Unity’s CEO is out, but that still may not be enough for developers

3 years ago by nanoUFO to c/games

Even losing its CEO may not be enough for Unity.
DerisionConsulting 91 points 3 years ago

Choices are not made by 1 person in an organization.
Getting rid of one person isn't solving the program, pretending that it is is insulting.

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Aurenkin 53 points 3 years ago

Yeah exactly, he left because he finished the job he was there to do. Now they are acting like this is some kind of move to placate their customers as if it wasn't the plan all along.

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MxM111 8 points 3 years ago

I give you case in counter-point: Xitter.

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Crackhappy 6 points 3 years ago

I will counter your argument with some Xcrement

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Risk 3 points 3 years ago

Public owned organisation, then.

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hoshikarakitaridia 65 points 3 years ago

Yeah I'm gonna give the summary of the most important comments on this:

  • Unity is untrustworthy
  • they pulled this shit knowing it would fall flat
  • the CEO got his position when he was already known to be a prick
  • shady insider trading is shady
  • the board who chose or approved the CEO is still the same
  • there's solid alternatives

These are all the reasons why you shouldn't go back to Unity. That said, I'm very sorry for the Devs of Unity who most definitely don't deserve this.

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vivadanang 9 points 3 years ago

It's a start, JR being out. But yeah, a new board, and new leadership that actually came from within Unity / the game dev community is needed for devs to have any return to faith in Unity.

I nominate Keijiro Takahashi as the interim CEO. I don't think there are many who understand unity at a 1:1 mindmeld level like that. Set a new set of goals, get LTS into actual LTS shape, unify the pipelines, restore confidence, save the princess, drive the darkness from the lands and forge a path to profitability that doesn't alienate unity's most valuable asset, the community.

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echodot 9 points 3 years ago

Like most people I'm perfectly fine with pain for Unity. I'm fine if they want to raise the price, what I don't understand is why they didn't do that and instead went this weird route that they can't possibly have thought would actually work.

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vivadanang 5 points 3 years ago

Yup, it's not like we're unaware they've been unprofitable the entire time and cheap debt isn't a thing anymore. The underhanded nature of backward-changing the TOS and acting like per-install charging wasn't a borked concept from the start are what did it for me. I will never give them my trust much less business until there's a change in leadership across the board.

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echodot 6 points 3 years ago

They are only unprofitable because they kept spending the money they already had in order to buy other businesses.

But they make an absolute fortune they just seem to have really high outgoings as well.

So they could become profitable by just sorting out their finances there was no need to raise prices.

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iwenthometobeafamilyman 43 points 3 years ago
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pastermil 11 points 3 years ago

🎵 I'm giving you a nightcall to tell you how I feel 🎵

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WheeGeetheCat 42 points 3 years ago

The CEOs are all professional fall guys/girls at this point. Get the names of the shareholders /board members calling the shots and put them on blast, then avoid anything they touch.

Unity's Chairman of the Board is Roelof Botha, basically a mini musk.

He also sits on the boards of MongoDB, Evernote, Bird, Ethos, Natera, Square, and Xoom - in case you want to know what he might shit up next.

Small businesses using Square are probably the likely target

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bionicjoey 12 points 3 years ago

Unity's Chairman of the Board is Roelof Botha

Roelof Botha deez nuts

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exapsy 2 points 3 years ago

thanks, not using mongodb anymore for any of my projects but please if you think I'm wrong for this decision, let me know guys. But if he's on board from my aspect, then that makes mongodb vulnurable to shitty decisions probably. And anything he touches.

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echodot 36 points 3 years ago

It is a bit daft to suggest that unity developers are customers. They're not customers they're other businesses.

When EA mess up and then make a non apology it is to publicate their customers. They hope it works and that people forgive them until the next screw up.

But with unity it's a business relationship, saying "oops our bad, now we're listening to you" isn't going to cut it. It's somewhat daft to suggest that it would, they tried to change the nature of pre-arranged agreements. You can't have that in a business relationship that's toxic to into business operations. All the businesses can't take the risk anymore.

