Unity reveals plans to charge developers per game install - plans revoked and CEO fired, lol

[Lyric Suite]

They care so much about money they keep losing them for the sake of ideology. Strange how that works.

 

[Sarathiour]

I've already said it a few times, but I'm going to repeat myself anyway.
It's not about the money, or more precisely, about your money. The product is no longer sold to you, but to government or investment fund, based on the reach of the message, and not the number of people buying or enjoying it. Essentially, they're selling their ability to hammer propaganda on people. Money is never the issue for propaganda, as the target is not the one funding it.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Don't worry, I'm quite sure a lot of these films will end up in the same vault Song of the South is in, especially after Disney gives up and becomes an anime studio first and foremost.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

TimSweeney-squatting-over-Unity-Grave.jpg

What are you talking about Epic laid off people too, 830 people to be exact.
Tim Sweeney is a cunt.

 

[Morgoth]

TimSweeney-squatting-over-Unity-Grave.jpg

What are you talking about Epic laid off people too, 830 people to be exact.
Tim Sweeney is a cunt.

Tim Sweeney, a programmer by trade, knows how to run a business better than the Eternal Executive Johnny Riccitello. Also, Unreal is omnipresent is so many industries, it's a testament to how well their technology and business model is received. Surely, he must be doing something right?

 

[Grauken]

As long as they maintain some level of income they can drag off bankruptcy for ages, had a bad experience with a company that was in that spot.

It's quite obvious that these companies are funded these days not by their products but from some other income. Probably from some activist investors that care more about the propaganda than profit (which is normally the primary directive of any company).

Disney, funded from activist investors. Now that's a dumb take to take the crown of the dumb takes

 

[negator2vc]

I've already said it a few times, but I'm going to repeat myself anyway.
It's not about the money, or more precisely, about your money. The product is no longer sold to you, but to government or investment fund, based on the reach of the message, and not the number of people buying or enjoying it. Essentially, they're selling their ability to hammer propaganda on people. Money is never the issue for propaganda, as the target is not the one funding it.

The problem with these methods is that they still need for someone to see "product" (even if they don't actual pay for it).
Judging by their bombs (both in box office and in their streaming) no one are even see them (with very few and very predictable exceptions).
If someone give their lost customers a choice of different quality product sooner or later their customers will jump ship.
Even normies after all at some point are tired of shit product (it may take a few years but it's inevitable).
In movies/tv series until now that choice didn't exist since no healthy indie scene (like in games) exists due to the must highter production costs.

 

[negator2vc]

Disney, funded from activist investors. Now that's a dumb take to take the crown of the dumb takes

First the practically admitted this in the report and second who else will fund products that even an idiot know they will lose millions when released and/or they don't have staying power to sell for ex. toys?
Again, the primary directive of a company is to make profitable products!

 

[RobotSquirrel]

Tim Sweeney, a programmer by trade, knows how to run a business better than the Eternal Executive Johnny Riccitello. Also, Unreal is omnipresent is so many industries, it's a testament to how well their technology and business model is received. Surely, he must be doing something right?

The "just because they're the lesser of two evils" shit is how we ended up with a crap Blizzard, a crap Origin Systems, a crap Bethesda, a crap Creative Assembly, a crap Paradox Interactive, a crap CDPR the list goes on .... do I need to keep going. When you consider our industry was founded by the likes of your Nolan Bushnells and your Robert Maxwells... yeah bad foundations if I've ever seen them. We were always heading down this path.

The business lifecycle bell curve only supports my case. Most of these organizations are at End of Life, Epic is going to end up exactly where Unity is in time. This is what happens when you kill entrepreneurship in our industry. No one is putting their hands up now to replace the oligarchs so the industry is destined to die a horrible death and the rest of us are just going to be the old masters toiling away at some great work that'll likely only be appreciated after our deaths lol cause that'd be right.

 

[Morgoth]

Tim Sweeney, a programmer by trade, knows how to run a business better than the Eternal Executive Johnny Riccitello. Also, Unreal is omnipresent is so many industries, it's a testament to how well their technology and business model is received. Surely, he must be doing something right?

The "just because they're the lesser of two evils" shit is how we ended up with a crap Blizzard, a crap Origin Systems, a crap Bethesda, a crap Creative Assembly, a crap Paradox Interactive, a crap CDPR the list goes on .... do I need to keep going. When you consider our industry was founded by the likes of your Nolan Bushnells and your Robert Maxwells... yeah bad foundations if I've ever seen them. We were always heading down this path.

The business lifecycle bell curve only supports my case. Most of these organizations are at End of Life, Epic is going to end up exactly where Unity is in time. This is what happens when you kill entrepreneurship in our industry. No one is putting their hands up now to replace the oligarchs so the industry is destined to die a horrible death and the rest of us are just going to be the old masters toiling away at some great work that'll likely only be appreciated after our deaths lol cause that'd be right.

