John Riccitiello

Streaming giant Twitch is set to lay off around 500 members of staff this week according to a new report.

Matthew Bromberg has been named as Unity's new CEO, the company announced today.

Unity has appointed former Electronic Arts and Zynga executive Matthew Bromberg as its new CEO.

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Mega Crit surprised many fans when it announced Slay the Spire 2, a sequel to its popular rogue-like deck-builder. Launching next year for PC via Steam Early Access, it features new and returning classes, enemies, bosses and more. However, it’s also developed on a new engine, with the developer confirming to IGN that it ditched Unity in favor of the open-source Godot engine.

The workforces of streaming platform Twitch and game engine developer Unity have been hit by massive layoffs this week.

The workforces of streaming platform Twitch and game engine developer Unity have been hit by massive layoffs this week.

Just a few weeks after its most recent round of layoffs, Unity is once again reducing its workforce. This time, around 1,800 employees will lose their job in the coming weeks as the company is trying to improve its financial performance after a difficult year.

Engine giant Unity is cutting around 1,800 jobs in its largest round of redundancies to date.

2023 was a horrible year for the games industry with its cavalcade of layoffs, resulting in thousands of jobs being cut across a startling number of studios around the world. 2024, sadly, has started off on the wrong foot on that front as well, with game development engine developer Unity announcing a massive round of fresh layoffs.

By Emma Roth, a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO.

Unity has announced a further round of layoffs, less than two months after its previous job cuts, that'll see it eliminate roughly 25 percent of its total workforce — around 1,800 employees — as part of the «company reset» it unveiled at the end of last year.

After laying off 600 people and closing multiple offices earlier in the year, engine maker Unity warned in November 2023 that further layoffs were likely. In an SEC filing made today, the company confirmed that it is cutting roughly 25% of its current workforce in order to «position itself for long-term and profitable growth.»

Unity has announced it intends to lay off approximately 1,800 employees, or around 25% of its workforce.

The Unity Technologies’ downward spiral continues as the company intends to cut 25% of its workforce — or roughly 1,800 people — in a move it called a “company reset.” It’s the game engine maker’s largest layoff, bigger than all three of last year’s cuts combined. More than 1,100 people were laid off in 2023, preceded by at least 200 layoffs in June 2022. Unity said in a United States Securities and Exchange Commission disclosure that the layoffs come as Unity “restructures and refocuses on its core business, and to position itself for long-term and profitable growth.”

The games industry moves pretty fast, and there's a tendency for all involved to look constantly to what's next without so much worrying about what came before. That said, even an industry so entrenched in the now can learn from its past. So to refresh our collective memory and perhaps offer some perspective on our field's history, GamesIndustry.biz runs this monthly feature highlighting happenings in gaming from exactly a decade ago.

Unity has confirmed plans to cut 265 jobs or 3.8% of its global workforce as part of a company “reset”.

Only two years after acquiring part of Weta's VFX business, Unity is stepping back to focus on its core business.

Engine maker Unity will cut around 3.8 percent of its global workforce, totalling 265 roles, after ending an agreement with digital effects company Weta FX.  

Engine giant Unity is making more layoffs as part of a company "reset".

Unity is making further cuts to its workforce as it ends an agreement with Weta FX.

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By Ash Parrish, a reporter who has covered the business, culture, and communities of video games for seven years. Previously, she worked at Kotaku.

Unity, the global game engine and monetizationplatform, said that its Unity 6 platform will launch in 2024 with AI innovations and platform updates.

It looks like game engine maker Unity is going to be laying off even more employees. Six months after putting 600 people out of work in the year's third round of layoffs and announcing plans to close half its offices worldwide, the company said in its most recent quarterly financial report that despite a 69% year-over-year increase in revenue in its third quarter, it's still bleeding money, and more people will probably have to go.

Unity appears set to lay off some of its staff in the coming months.

Unity is «likely» to announce layoffs as part of broader cost cutting measures.

By Ash Parrish, a reporter who has covered the business, culture, and communities of video games for seven years. Previously, she worked at Kotaku.

Ah, Unity. Truly a textbook case of how some companies are so far removed from reality, that they make Elon Musk look relatable. The fiasco surrounding the borderline offensive Runtime Fee not only pissed off developers, but apparently even staff members didn’t approve of it.