The risk of forgiving EA is that their crap again the risk of forgiving unity is that they bankrupt you, your business, and could put an unknown people who work for you out of a job, it hits a bit different.

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LilB0kChoy 7 points 3 years ago

When EA mess up and then make a non apology it is to publicate their customers.

So I learned today that publicate is a word, a transitive verb, but did you mean placate?

Either way you contributed to me learning something new, so thank you!

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NuPNuA 34 points 3 years ago

They can try and pin it on the CEO, but anyone with any sense knows he's a patsy for the board and investors who just want to up their cuts so no one can have any faith they won't do similar again under a new CEO.

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away2thestars 29 points 3 years ago

I'm working on a 7 year old game with Unity. It will take me a long time and energy to port to Godot. I'm gonna carry on with unity, but I'm learning Godot at the same time. I really wish there was a porting button you could press.

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chemical_cutthroat 13 points 3 years ago

With all of the bullshit going on, I wouldn't be surprised if a larger company creates on and then releases it, possibly even as foss.

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away2thestars 3 points 3 years ago

A button to export project you mean? Amazon could definitely give Godot some love. There are exporting projects, but they break a bit on the code part apparently

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APassenger 3 points 3 years ago

That would be awesome.

And karmic.

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Crackhappy 8 points 3 years ago

I would really love to hear your perspective on the differences between unity and godot and the minutiae of the port. Also, I'm a longtime coder.

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away2thestars 11 points 3 years ago

I spent a week and really liked Godot, lightweight, amazing UX, very compatible with Linux, and the feeling of being part of a community is so good. C# support is great, but not as good as Gdscript, and coding in C# is so much faster for me. For instance there is no hot reloading on C#. Managed to get Vs code working and debugging after as while but broke the compatibility with unity of Vs code. So it's tricky to work on both engines on Vs code simultaneously.

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Crackhappy 2 points 3 years ago

It's hard to quantify the daily trials of coding.

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echodot 1 point 3 years ago

Does VS Code not have profiles you can set up to switch between.

I'm sure I used to use something like that but I can't remember if it was VS code if it was something else I don't have access to my computer right now to check.

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Okalaydokalay 29 points 3 years ago
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NuPNuA 6 points 3 years ago

It is worrying how reliant on Unreal the industry is getting with even companies who had their own propriety engines moving over. Gives epic a bit too much control.

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ech 23 points 3 years ago

For anyone paying attention, it shouldn't be. Anyone that goes back to business as usual fully deserves the rug pull when this or something worse is implemented again.

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Anonymousllama 14 points 3 years ago

They can't be trusted. They already tried to slip their hand into your pocket and now that it's been successfully smacked away they're trying to act apologetic. The only time I want people getting their hands in my pocket is when I'm getting a handy, not when they're trying to take unearned dollars because they need to boost their bottom line

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autotldr 6 points 3 years ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Riccitiello, who previously held the top job at Electronic Arts when it was voted the worst company in America and had some controversial ideas about game monetization, will retire as CEO effective immediately but remain as a Unity employee until April 2024.

Earlier last month, Unity announced it would change its pricing model, making developers pay for games on a per-install basis once certain revenue and download thresholds were met.

Xalavier Nelson Jr., head of El Paso Elsewhere developer Strange Scaffold, agreed that it largely doesn’t matter who leads the company so long as the people who allowed such decisions to be made are still in place.

“Whatever failings Unity’s former CEO might’ve had, he answers to a board and shareholders who motivate, dictate, and authorize his actions — and they are still around in his absence,” he told The Verge.

When the initial price changes were announced, a consortium of largely European mobile developers organized a kind of boycott of Unity, turning off Unity-controlled monetization for their games.

The Verge has also reached out to several other studios who put out public statements condemning Unity, including Aggo Crab, Mega Crit, and Innersloth, to see if any are reconsidering their stance on the engine in light of these changes.


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