Unity announces leadership transition

[kindred raptor]

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231009494331/en/Unity-Announces-Leadership-Transition

Please, use this thread to discuss this topic.

[round pilot]

lmao

will the board be next? 🙃

[gaunt raft]

🙌

sooo we won? 👀

[round pilot]

I gotta say its nice the EA guy will be gone. No more worrying about mr indie devs are 'fucking idiots'

[shrewd lynx]

Can't wait for the replacement to make the same mistakes causing the circlejerk to start all over again.

[warm fable]

So is unity goining to be open source xD ? https://siliconangle.com/2023/10/09/video-game-software-company-unity-replaces-ceo-former-ibm-president-jim-whitehurst/

[royal halo]

No.

First, he isn't fully gone yet:

Mr. Riccitiello will continue to advise Unity to ensure a smooth transition.

Second, James Whitehurst is exactly the type of person I would select to be interim CEO to send a message to the community. The board is in charge and they can be toxic to the community in the name of profits whenever they want to.

[royal halo]

He would be the last person I would want for taking Unity open source.

[gaunt raft]

well its what I saw in a vid in youtube.

but it is a good start tho.

it means they are reacting.

[young isle]

"An advising role" that doesn't sound like much.

[restive plume]

"advising role" is usually covert speak for "take some time off, we'll call you once a week and ask you for the weather forecast, feel free to get a new job, didellidoo".

Same as "we are parting with our employee after a mutual agreement" meaning "we wanted him gone, and he accepted the severance package".

[royal halo]

Yes, that is what those words usually mean. We have gotten a written FAQ from Unity that the company takes part in double-talk and words don't mean from Unity what they mean to the rest of the world.

Regardless of if Riccitiello has only one foot still in or only a pinky toe, there is the bigger issue of the type of message the board is sending with the selection of James Whitehurst.

[tardy valley]

@restive plume No reaction gifs, please

[restive plume]

ack

[lilac glacier]

So basically we won but we also lost

[restive plume]

I agree, but I the context of that release I believe the double speak is more towards shareholders, investors and the legal teams that no doubt will check their options, especially after the 20% or so share drop. I would prefer another blog post or "developer directed" communication.

Not sure about the US, but in Germany for example you can't just openly say that an employee (even CEO) screwed up, it always needs to be in a positive context to be legally safe. That's why we have phrases like "He has always tried to achieve his goal to the best of his abilities". Which translates "he's not up to our standards, and never gets his goals done"

Enire books are filled about interpreting those phrases around here 😉

[wooden torrent]

Advising a company on exclusive knowledge and insight, after leaving, is a very common practice.

[royal halo]

I don't know. But James Whitehurst is a huge red flag given what he did at Red Hat.

[lilac glacier]

What did he do

I'm sorta out of the loop

[royal halo]

That would require explaining what Red Hat really was to explain what he turn it into

He basically accomplished what Riccitiello attempted of using vendor lock-in to force the community to suddenly pay more by breaking past promises

[lilac glacier]

Oh.... my God, why the hell do companies hire such stupid people, there should be a mandatory course for if you become CEO to avoid this stuff, amount of companies that have closed down due to stupid CEOs is just appalling

[royal halo]

Oh, he isn't stupid. Wallstreet loves what he does. He took Red Hat from trading at 27 to trading at 187 and being bought out by IBM. But he killed what the company was for the community in the process and that will eventually kill the company itself.

[final stag]

We take dem dubskies

Idk, I feel like at the very least, unity is going on a positive direction

My outlook is lookin' bright

Also, cool idea on making industry talk a threads based channel! Should make conversation/discussion at least a tiny bit more quality

[final stag]

Idk much about red hat other than what happened to it when it was bought by IBM, but from my brief research, it seems Whitehurst sorta had his hand forced in terms of how the aquasition went down

I can't seem to find any super ill will to the guy, either

If you want to correct me, go ahead, but I don't think it would kill ya to have some positive vibes, at least

[deft flare]

What John riccitello step down

[deft flare]

According to a tweet updated on my email

[final stag]

Yes he did

He gone

Well, other than in an "advisery" role while unity transitions but that's next to nothing

[tame badge]

Omg wow congratulations to everyone who got this to happen

Maybe unity is entering its no man's sky phase

[last fog]

is it just me or this changes nothing?

