Unity Ceo

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's chief product and technology officer Marc Whitten will resign from his role on June 1, and will leave the firm by the end of 2024.

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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.

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.

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

This year has seen a slew of studios and gaming companies face significant layoffs, and it doesn’t seem like things are set to slow down in 2023. It appears Unity may be the next to suffer layoffs as it attempts to become a “leaner, more agile, and faster growing company.”

Unity has told shareholders the controversial Runtime Fee it introduced back in September will only have a "minimal benefit" over the next fiscal year.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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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. 

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.”