity needs to become a cautionary tale of consumer power

SHHHH! A libertarian might hear you!

[Ghost_MH]

20 hours ago, legend said:

No more retroactive policy change, only on new editions.

 

I understand the cost associated with moving away from Unity for some devs, but I don't see how any of them could trust this particular statement when their previous terms specifically said no retroactive policy changes.

[legend]

7 minutes ago, Ghost_MH said:

 

I understand the cost associated with moving away from Unity for some devs, but I don't see how any of them could trust this particular statement when their previous terms specifically said no retroactive policy changes.

 

Yeah I completely agree.

[Brian]

A company that makes sweeping changes like this believe in their minds that there isn’t a viable alternative so people will be upset but will ultimately stay. Is there an alternative to Unity? 

[legend]

58 minutes ago, Brian said:

A company that makes sweeping changes like this believe in their minds that there isn’t a viable alternative so people will be upset but will ultimately stay. Is there an alternative to Unity? 

 

UE5 is the best fully featured alternative. It has higher revenue sharing but you can also just use it for free if you don't sell anything, making it easy to try. It's also just plain better than Unity in most ways (at least that's the impression I've gotten. It's hard to compete with UE's high-end tech). Unity mainly has a large base because it was the first to be easily adoptable and triable by small studios and individuals, but UE has since entered that market too. Unity was mainly keeping their base from momentum and because they were still cheaper.

 

Beyond that there are a growing number of open source engines in recent years. Godot is the one most people are trying out now (in light of this) and seems pretty cool. I'm personally a fan of Bevy because it's 100% Rust and is designed very intelligently, but it's also very early so it probably won't be a realistic option for most people anytime soon. (Also most game developers won't know Rust, even though they should  )

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Oldest Unity game developer group breaks up over lack of trust in the company

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Meanwhile, major game devs say fee structure changes haven't won them back.

 

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The "first official Unity user group in the world" has announced that it is dissolving after 13 years because "the trust we used to have in the company has been completely eroded." The move comes as many developers are saying they will continue to stay away from the company's products even after last week's partial rollback of some of the most controversial parts of its fee structure plans.

 

Since its founding in 2010, the Boston Unity Group (BUG) has attracted thousands of members to regular gatherings, talks, and networking events, including many technical lectures archived on YouTube. But the group says it will be hosting its last meeting Wednesday evening via Zoom because the Unity of today is very different from the Dave Helgason-led company that BUG says "enthusiastically sanctioned and supported" the group at its founding.

 

"Over the past few years, Unity has unfortunately shifted its focus away from the games industry and away from supporting developer communities," the group leadership wrote in a departure note. "Following the IPO, the company has seemingly put profit over all else, with several acquisitions and layoffs of core personnel. Many key systems that developers need are still left in a confusing and often incomplete state, with the messaging that advertising and revenue matter more to Unity than the functionality game developers care about."

 

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Neognosis cancelled the Switch port of BallisticNG because of this mess.

 

BallisticNG on Steam

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BallisticNG is a high speed, all thrills anti-gravity combat racer and open modding environment developed as a tribute to old school classics such as Wipeout, Rollcage and Jet Moto.

 

Steam :: BallisticNG :: Moving forward after the Unity debacle

STEAMCOMMUNITY.COM

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BallisticNG isn't going anywhere, but we're having to cancel the Switch version. Full details in the announcement.

 

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What this means for BallisticNG
There's been concerns about the Unity changes killing off new and existing games, so first off: BallisticNG is not going anywhere.

 

However, Nintendo has a rolling Unity version requirement for game releases and we're already behind the threshold by two years. 2 weeks ago this wouldn't have been an issue, no doubt there'd have be some pains in updating BallisticNG to a new version of Unity again, but it would have benefited us in the long run.

 

By the time we'll have a Switch version of BallisticNG ready, the threshold for Unity versions will exceed the new versions that Unity are pushing their TOS changes with, and we currently have no confidence that they won't try pulling another move or pushing back to their original plans under / beyond this new TOS.

 

The Switch port is cancelled
Despite Unity's efforts to recover after their PR disaster, there just isn't any trust and security for us to continue moving forward with newer versions of their tools in the foreseeable future.

 

It comes with much frustration and disappointment that we're announcing the cancellation of the Switch version. Several years of development has gone into preparing BallisticNG technically for the port while maintaining the usual output of updates for the PC version, so this comes as a big kick in the balls to both us and everybody else who was excited for this version of the game. We're sorry that it has turned out this way, and we'll be looking at working with the console (or the rumoured Switch 2) in a future project not bound by Unity.

 

We'll still be moving forward with 1.3.3, 1.4 and continued content support, and we look forward to bringing in community members for content development again in the future for that.

 

 

[Pikachu]

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231009494331/en/Unity-Announces-Leadership-Transition

 

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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.

 

[Bacon]

[Keyser_Soze]

So the guy taking over was a special advisor at an investment firm

[legend]

15 hours ago, Pikachu said:

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231009494331/en/Unity-Announces-Leadership-Transition

 

 

 

 

You know what's aged super well for him? Calling game developers who didn't want to incorporate monetization into their game from the start "fucking idiots." ("pure and brilliant" but also "fucking idiots").