[deft flare]

So they

[acoustic notch]

Wow it's almost like this is literally what the thread you're replying in is about

And that there's a convenient article right at the top of the thread

[last fog]

so new guy is as bad or even worse than the old one?

[onyx crescent]

Why does it have to be either of those?

[last fog]

cuz ppl above me said he's super bad

[onyx crescent]

Why are you coming into this with a negative point of view, such an odd take.

[last fog]

im replying to the guys discussing above

[onyx crescent]

This person is also the interim CEO, there's nothing saying whether this will be a permanent thing.

[last fog]

i came into this thread thinking new guy is way better but then i saw the message above saying whitehurst is a red flag and stuff. thats all

[acoustic notch]

So do your own research instead of waiting for someone to tell you your own opinions

[onyx crescent]

Maybe wait and see what happens longer than a day after the announcement to see how this current interim CEO will handle things.

[last fog]

its a method called researching through discord

[acoustic notch]

Asking other people to form your opinions for you isn't research

Try googling the guy and see what he's done and form your own opinion

[final stag]

From the brief research I did (aka seeing what articles say about him and seeing what reddit thinks of him [reddit tends to be Hella harsh]) he actually seems pretty decent

Above, someone said he ruined red hat

But from what I saw, it seems he left because ibm was ready to ruin redhat

But as others said, do your own research

With your own biased instead of mine

[final stag]

This could change alot of things, imo it's unity committing to doing positive changes to themselves

[tight falcon]

Why didn't they put Elton John in charge ? At least he can play the piano.

[onyx crescent]

We don't need the shitposting, thanks.

[paper hound]

celebration

[royal halo]

I am confused what you mean

[delicate spade]

Same

Was a sleepy comment

[lament marsh]

man, i hope we won't be there in 5 years and say, john unity wasn't that bad

[final stag]

Nah I'm hopeful for the future

[spiral thistle]

https://fxtwitter.com/stephentotilo/status/1711737246754501027

[royal halo]

CEOs are usually expected to honor a non-compete agreement. Employees are supposed to be able to go to the CEO with ideas to improve the company/product without worrying that same CEO will be taking the idea to a competitor in only a month. But if the CEO is also locked out of getting a job were their skills best apply then it makes sense they should continue to be paid for remaining exclusive to the non-compete.

[delicate spade]

so

ceo gone = recents changes gone too ?

[royal halo]

no, recent changes were already gone

[delicate spade]

like nothing happened ?

nice to see Unity back in track.

[royal halo]

I personally would say "back on track" is overselling the degree to things have improved. However, you should form your own opinion. The things you should be looking at regarding recent changes already being gone are:

• https://blog.unity.com/news/open-letter-on-runtime-fee
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyLcI5O9iUY

Also feel free to read the back-scroll of #archived-pricing-updates-talk

One of the discord admins put a lot of useful links in the channel right before locking it

Btw, the changes are not (and never will be) fully gone. But the impact on the majority of the community is removed.

[final stag]

I would say that at least positive things are happening

[final stag]

The changes were already walked back before John R stepped down. The links fluke provided should help understand how they updated

[brazen path]

vast majority
like if you are an idie dev, this likely wont effect you and definitely wont bankrupt you

[final stag]

Yeah

And it's still a better deal than epics 5% cut

Tho, epic doesn't make ya pay for a license, but 2k per seat, in the grand scheme of things, is an easy pill to swallow imo

[dusty jolt]

2k x20 devs adds up faster than you think when a company has a bad revenue month

[final stag]

With a team of 20, I assume your games income is gonna be pretty high... Also it's a yearly payment

And you only get hit with the $40k per year if within the last 12 months you made over 200k

If you have a bad month, that might drop you below the threshhold

[dusty jolt]

It's a yearly commitment, you just have to pop over it temporarily. But, to the topic, if your studio is making 200k, and paying out 40k to Unity, Unreal is definitely the better option 😉

If you make $1m, unity is 40k, Unreal is still $0.

I would guess that 95% of studios paying unity, would pay less or nothing with Unreal.

[final stag]

Yeah but if you're a team of 20 and aren't hoping to make over 200k, that's a confidence problem

[dusty jolt]

So, personally, I'd say no. In a very practical sense, Unreal is almost always the better deal.

