Unity’s CEO is out, but that still may not be enough for developers - eviltoast
  • DerisionConsulting@lemmy.ca
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    1 year 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.

  • hoshikarakitaridia@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year 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.

    • vivadanang@lemm.ee
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      1 year 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.

      • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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        1 year 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.

        • vivadanang@lemm.ee
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          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.

          • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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            1 year 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.

            • vivadanang@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              yeah I keep waiting for some brilliant game-ready tech to come out of one of those acquisitions like Weta and… ¯_(ツ)_/¯

              • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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                1 year ago

                I think it’s interesting that they didn’t buy the one company that would actually make sense for them to purchase. Quixel or Reality Capture

                • vivadanang@lemm.ee
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                  1 year ago

                  Right? Unreal’s microsplat tech is going to boggle minds, unity needs an asset library to rival.

  • 🐱TheCat@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year 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

    • exapsy@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year 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.

  • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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    1 year 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.

    • LilB0kChoy@lemm.ee
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      1 year 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!

  • NuPNuA@lemm.ee
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    1 year 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.

  • away2thestars@programming.dev
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    1 year 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.

    • chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world
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      1 year 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.

    • Crackhappy@lemmy.world
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      1 year 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.

      • away2thestars@programming.dev
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        1 year 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.

        • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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          1 year 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.

    • NuPNuA@lemm.ee
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      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.

  • Ech@lemm.ee
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    1 year 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.

  • Anonymousllama@lemmy.world
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    1 year 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

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    1 year 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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