Unity's audacious plan to charge developers for the privilege of players installing their games has hit an unforeseen snag, with the announcement that CEO and architect of the scheme, John Riccitiello, will conveniently be retiring, effective immediately.
The news was announced today in a statement, which proclaimed Riccitielo 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 CEO, and the statement goes on to thank Riccitiello for his years of service to the company without directly referencing the elephant in the room.
Almost a month to the day, Unity unveiled the ill-conceived scheme, which was immediately hit with opposition and walked back, but not entirely. The installation fee is apparently still going to be a thing, but there are at least some caveats. Regardless, Unity's reputation is in tatters, and it seems that at least one head needed to roll for the fumble.
Are you at all surprised by the news that Ricietello is "retiring" as CEO of Unity? Face the music in the comments section below.
[source investors.unity.com, via ign.com, eurogamer.net]
Comments 21
He either is an idiot or a scapegoat. I'm not going to feel sorry for him either way. I planned on learning Unity, but I'll go for Unreal or Godot.
Whilst Riccitello won't be missed,that he'd already checked out allegedly selling off shares ahead of the entire train wreck waa telling.
The CEO of the adware tech company that Unity uses & merged with still sits on the Unity board, so don't expect their current direction to change that dramatically.
@Sequel Dude... don't joke like that. He can retire and never be seen again preferably.
As much as good news as this is, the Unity community may never reunify again.
Return from whence ye came!
I’m not sure how much of this was “unforeseen” given he and the rest of the company have stopped buying and indeed have been selling their shares in the company for years now.
They should sue him for damage he done.
@djlard He's a scapegoat. This idea will be back, just repackaged.
As long as the stupid install fee remains, unity has no future. What they should do is replace the ceo and delete their stupid install fee both at the same time.
Why the heck games developers has to pay for players install when they got no money for it? Just make them pay the normal way, with bought games or with dlc/mtx sold.
Exit strategy successful. He can now sell all his shares of an already sinking ship.
@LifeGirl 100%. Also good to duck out when you're out of touch
@Robocod Indeed. Their board includes Tomer Bar-Zeev the Founder of Ironsource - the monetisation and advertising company they bought for $4.4bn but also others who are on the same train. Agree not much will change.
That said Unity's business model DID need to change imho. Developers have said for a while that the tools aren't progressing as they want and most importantly SUPPORT is worse than ever, they just haven't scaled well. To improve these things they need to invest and to do that they need to monetise it better. No one likes a price hike but those are the realities, it's just they did it in such a bad way.
For added evidence Unity also posted a $193 million net loss in Q2 2023 on just $533 million in revenue (even if around $150m of that was on stock-based compensation, it's still a big net-loss). And their market value has dropped from around $150-$200 a share a few years ago at it's peak to less than $50 in it's last year and below $30 today. They needed a change, just not the one proposed.
@themightyant Unity has almost eight thousand eployees while Epic Games for example has less than four thousand. I have absolutely no idea why they need that many people. I feel like they've grown too big and shouldn't have made so many acquisitions or hired so many people. They should focus on making an engine for mobile platforms and indie developers, as those are the biggest markets for them.
@KoopaTheGamer Not sure you're numbers are quite right.
Unity reportedly laid off around 600 jobs this year, 8%, which would have made them around 7,500 before, 6,900 after.
Epic laid off around 830 jobs, 16%, which would make them around 5,190 before and around 4,360 after.
But comparing companies size isn't sensible. They both have their fingers in different pies outside of game engines. All I am saying is that their existing business model wasn't profitable, or sustainable, and needed to change. It may be they needed to strip jobs in some areas, and it may also be they need to expand in others e.g. Support.
Devs report support times are getting longer and longer, an area which clearly needs more investment if they want to thrive as an engine supplier that sells premium support.
The sad thing is that right now there are companies tripping over themselves to offer him more money to be their CEOs.
At first glance I thought that was a pic of Palpatine.
He has a very punchable face.
I'm sure he will fail upwards sadly.
I assume that most development suites have a licensing fee of sorts, I mean Unity's employees need to eat and feed their families just like us all. I assume many are by consumption, i.e. not just on consumption of the tool but also consumption of what the tool produces.
Was the problem that this was an excessive fee?
@lindos the main problem was that it was around a metric that is both unpredictable and not tied to revenue, so with the initial plan it would have been possible to owe Unity more than you'd made in revenue.
Good riddance. Still too late to save Unity, though.
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...