[final stag]

I mean you're paying less yeah

But if unity is providing you with something that unreal can't do, then it's not the most worse deal ever

[dusty jolt]

Yeah that's all I'm trying to say, 🙂 but I do agree in big cases Unity is the better arrangement

[final stag]

Ye

[sour obsidian]

Yeah I would say unity's coming out of its controversy spotlight with a net positive

[spiral thistle]

Is the new pricing better than even before the install fee controversy?
Because before it was only the licenses, now it's the licenses + the install fees or a revshare.

I don't have enough real numbers to know which is better but just like that it seems devs are gonna pay more than before

[sour obsidian]

I'm not sure, someone else could probably answer that, but there were other positive things that happened.
Like unity readded its github tos, and changed ceos.

[tawdry glade]

I mean, no of course not, you will owe them more. It is the same licensing fees (except you now you can't do plus), as WELL as the revshare.

[deft flare]

I got a positive email about unity

[final stag]

Yeah, so you're paying more than before all of this

But it's ALOT more reasonable than the initial plan

[last fog]

they also removed the splash screen from version 2023 and onward so thats better than it was before i guess

[strange tangle]

its a sales tactic. start with an outrageous deal, and give us a better (but still worse off than before) deal after we get riled up, to make us feel like we "won"

i don't trust unity anymore. and i don't think any changes could really mend that. they broke trust that's built up for years.

[final stag]

I feel like that's a miserable plan considering they lost a good chunk of customers in the end. Idk I don't believe in this "marketing ploy" theory

[final stag]

I mean that's fair and I understand, but I also feel there's still hope to be had

[royal halo]

I think there is an easy way that Unity could regain trust. The biggest thing lost was the 2019 claims we could just trust Unity based on a blog post there would never be retroactive changes applied to past versions. But that doesn't need to be a show stopper issue. A license is just code. It is written in an unstructured language but it is still just code. They could show dedication in avoiding future "misunderstandings" by stating in the TOS the retroactive changes and steep fee changes are no longer permitted to take place.

As far as this being accomplished under interim CEO James Whitehurst, I have my doubts. Hopefully this interim step is short lived and Unity can get a CEO that helps build communities up instead of tearing them down.

[final stag]

Yee

It'll all work out in da end

[bronze flare]

I have some ideas, for how to fix Unity as a company. Though without being able to see their budgets or spending, I may as well be pissing in the wind 🌬️

That aside is there anyway to share ideas for helping the company align itself with the community it’s trying to serve? I think their profits would also benefit from doing so, as I understand the world I want to live in HAS to first be built by the one I’m living in now.

[onyx crescent]

Are you asking how to give business consultation to Unity?

[fringe drift]

hanlon's razor, it wasnt a masterful plot it was a fuck up on unities part,

[final stag]

yeah

i think it does no one any favors to conspire all this as some "sales tactic" when this is like the worst tactic in the world and still lost unity so much. Yes, i know about "door in your face" marketing, but i genuienly do not believe CEO and c-suite are smart enough to really pull that off

As Epitome said, let's not attribute malice with what can be sufficiently explained by stupidity

just let me be hopefuly and positive for the future, dammit

[strange tangle]

it doesn't even matter if it was intentional or not. unity bounces back from this, i don't trust they're simply going to be good from now on and never try pulling something again. things are OK now, but this was a wake-up call for how much power big corp has over us.

[fringe drift]

i would say it was a wakeup call to how much power we hold over unity

even so i am cautiously optimistic

the fact that unity's stock tanked, the fact that devs as a whole were able to unite against it and they backpeddled

[sour obsidian]

Were you able to get in contact with anyone about this?

If you were looking to give business consultation to Unity

[onyx crescent]

Nobody outside of Unity is going to be giving business consultation lol

Let's keep this conversation a little more realistic please

[final stag]

and that on top of some devs sticking to go to new engines

hell, the devs of Slay the Spire made a game on GoDot in 3 weeks and i heard it's pretty good

[manic haven]

yeah like if everyone could do that then wouldn't unity be a open source project by now lmfao

[opaque vessel]

-We went from 0% revshare to 2.5% revshare. (with seat fees making unity most expensive engine for smaller teams and way more expensive for bigger teams)
-We went from 0 requirements to track engagements to (for now)optional requirements to track engagements(to be charged for f2p downloads/webgl plays)
-Unitys stock is higher then at the start of the year (and been lower multiple other times throughout the year, even lower prior to 2023) so I wouldn't say "unitys stock has tanked" at all.