Nice dodge. Despite hundreds of layoffs, Epic is still an exceptionally successful business with a clear longterm outlook. The same can't be said about Unity. The internal rot there already loomed for years, only confirmed by, what I can only describe as a panicky, selfish decision to introduce a pricing strategy bordering the criminally stupid.

 

[negator2vc]

Nice dodge. Despite hundreds of layoffs, Epic is still an exceptionally successful business with a clear longterm outlook. The same can't be said about Unity. The internal rot there already loomed for years, only confirmed by, what I can only describe as a panicky, selfish decision to introduce a pricing strategy bordering the criminally stupid.

Just because Unity moves are beyond stupid, Epic had also made some pretty dumb decisions, for ex. the store.
I am not saying this to excuse all those Unity stupid moves.
Beside let's see how Epic's recent move on the movie making front will play out first.

 

[Grauken]

Disney, funded from activist investors. Now that's a dumb take to take the crown of the dumb takes

First the practically admitted this in the report and second who else will fund products that even an idiot know they will lose millions when released and/or they don't have staying power to sell for ex. toys?
Again, the primary directive of a company is to make profitable products!

They do, you can't read reports obviously

 

[Sarathiour]

Judging by their bombs (both in box office and in their streaming) no one are even see them (with very few and very predictable exceptions).
If someone give their lost customers a choice of different quality product sooner or later their customers will jump ship.

That's also a thing, as THE MESSAGE drifting every time further away than reality and nepotism growing rampant, it also getting harder to release a decent propaganda product. It's not that much of a hindrance for them though, given the near monopoly status of mass media.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

Epic is still an exceptionally successful business with a clear longterm outlook.

I don't think so at all. Fortnite is declining which is why they had the firings they had. The Engine side is obviously doing well however reminder that the engine side is also the most costly of their business so it requires a huge investment of time and money to make work - this is a major reason for Unity being stupid - the simple fact was that their development had slown down to the point where it was unprofitable to even support the engine. To act like it can't happen to Unreal is ignoring the ticking timebomb that is all the acquisitions they too have made. How profitable these end up being into the future is questionable, again these are also costly to run and support.

In the short term sure Epic look like they're in a good position, in the long term not at all. Their long term prospects are looking more like if they don't dogfood a new Fortnite then they too are going to have to make sacrifices and compromises on quality. Right now they have the advantage of having AAA studios locking into their system, however if these AAA studios make shit products it will pull everyone down - that is the present risk I see with Epic's strategy, its too reliant on 3rd parties, 3rd parties known for producing shit. They need their own inhouse hits to stay strong, how they do that post-Fortnite I have no idea, Fortnite was a fluke. Most of epics profit is from Fortnite alone, Unreal engine makes little (when compared to Fortnite - its still profitable to be self-sustaining though) and EGS is very unprofitable.

Bring back Unreal Tournament and I'll shut up.

 

[negator2vc]

That's also a thing, as THE MESSAGE drifting every time further away than reality and nepotism growing rampant, it also getting harder to release a decent propaganda product. It's not that much of a hindrance for them though, given the near monopoly status of mass media.

It wasn't until now. As more smaller studios are waking up and see that they can profit big time from the customers that Disney and other big studios are insulting/pushing away things will start to change (slowly but it's inevitable).
Also Unreal 5 could be a game changer for smaller indie teams making movies/tv series since it could allow them to compete with larger studios with a much smaller budget.

I believe that Unreal 5 will have a much bigger effect in indie movies/tv series than indie games. Provided of course Epic don't screw things up with the fees they plan to introduce in this department (now movies / tv series made with unreal 5 are without any royalties).

 

[PsihoKekec]

As long as they maintain some level of income they can drag off bankruptcy for ages, had a bad experience with a company that was in that spot.

It's quite obvious that these companies are funded these days not by their products but from some other income. Probably from some activist investors that care more about the propaganda than profit (which is normally the primary directive of any company).

The unholy trinity of BlackRock, Vanguard Group and State Street is directly connected to the Federal Reserve and thus have unlimited resources to influence company even if they don't have the majority share.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Who wants to go to Disney land with their little girls

I'm not sure that family with two or more children's are the targeted audience anymore. I had to commute quite a few times in the past months by the Disneyland Paris train station, and they aren't that many kids. Granted, the time at which I commute might play a part in this, but it's not excessively late either.

My anecdotal counterpoint is I know several young married families with kids who all did Disneyland vacations within the last 6 months. So it's still a thing.

 

[Caim]

Who wants to go to Disney land with their little girls

I'm not sure that family with two or more children's are the targeted audience anymore. I had to commute quite a few times in the past months by the Disneyland Paris train station, and they aren't that many kids. Granted, the time at which I commute might play a part in this, but it's not excessively late either.

My anecdotal counterpoint is I know several young married families with kids who all did Disneyland vacations within the last 6 months. So it's still a thing.

