this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2023
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[–] [email protected] 116 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

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] 35 points 9 months ago

They were lead by a former EA CEO. It went as expcected.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 9 months ago

Luckily we have plenty of laws protecting higher ups from losing their investments

[–] [email protected] 98 points 9 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.

[–] [email protected] 91 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 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] 85 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 33 points 9 months ago (3 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 96 points 9 months ago (1 children)

"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] 3 points 9 months ago

Powerful imagery

[–] [email protected] 28 points 9 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 23 points 9 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)

[–] [email protected] 66 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago

Remember kids, for a lot of public companies you can find this info: https://www1.salary.com/Unity-Software-Inc-Executive-Salaries.html

[–] [email protected] 52 points 9 months ago (3 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 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.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

Privatize the gains, socialize the losses, that's capitalism for ya

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Capitalism.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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

Fixed a typo in the report

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Thanks to the Dodge brothers, that's practically a requirement for publicly traded companies.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 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.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 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] 20 points 9 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] 15 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

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] 4 points 9 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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

HDRP will be coming to mobile

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

The corporation, not the general product - an engine that powers tons of great games.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 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.