Last month Unity, one of the biggest game engines, tried to push out a massively controversial change to the way it does business. Namely a retroactive fee taken from devs for every install of a game—no matter how that install happened. Putting your game up on Game Pass or Humble Bundle? Doesn't matter, Unity wanted a cut. There have been changes after the fact, but they've done precious little to re-establish trust with devs.

A new report on Unity's recent fee changes claims the policy was «rushed out» and driven by Unity and IronSource's battle with rival tech company Applovin.

It's been over a month since Unity introduced its controversial Runtime Fee policy. Though it was eventually changed after intense backlash from developers across the game industry, a new report from MobileGamer seemingly shows the engine maker's true intentions with the policy. 

Slay the Spire developer Mega Crit has released Dancing Duelists, a free new deck builder created during a three-week game jam as it explored the Godot engine after the recent Unity controversy.

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.

This Week in Business is our weekly recap column, a collection of stats and quotes from recent stories presented with a dash of opinion (sometimes more than a dash) and intended to shed light on various trends. Check every Friday for a new entry.

Anyone who has doubted the depth of the crisis at Unity in recent months need only look at its consequences: it takes more than a storm in a teacup to capsize a CEO. John Riccitiello's retirement from the company – effective immediately, no less – is indeed a vanishingly rare thing in the games business, where blame for failure and poor judgement all too often trickles down the org chart and leaves top management unscathed.

Moonstruck developers have released a new title,Install Fee Tycoon, poking fun at the mess that Unity has made for itself after announcing that it would begin to charge developers every time a game made in the engine was installed.

If you’re a regular reader at DroidGamers, or if you’ve been following practically any game-related outlets or social media you will have probably seen the absolute dumpster fire that is the Unity Runtime Fee. Well, Unity Technologies still has more surprises.

By Ash Parrish, a reporter who has covered the business, culture, and communities of video games for seven years. Previously, she worked at Kotaku.

Unity CEO John Riccitiello has retired — effective immediately, as of Monday — as president, chief executive officer, chairman, and member of the company’s board of directors, according to a news release from the game engine developer. The move comes weeks after the disastrous announcement of Unity’s new “Runtime Fee” pricing model attracted widespread condemnation across the game development community, and necessitated a swift climbdown from the company.

John Riccitiello is no longer the CEO of Unity.

Unity has not been in a lot of indie developer’s good books lately. The controversial new fee caused many to turn their back on the development toolkit and its creator. Following on from this, Unity CEO John Riccitiello has now decided to leave the company.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic’s lead designer reckons his version of a KOTOR threequel wouldn’t be great since he’s “all Star Wars’d out.”

It was confirmed yesterday (Monday, October 9) that Unity's president, CEO, chairman, and member of the company's board of directors, John Riccitiello, is retiring from his roles, effective immediately. This comes just weeks after the company announced its controversial Runtime Fee for certain users of its game engine — a decision that’s received significant backlash from developers.

Veteran industry executive John Riccitiello is retiring from Unity.

A few hours ago, Unity Technologies revealed that President, Chief Executive Officer, Chairman, and member of the Company's Board of Directors John Riccitiello will step down, effective immediately.

Unity has announced that the company’s CEO, president, chairman and member of the board of directors, John Riccitiello, is stepping down from his roles. The announcement comes in the wake of quite a bit of controversy courted by the company with its runtime fees announcement.

Unity CEO John Riccitiello has announced that he’s retiring from the company effective immediately. The news comes almost a month after the company announced plans to introduce a controversial install fee for developers, which resulted in an industry-wide backlash.

Unity CEO John Riccitiello is departing Unity. The company has announced that the longtime game industry executive is stepping down as president and CEO of the 3D engine developer. According to Unity, James M. Whitehurst will assume the role of interim CEO and president of the company.

In a surprising turn of events, Unity Technologies, a prominent player in the game development industry, has announced the immediate retirement of its CEO, John Riccitiello. This decision comes on the heels of a significant backlash from the gaming community and developers, stemming from Unity’s controversial plan to introduce additional fees for game installations. In this article, we will delve into the details surrounding Riccitiello’s departure and the implications for Unity.

