this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2023
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[–] LazaroFilm@lemmy.world 116 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 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.

[–] Sabata11792@kbin.social 35 points 10 months ago

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

[–] BossDj@lemm.ee 32 points 10 months ago

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

[–] alienanimals@lemmy.world 98 points 10 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@kbin.social 91 points 10 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.

[–] ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.ml 17 points 10 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

[–] bungle_in_the_jungle@lemmy.world 85 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] 1bluepixel@lemmy.world 33 points 10 months ago (3 children)

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

[–] Carighan@lemmy.world 95 points 10 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.

[–] SquigglyEmpire@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

Powerful imagery

[–] argo_yamato@lemm.ee 28 points 10 months ago

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

[–] zib@kbin.social 23 points 10 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@lemmy.world 66 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

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

[–] ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.ml 16 points 10 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

[–] helloharu@lemmy.world 52 points 10 months ago (3 children)

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

[–] Seasoned_Greetings@lemm.ee 12 points 10 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.

[–] ArtVandelay@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago

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

[–] Phegan@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

Capitalism.

[–] sirdorius@programming.dev 38 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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

Fixed a typo in the report

[–] MrMcGasion@lemmy.world 16 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] WashedOver@lemmy.ca 3 points 10 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@kbin.social 21 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 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...

[–] notannpc@lemmy.world 20 points 10 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.

[–] Anonymousllama@lemmy.world 15 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 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.

[–] SandLight@lemmy.world 4 points 10 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.

[–] rappo@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

HDRP will be coming to mobile

[–] Jaysyn@kbin.social 13 points 10 months ago (2 children)

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

[–] ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.ml 8 points 10 months ago

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

[–] Schaedelbach@feddit.de 7 points 10 months ago

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

[–] KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 12 points 10 months ago

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

[–] Sanctus@lemmy.world 3 points 10 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.