So they're rich degenerates.

 

[Sarathiour]

Who wants to go to Disney land with their little girls

I'm not sure that family with two or more children's are the targeted audience anymore. I had to commute quite a few times in the past months by the Disneyland Paris train station, and they aren't that many kids. Granted, the time at which I commute might play a part in this, but it's not excessively late either.

My anecdotal counterpoint is I know several young married families with kids who all did Disneyland vacations within the last 6 months. So it's still a thing.

I've never claimed that children and family stopped going there. Given that you're a leaf, there is a decent chance that the people you know went to the one based in Florida, which is still the biggest theme park of the world. Idk if we can easily find an age and social status graph of people going there over the 3-4 past decade, but my point was a noticeable change in the demographic present, not parent with kids stopping going there altogether.

 

[Agesilaus]

Who wants to go to Disney land with their little girls

I'm not sure that family with two or more children's are the targeted audience anymore. I had to commute quite a few times in the past months by the Disneyland Paris train station, and they aren't that many kids. Granted, the time at which I commute might play a part in this, but it's not excessively late either.

My anecdotal counterpoint is I know several young married families with kids who all did Disneyland vacations within the last 6 months. So it's still a thing.

My wife said we should do this with our kids, but I shot that idea down because the kids themselves don't care about Disney characters. Just because Disney was a big thing decades ago doesn't mean it is today. Anyway, point is, I'm sure there are plenty of women talking about Disney holidays, otherwise how would the idea get in her head?

If there was a Nintendo theme park, though, I know my kids would love that and I would pay for it.

 

[Modron]

If there was a Nintendo theme park, though, I know my kids would love that and I would pay for it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Nintendo_World

 

[Agesilaus]

If there was a Nintendo theme park, though, I know my kids would love that and I would pay for it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Nintendo_World

Hmmm

It seems that it is a small section of a larger theme park, which is a little disappointing. It would be a fun thing to do with the kids next time I'm in Japan, though.

I don't want to go to LA or wherever else they're making it in the US, so I'm going to pretend I didn't see that part.

thanks

 

[Morgoth]

Unity is cutting a quarter of its workforce​

It will layoff 1,800 people, on top of the more than 1,100 laid off over the past two years.

Steve Dent
Reporter
Tue, Jan 9, 2024, 8:43 AM GMT+1·2 min read

Gaming software developer Unity plans to lay off 1,800 employees or about a quarter of its global workforce, according to a securities filing first spotted by The Wall Street Journal. The company said it made the move "as it restructures and refocuses on its core business" in an aim to get back to profitability. The cuts follow major turbulence in the company after it angered developers by introducing and then partially walking back a controversial runtime fee for its game engine.

The layoffs add to the more than 1,100 jobs it has eliminated since 2021. Unity fired 265 people in November as part of what it called a company "reset," all of whom were employed as part of its 2021 Weta Digital acquisition. The company also closed down 14 offices around the world. In May of 2023, it announced it would let go around 600 employees, following layoffs of over 500 people in 2022.

Last September, Unity rolled out some significant concessions to its developer pricing model after widespread backlash over its plan to charge developers for game installations. CEO John Riccitiello, who took much of the brunt of the criticism, stepped down shortly afterwards and was replaced by former IBM president James Whitehurst, who continues to serve as interim President and CEO.

After reporting record profits for 2022, the company has missed revenue forecasts over the last three quarters. In a shareholder letter, the company said it aims to emerge from restructuring as a "leaner, more agile and faster growing company." Unity's game engine is used in titles like Cuphead, GTFO and Kerbel Space Program.

With game sales flat over the past year, Unity isn't the only company in that industry to see layoffs. As we detailed in our year-end video game roundup, The Embracer Group, which owns studios like Crystal Dynamics, Square Enix Montreal and Gearbox Software, laid off more than 900 people. Epic Games fired around 830 people, Sony cut 100 jobs at Bungie, CD Projekt RED and Sega laid off 100 employees each and Electronic Arts reduced 6 percent of its workforce, or around 1,130 employees.

 

[Disciple]

Pulled some data from Unity's quarterly and annual SEC filings since they went public a few years ago. These are their main income statement figures (trailing twelve months):

The total revenue and gross profit growth rates have improved in 2023 after a so-so 2022 year. Their net losses are also not in a free fall anynmore. Unity is not profitable yet, but at least their sales keep growing.

Their operating expenses over the same time frame look like this:

The company's expenditure in sales and marketing has grown a lot over the last three years. By the end of 2020 it was only around half of what Unity spent in R&D, by last September it made up around 80% of it. Meanwhile, the R&D spending itself appears to have plateaued.

Several of the quarterly reports mention how the company's sales and marketing department is destined to expand Unity's business beyond the gaming industry. I guess a good portion of these recent layoffs were made with a budget cut in mind regarding such department.

 

[Tyranicon]

top comment in r/gamedev:

RIP unity bros.