Unity CEO Resigns, Dev Community Still Cautious About Giving Platform A Second Chance
from the baby-steps dept
It’s been a bad run of weeks lately for the company behind game engine Unity, stemming from a ham-fisted plan to drastically alter its pricing model for developers. When that plan was announced, which involved previously free tiers of the engine going away or being changed, per-install fees to developers that could essentially bankrupt a successful game company if it charged too little for games, and other concerns, the backlash from the dev community was swift and severe. Plenty of developers swore off the platform entirely, while others talked about how the trust between the company and the dev community had been shattered. Obviously when things go that poorly, heads are going to roll.
Earlier this week, Unity CEO John Riccitiello announced his resignation as CEO and Chairman effective immediately. Precisely how voluntary that resignation actually was is anyone’s guess, but we can at least be confident that Unity was hoping that the news would be well received by developers and that trust could start to be rebuilt between both sides of the equation. And, on the first of those points at least, it certainly worked, as developers reacted positively to the news.
“Long, long overdue,” Gloomwood developer Dillon Rogers wrote, summing up joyful reactions to Riccitiello’s departure from across the game development community.
Necrosoft Games’ Brandon Sheffield (Demonschool), who was one of the most outspoken critics of Unity’s initial install-fee plans, wrote on social media that he “truly did not think [Riccitiello’s departure] would happen.” The CEO’s apparent ouster “is the main thing Unity needed to do to start rebuilding trust, so… it’s a start,” Sheffield continued.
There’s more like that from other developers, but please note that that’s about as positive as it gets from the dev community. What you’re not seeing is any developers suggesting that Riccitiello’s exit fixes all of Unity’s problems, nor that the trust between it and the developers has been repaired. In fact, many developers are saying the exact opposite, pointing out that the CEO may be gone, but many of the influential voices that caused this whole fiasco still remain.
And sometimes that is put in quite colorful terms.
Other developers see Riccitiello leaving as positive but insufficient as long as the Unity board members who also approved these business changes are still at the company. “The position was completely untenable and I hope everyone in the c-suite and on the board who were advocating for install fees have the wherewithal and grace to step down,” indie developer Leena van Deventer (Dead Static Drive) wrote. “There’s no path forward without removing everyone who had anything to do with it.”
“John Riccitiello sucks ass, but it’s also worth noting that Unity went public and now has a board of stakeholders who also seem to suck ass,” indie developer Dan Pearce (10 Second Ninja X) wrote. “Unless you see meaningful, long-term effort to nurture developers and rebuild trust, then it’s still worth keeping one eye on the door.”
Everyone “sucking ass” is not exactly an indicator that the door is open to rebuilding trust unless more changes are made. That being said, it was time for the CEO to go, so this is at least one good baby step in the direction of Unity making it as a platform. But it’s also the easiest of the steps to take.
Now the real work begins, with the platform having to demonstrate through actions, not words, that it will actually listen to its own customers.
Filed Under: developers, john riccitiello
Companies: unity
Comments on “Unity CEO Resigns, Dev Community Still Cautious About Giving Platform A Second Chance”
I would also like to suggest that Unity go private and delist itself from the stock exchange. Publicly traded companies and ethical business practices are simply not compatible.
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Yeah, less government oversight and public accountability will solve everything.
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Public oversight has meant little to listed companies.
And they’re still subject to the same laws regardless of listing.
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Exactly.
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When the current setup of publicly traded companies requires them to do literally anything for ever increasing profits, privately held companies are going to the be the only ones that people CAN trust.
Publicly Traded does not equal more accountability, by any means.
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Privately held companies are still profit maximization machines owned by people who benefit from all the shitty practices that publicly owned ones do
Shareholder primacy
The Unity situation, at the time only the most recent example of enshittification was what drove me to dive into Dodge v. Ford Motor Company and the concept of shareholder primacy which pretty much assures that any publicly held enterprise is mandated to act against public interests by exploiting the workforce and short-changing customers for the benefit of its shareholders.
Understandably, companies would hope that a public execution of the CEO would be enough to keep the angry userbase at bay, but anyone who’s lived through the financial crisis of the late 2000s would really know better by now.
Getting rid of the CEO was likely only cutting off one head of the hydra. If the CEO had any sort of planning he’d have other subordinates ready to launch the paid plan when users least expect it. The dev community is rightfully skeptical.