They scarified ceo as placation yet kept the changes(that many other higher ups at unity would of had to agree to not just the ceo) and used door in the face technique to make it as palatable as possible. (massive media storm from non devs and unitys customers:devs been forced to no longer be able to use unity OG proposal was never gonna happen)

Not a unheard of strategy big companies have used to make unpopular changes.(I swear reddits done it at least 5 times by now, aka "firing ceo with door in face strategies yet keeping changes")

Regardless using the firing of John unity to push through these changes, It's still good the "$2 per reload" and "developers are "some of the biggest fucking idiots" guy is gone.

[fringe drift]

2.5% revshare is fair, and it is maximum 2.5% revshare, besides not like small indies will easily cross the threshhold required to even pay the fees

[fringe drift]

Not to mention everything went down due to covid, and YTD is currently at 2.12% up down 9.90% past year

down 4.12% past 6 months

down 17.50% [ast month

and it is still going down

[fringe drift]

i am aware of door in your face strategies, but it dosent take a genius to see cashing in several years of good will and chasing away devs isnt a good idea, you give them too much credit,

they are incompetent

not puppet masters

[opaque vessel]

We can agree on one thing, It wasn't a good idea.

Unitys stocks have gone down more then 4.12% "in past 6 months" before
Unitys stocks have gone down more then 17.50% "in last month" before
Multiple times, this is no spectacular anomaly that I would describe as "stocks tanking"
(april/may 2022 I would describe as unitys stocks tanking going from about avg 100 to avg 30. aka down 70%. You can argue it was covid but lot of stocks did good through covid and doesn't matter why but that is a situation where I would describe as a "stock tanking" rather then going through its to be expected regular ups and downs.)

So if you're using "stocks tanking" as a metric to feel like you have power over unity or to be cautiously optimistic, my opinion is that is misguided.

2.5% may or may not be fair, But regardless of how "fair" it is, unity is more expensive for smaller devs/teams (with seat costs) and is more expensive for a longer period of growth with 2.5% revshare as apposed to 0% revshare. (For those who you say "cannot easily cross the threshold" unity is more expensive then alternative, now for those that manage to do so its more expensive then it was prior to this change and easier to be more expensive then the alternative.)

You can argue if there puppet masters or incompetent, at the end of the day we can only go by there actions, they wanted to do something horrendous(which unity has a track record of doing, which they in the past have promised never to do again) everyone got all "angsty and confused" so they modified the changes.
To what degree they puppet mastered it and his these final changes in mind from the start and what degree they wanted to do the original changes(arguably worse to think they wanted the OG changes) we will never know.

End of the day, they kept the core tenants of adding revshare and engagement tracking and charging for f2p downloads/webgl plays and 99% of the people who signed off on the OG changes/Final changes still work there.

[fringe drift]

you need to pass a threshold of 1 million installs and 1 million dollars

[fringe drift]

not to mention the install metric helps people since it is capped at 2.5%

if you have installs that give less than 2.5% then you pay less

but again the threshold is 1 million dollars "they kept the core tenants of adding revshare and engagement tracking and charging for f2p downloads/webgl plays and 99%" no they fucking didnt, you have to make over 1 million

not to mention it is self reported

you are fundamentally misunderstanding how the revshare applies

ALSO ALSO, this applies to LTS 2023 and onwards

dont like it? use LTS 2022

or 2021

[signal sparrow]

woah ceo ea guy is gone, Is unity fixin now or the fee still exists?

[fringe drift]

its a 2.5% rev share kicking in after 1 million dollars and 1 million installs

[royal halo]

The final post to #archived-pricing-updates-talk by UnityJuju has several links which best state where things are at regarding fees. The short version is Unity backed slightly away from their aggressive fees but you really should read the actual details for yourself.

Regarding Unity fixing, I personally see James Whitehurst as interim CEO as a big glowing red flag but no one else seems to see it yet. I'm hoping his involvement will be short lived.

[fringe drift]

what about him is a red flag out of curiosity

any past decisions?

specifically

[royal halo]

If Unity's goal is to heal the relationship with the Unity community then what Whitehurst did to the community around Red Hat should have indicated he would not be the right person to be involved.