Unity has announced the departure of its CEO John Riccitiello, just weeks after the company became mired in controversy following hugely unpopular changes to its engine pricing model.

Weeks after upsetting developers with a proposed runtime fee, only to quickly backtrack on the idea, Unity announced today that CEO John Riccitiello was stepping down from his multiple roles as president, CEO and board chair, going from having a ton of responsibility to having a lot of time on his hands.

Game engine maker Unity has announced that CEO  John Riccitiello will retire from his prominent positions at the company. Effective immediately, Riccitiello will retire as President, Chief Executive Officer, Chairman and a member of the Company’s Board of Directors. In short, Unity's unpopular and controversial CEO is out.

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Unity has announced that John Riccitiello is stepping down as president, CEO, chairman and board member effective immediately.

Unity is parting ways with the company’s controversial CEO following weeks of backlash from the game development community. 

By Sean Hollister, a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget.

John Riccitiello, CEO of Unity, has resigned from the company in the wake of a pricing controversy that left developers in open revolt.

It's happening again. As sure as Square Enix overestimating their sales projections, as sure as John Riccitiello pissing off every available customer, EVE Online developers CCP will try to make a first-person shooter set in the same universe.

Unity is preparing to announce major changes to its controversial Runtime Fee install policy. Announced last week, it asked all developers who reached specific thresholds to pay a fee for the first game installation on any single device.

Update: Polygon reports that a «reporting party» told responding San Francisco police «an employee made a threat towards his employer using social media.” According to the police, the employee who allegedly made the threats works in an office outside of California.

A week after announcing its upcoming Runtime Fee policy, and hours after promising tweaks were to come, Unity is said to be backtracking from the "major aspects" of its plan. 

A week after Unity announced dramatic changes to its Unity Engine business model — drawing immediate and widespread condemnation from the development community — the company has reportedly told staff it'll be making adjustments to the controversial new pricing plan.

Unity executives have reportedly told staff how the company intends to backtrack on some elements of its controversial install fee policy.

Unity executives informed staff today about some of the planned revisions to the controversial Runtime Fee policy it announced last week, according to Bloomberg.

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According to Bloomberg, a meeting for Unity staff members has been canceled following a "credible" death threat made against people at its offices in Austin, TX and San Francisco, CA. 

Software company Unity has closed two of its offices for the remainder of the week and cancelled a town hall meeting that was planned for today following what Bloomberg initially reported was a credible death threat made in the wake of a controversial price plan change announced earlier this week.

By Ash Parrish, a reporter who has covered the business, culture, and communities of video games for seven years. Previously, she worked at Kotaku.

Unity has closed its San Francisco and Austin offices for today and tomorrow in response to what it called a credible death threat, according to Bloomberg.

Bloomberg reports that two Unity Technologies Inc. offices closed today following a «credible death threat» amidst ongoing controversy regarding a new per-install fee implemented for developers using Unity. The company also canceled a planned town hall, according to Bloomberg. 

Following the controversial announcement of a Unity Runtime fee, which will essentially charge developers for the number of times a game running on Unity Engine is installed, two of the company's offices have reportedly had to be closed down due to "credible" death threats.

In the wake of its hugely controversial engine pricing changes, Unity has closed a number of its offices over what it has called a «potential threat».

Unity Technologies has closed several U.S. offices due to a “potential threat,” a Unity spokesperson confirmed to Polygon. A Bloomberg report said offices in Austin, Texas and San Francisco were closed just as Unity CEO John Riccitiello was scheduled to address staff at a company-wide meeting due to what was described as a “credible death threat.”

Soda Drinker Pro is an odd one. Created by Will Brierly a hog’s age ago, it eventually made its way to Steam and Xbox One. I was turned onto it back in the day by the relentless enthusiasm of Destructoid grizzled veteran Jonathan “Grizzled Veteran” Holmes. With Unity making an impressive attempt to implode a massive section of the indie development community, Will Brierly has decided it’s time to stick the needle in and get sucking as much cash out of enthusiastic soda drinkers as possible.

Unity executives sold thousands of shares in the weeks leading up to last night's hugely controversial announcement it will soon charge developers when one of their games is downloaded.