 

 

[SuperSpreader]

22 minutes ago, legend said:

 

 

You know what's aged super well for him? Calling game developers who didn't want to incorporate monetization into their game from the start "fucking idiots." ("pure and brilliant" but also "fucking idiots").

 

 

 

He's all corporate leadership

 

If you want to know what's wrong in game dev, it's that entire level 

[SuperSpreader]

Hi execs I have a brilliant monetization plan: make a good fucking game

[CitizenVectron]

29 minutes ago, SuperSpreader said:

Hi execs I have a brilliant monetization plan: make a good fucking game

 

I feel like 2023 is such a perfect lesson in this area, too. Zelda and Baldur's Gate have proven that if you take the time to make an amazing game, then people will buy it and talk about it. Both of these games (the only two contenders for GOTY, imo) were the result of thinking like "it will come out when it's finished and we're happy with it." I guess you could argue BG3 came out 1 month too early in order to not conflict with Starfield, but that's relatively minor.

[Keyser_Soze]

5 minutes ago, CitizenVectron said:

 

I feel like 2023 is such a perfect lesson in this area, too. Zelda and Baldur's Gate have proven that if you take the time to make an amazing game, then people will buy it and talk about it. Both of these games (the only two contenders for GOTY, imo)

 

Lies of P tho

[Firewithin]

excited to see where he fails upwards to this time

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

The fact of the matter is that Riccitiello was the easy and obvious fall guy for a situation that was created by the entire Board of Directors.

[Brian]

3 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

The fact of the matter is that Riccitiello was the easy and obvious fall guy for a situation that was created by the entire Board of Directors.

I’m sure he will be well compensated to fall on that sword

[BloodyHell]

22 hours ago, CitizenVectron said:

 

I feel like 2023 is such a perfect lesson in this area, too. Zelda and Baldur's Gate have proven that if you take the time to make an amazing game, then people will buy it and talk about it. Both of these games (the only two contenders for GOTY, imo) were the result of thinking like "it will come out when it's finished and we're happy with it." I guess you could argue BG3 came out 1 month too early in order to not conflict with Starfield, but that's relatively minor.

Sure, but even with massive sales, those games don’t make nearly the money a successful live service game does, and that is all the C suites care about. A lot of profit isn’t enough, they want all the profit!

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Unity is probably going to do layoffs - The Verge

WWW.THEVERGE.COM

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2023 continues to be horrible for video game labor.

 

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In its Q3 earnings report published Thursday, game development software company Unity announced that it will “likely” be implementing layoffs as part of broader cost saving measures.

 

In the report, the company says it is assessing its product portfolio “to focus on those products that are most valuable to our customers” and is “evaluating the right cost structure that aligns with the more focused portfolio.” It plans to make changes during the fourth quarter, and they will “likely include discontinuing certain product offerings, reducing our workforce, and reducing our office footprint.” The company expects to complete its changes before the end of Q1 2024.

 

 

[Bacon]

I mean, it sucks cuz whoever will get hit will most probably not deserve it but at the same time

[Keyser_Soze]

Weird how that works. You destroy your company and have to close up shop by laying everyone off.

[Brian]

 

Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset' | Reuters

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Videogame software provider Unity Software will eliminate 265 jobs or 3.8% of its global workforce and end an agreement with a digital video effects company founded by the "Lord of the Rings" director as part of a "reset," the company said on Tuesday.

 

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Videogame software provider Unity Software will eliminate 265 jobs or 3.8% of its global workforce and end an agreement with a digital video effects company founded by the "Lord of the Rings" director as part of a "reset," the company said on Tuesday.

 

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Tuesday's announcement includes termination of the professional services piece of an agreement Unity struck with movie director Peter Jackson's visual effects company Weta FX in 2021 after Unity purchased the technology and engineering division of Weta FX. As a result, 265 employees whose jobs are related to the agreement will be laid off, the company said.

 

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In addition, Unity will shut down offices in 14 locations such as Berlin and Singapore, pending employee consultation in some countries, and significantly reduce its office footprint for the remaining offices, including in San Francisco and Bellevue, Washington.

 

Unity will no longer mandate that employees work from offices three a days a week and will reduce "full in-office services" to three days a week in most locations, the company said.

 

 

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

I don’t like people who had nothing to do with the decisions losing their jobs. Even worse some even spoke up against it. But I do think Unity needs to be sacrificed as an example to other companies. If giants never fall other companies will never learn from their failure and consumers will never learn how powerful we all are. 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Unity Software to lay off 1,800 employees, or 25% of staff

WWW.CNBC.COM

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Unity Software is slashing about 25% of its workforce just eight months after announcing its prior round of layoffs.

 

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Unity Software said Monday that it’s cutting 1,800 jobs, or about 25% of its workforce, in the latest round of layoffs at the gaming technology company. The stock jumped almost 5% in extended trading.

 

Unity said in a regulatory filing that the cuts are part of a corporate restructuring plan. The company told investors in November that it would implement a “comprehensive assessment” of its product portfolio and conduct a financial evaluation that would “likely include discontinuing certain product offerings, reducing our workforce, and reducing our office footprint.”

 

In the filing, Unity said it’s unable to “reasonably estimate the costs and charges in connection with this reduction, which it expects will be substantially incurred in the first quarter of 2024.”