[quasi marsh]

The board that made the decision is unchanged. Their interests are going to keep influencing decisions in the future. Unity will keep going down that road because it is a publicly traded company with many hands puppeteering it.
This is just a swapping of figureheads as a show of "change".
Epic on the other hand is not publicly traded.

[last fog]

epic already charging for making movies... fortnite money is about to run out. its only a matter of time before they start charging game devs more

[final stag]

Again, maybe my research is flawed, but I can't find any ill will towards whitehurst online. In fact, it seems he left red hat before it went all hay wire

[final stag]

Yeah I'm with epitome here, yes unity is still in a worse place than before, but these changes as they are currently are at least within reason.

But I understand how important it is to have trust in the company. Many devs have moved on and won't come back, and that's fine

But I feel that we're at least on the way to recovery here, but it's gonna be a long road

[final stag]

Yeah, whole the board is still a thing, I still feel that a new CEO could at least change some things for the better

Idk man, as I keep saying I'm just exhausted of negativity,

[opaque vessel]

If people react negatively to negative changes, I blame the people making negative changes not the people reacting to it.

If you ignore everything around the changes (initial changes potentially doing spyware/estimations to charge, calling everyone angsty and confused, trying to do retroactive changes even though they promised to never do retroactive changes again, etc etc etc etc) then sure the current changes are reasonable. (if you also ignore they still have engagement tracking which is way out of line and abhorrent)

I don't have any reason to believe the new CEO will do better, besides blind optimism or trust/faith/hope that things will be better.

Everyone who signed off on the initial changes and the current changes all still work at unity, John unity gets to leave lot richer then he started with. Changes nothing about that.

[final stag]

I never blamed the people tag are mad... Just said I'm tired of negativity, we will just have to agree to disagree

[fringe drift]

the CEO is tasked with selling it to the board and whilst the board is responsible, if the CEO sells them on the fact that they will make money then they vote to approve it, not to mention john was chairman of the board

John riccitiello was simultaneously president CEO and chairman of the board which by default makes him a member of the board

[final stag]

true

[final stag]

which just makes me all the more hopeful

but maybe im just on dat Hopium

[fringe drift]

cautious optimism is my approach

i dont trust unity, but im willing to give them a second chance

[final stag]

ye

[bold fern]

Just saw this:
https://mobilegamer.biz/fuck-you-were-not-paying-inside-unitys-runtime-fee-fiasco/

[final stag]

Dang, interesting read

So it wasn't just community reaction that made em walk it back

Hmm

[bold fern]

Yeah, i can imagine a lot of companies got involved in this behind the scenes

Either threating Unity to cut any relationship with it or with lawsuits

[final stag]

Yeah

[royal halo]

Multiple sources told us that in the week of panic that followed the first announcement, Unity planned to announce a 4% revenue share for games that earned over $1m, slightly undercutting Unreal Engine’s 5%. But the response was so fierce it was knocked down to 2.5% in the tweaked policy announced a week and a half later.
Well, we now know to expect it to kick up to 4% in the next year or two after they consider that things have cooled down enough. They still have not made any changes to the ToS that provide any promises to the customers. Not only it still the same ToS which they admit allows for retroactive changes, but it does not seem to cap how often or how much they can increase the runtime fees.

[final stag]

I think we need to apply some logic here

Unity could raise the share to 4%, this is true

But that would be such an UTTERLY STUPID decision to do after this whole debacle

Now, there's no bound to stupidity, this is true, but idk, after this experience along with getting a new CEO, I feel like they are very much incentivized not to be greedy with all this

Cautious optimism

[fringe drift]

im with you, but if they do, we need to hope we can match the anger

[final stag]

Yeee!

[fringe drift]

the fact that we made them a) repeal the thing at large and b) undermine their suggested offer to me shows if we keep the same anger we have the power

[final stag]

Strength in numbers, comrades!

[fringe drift]

but like really without devs unity has no product, and im not saying individual small indie devs have much of an impact, but big studios and more well established indies are what makes unity money

as well as mobile games

but yeah

[bold fern]

I mean, they didn't stop being greedy back then, there is no guarantee that they won't be in the future, with or without the former CEO

[final stag]

Idk, I just like being on dat hopium

[royal halo]

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/10/behind-the-scenes-of-unitys-rushed-out-install-fee-program/

New leadership has a lot of work ahead of them

[bold fern]

Absolutely

Assuming of course the executive board or the stakeholders don't pressure to make another bad choice 😆

[final stag]

#IBelieve

[bold fern]

Yeah, keep in mind that the company is still public, so unless they become private again or there is a complete leadership overhaul, we can expect anything at this point because they are gonna prioritize growth over anything

So try to moderate your expectations 😆

[final stag]

I... BELIEVE

Also I don't wanna switch to unreal or Godot, I like unity

So this company better not mess up or else...

I'm gonna make an HTML that marquees curse words

[bold fern]

Even if you like Unity, I'd suggest learning a second engine. Just in case you want to get out of the comfort zone, or in case Unity indeed mess up in the future, or out of curiosity

If you want something close to Unity, I'd suggest Stride, which is the closest to a Unity clone

At the end of the day, it all depends on your needs

[final stag]

no.

i will happily put all my eggs in one basket and you will not stop me

nah but jokes aside you're right, it's handy to have multple tools on your built in case of emergencies

i would like to consider myself profecient in Unreal

[royal halo]

This is known as vendor lock-i n

[final stag]

i do love being locked in

[final stag]

idk, i don't have anything really productive to say

my final thoughts are "catious optimism"

[kind torrent]

Yeah, exactly. This forced me to go out of my comfort zone after 6 years. Since the "day" I learned massive amount of things about Unreal and Godot. Also decided to continue working using Unity, but making solo games using Godot.

[tardy valley]

@livid terrace Don't post off-topic here

[livid terrace]

@tardy valley May I talk about Godot here, then? EDIT: I posted a link to Red Hat relations with Godot in relation to Unity, since Whitehurst is the new interim CEO of Unity. This is quite on-topic.

[tardy valley]

@livid terrace Read the server name

[livid terrace]

@tardy valley I came here to stop a conversation about Godot. Have you seen the above posts that talk about Godot? Or are you pro-Godot?

[tardy valley]

!warn 275915430927925249 Don't post off-topic

[quick briar]

xrayez has been warned.

[deft flare]

Why did I just unreviewed content screen popped up when I clicked on the link

[tardy valley]

Probably because it's a random conspiracy theory garbage.

[livid terrace]

@tardy valley May I talk to another moderator? EDIT: As a former maintainer of Godot, I abandoned Godot in favor of Unity because of these toxic moderation/censorship practices in Godot. It is disheartening to stumble upon Unity community moderators who ostracize those on the basis of having a past criticizing Godot. Appealing to my past is attacking me as a person, which goes against Unity #📖┃code-of-conduct.

This raises numerous questions about whether Unity community moderators are acting in the best interests of Unity. Clearly, labeling information as "conspiracy theory garbage" goes against #📖┃code-of-conduct, which is actually a typical response of a fanatical Godot user. Search for "Are Godot advocates infiltrating Unity?" over the Internet for more information on this topic, like when r/Unity3D moderators officially promote Godot via "Nothing to see here" links, coupled with anti-Unity propaganda. I have already contacted several moderators on this, as well as Unity admins, hopefully, nobody is going to be treated this way in the future.

[tardy valley]

If you want to talk to a moderator about moderation related issue you DM them, don't spam here

[final stag]

Jeez, people are still outta wack over all this, I mean yeah it's important to learn multiple tools incase one of them break, but if you wanna continuing using a tool that works for you, thats fine

And if you wanna switch, that's fine too

But idk why it seems people are sorta pushing others to change tools

Like, Unity as an engine is still amazing, regardless of the company behind it

It's short sighted to discourage others from continuing to use it

Idk, that's just my thoughts on it

[livid terrace]

Exactly my thoughts, thank you!

In either case, when Unity faces community backlash, Unity makes changes. The irony is that they don't even boast about being community-driven, akin to Japanese companies that avoid using the word "quality" in their marketing. This is because users don't shape their opinions from marketing but from their own experience using a product. Therefore, regardless of how many resources other potential competitors invest in marketing or enthusiasts promoting the product, this is an unsustainable approach.

I hope we don't get stuck in a specific scenario in which what some might call success: if someone successfully deceives the majority of people in the industry. This can only happen when the community becomes inert, rendering users unable to express genuine feedback and criticism, in contrast to the Unity community. I hope Unity remains receptive to criticism.

Don't be afraid to express your genuine stance. 🙂

[final stag]

[livid terrace]

Could you shed some more light on this? I'm interested in knowing Whitehurst past decisions. I just know Red Hat is involved with the game engine that should not be named. 🙃

[final stag]

@royal halo im yearning for info on this too, like Whitehurst seemed to have left redhat before it went to crap, perhaps your putting your anger on the wrong guy?

The only Linux guy I talked to has no ill will towards whitehurst soooo I don't understand the hate for em

[final stag]

Also, I completely disagree that it was a "slight" walk back, the changes they made are MILES better (like, literally millions of dollars better) than the original proposed changes

[livid terrace]

Linux/FOSS comminities are like one big family, so to speak. So, asking about Red Hat and Whitehurst from these folks and expecting a non-biased answer is slightly naive. 😊

It would surprise me if Unity ends up replicating Unreal's source-available model with Whitehurst at the helm.

It would also be quite amusing if Unity starts acquiring some FOSS projects out there, similarly to how IBM acquired Red Hat. In my experience, there do exist FOSS folks that would be happy to betray their ideology for a million bucks... Just look at Audacity case, acquired by Muse Group.

[final stag]

Wat

The Linux guy I talked to is pretty chill and doesn't have that much bias when it comes to Linux so... I'm confused what you're trying to say, but that's getting a but off topic

[foggy fractal]

I'm surprised John R lasted this long in the industry, he isn't a gamer, he isn't a programmer, yet he ran to EA because they had a lot of money. I saw this corruption in the video gaming industry back in 1991 when gamers were buying baseball and football cards for no reason even when they watched no sports, lol. When Madden came out for Genesis, I knew EA was gonna start attracting the corrupt and ruining the gaming industry.

EA was actually a great publisher in the 80s: Starflight for C64, Mail Order Monsters, Legacy of the Ancients(WOW!), Racing Destruction Set.... If it was an EA game and the 80s, it was amazing.

Probably most of ya weren't even born in the 80s, but gaming was better in a lot of ways back then since it was like the Wild West, games all different every one... Not cookie cutter, FPS, RTS, MMO set like FPS...

Even the arcade, you could try games for 25 cents and never waste money on them again if they were terrible... Now people pay 60$ to get hooked on hundreds of dollars DLC in hopes the game may be fun someday.

[bold fern]

I'm also surprised that John lasted that long, though he most likely only got those places because of contacts. The same applies with many corrupts CEOs that you can think of.

[foggy fractal]

Some people think life is about power trippin about what you can get, who you can con, what you grab... But really, life is about not trying to grab, but giving... The more you give, the more the spirit world will return to you... If you're just a grabber, you only get what you can grab in this short life.... It's two conflicting lifestyles... Most devs are givers, that's the creative way, to make life better for everyone around you... Most devs don't understand just how far you can go with dog and pony shows in life.

Its for the best to not know the ways of the power hungry... Far better to stay creative and want to help everyone in life have a better life, far better.

[cinder wing]

Mail Order Monsters was probably the game that inspired me to get into the industry. I have a boxed copy on my shelf

[final stag]

How in the heck did you manage to spin this topic into a "gaming was better when it took 12 minutes to load space shooter 24 off cassette" rant?

Jeez

I'm glad John R. Walked and I think he needs to get the hell outta the industry

But... Despite all the greediness in the industry nowadays, games are still pretty awesome mb

And you can download games from the internet and play them right off your drive... Whoa

Idk man, I get gaming wasn't as corrupt and greedy back then, but idk I prefer gaming now a days, with how easily accessible games now!

[cinder wing]

have to agree, as nostalgic as I am for those old games there's a ton of variety in today's indie space

[final stag]

Yeah, I think the main thing is how accessible games are now a days

And how accessible game dev is!

[bold fern]

.....
https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/9/23954709/unity-layoffs-q3-earnings-runtime-program

https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/unity-says-controversial-runtime-fee-will-have-minimal-benefit-in-2024

[final stag]

Oof

Yeah had a feeling unity wasn't gonna be able to scrape by without some kinda lay offs

Gross.

Unity do be going through it rn