#unity cutting 25% of staff (jan 8, 2024)

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

covert lantern
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unity cutting 25% of staff (jan 8, 2024)

tidal umbra
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Yeah, i've just saw the news, didn't expect a layoff this soon, much less one of this size

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And by most valuable, it probably means the engine itself

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Because if they laid off the engine devs too, then they've just shot themselves in the foot.... again!

wary gyro
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Yeah, this is such a shame and I wish those laid off nothing but the best and that they find replacement jobs quick fast

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Hopefully this little "reset" will be for the best? Only time will tell tho

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Kinda surprised this thread isn't more active...

desert nymph
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I feel like this was inevitable. We've known they had a bloated workforce for a while. Obviously I wish the best for those that were laid off, but hopefully for the health of Unity and the engine, this ends up being for the best.

stark laurel
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They have 30-50% market share, 7000+ employees and yet it takes them 2 months to respond to Asset store tickets and delivering features to their core product takes 5+ years. Something is wrong in this organization. Also $2B revenue per year and still can't make a profit. What.

gritty fog
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They could have relocated part of that workforce to start developing games using their own engine, to experience first hand the shortcomings of the engine. Something Unreal figured out a long time ago, and not only made bank with Fortnite but made the engine better.

patent pollen
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They already have many teams directly embedded with developers working on their projects. Fortnite is also an extreme outlier even in terms of successes

gritty fog
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Lending a helping hand to studios and developing full games from concept to release is a totally different ballgame though. I think they would benefit a lot if they invest time into the whole game dev process.

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And, if they're involved that much and the shortcomings are still there, then there is definitely something deeper that's wrong.

velvet spade
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Sadly, they were also going to make their project open-source when it got finished. I am not search if they published how far they got.

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We would like to share an update about the Gigaya project with you.

As part of recent structural changes, we decided to stop the production of Gigaya. Gigaya will remain as an internal resource at Unity but there are currently no active plans to publish it.

It served its purpose as a source of product feedback during its active development and will continue to provide value as an internal resource. Any further learnings would have been minimal during the additional required time to get it to the finish line and would have been disproportionate to the necessary investment.

Gigaya was conceptualized as an internal production to generate first-hand product feedback, as well as a learning resource for our users. To release it as a sample project would have required a thorough cleanup and optimizations in its current stage.

We appreciate that this would have been helpful to some of you, but considering the remaining development effort against putting more focus on the evolution and improvement of the tools we are shipping to you, it did not seem like a well-justified way to spend our R&D resources. In the end, Gigaya replicated the struggles of game production (albeit at a small scale), which made it valuable for internal validation while also making it labor intensive and costly to be turned into a clean and organized example of best practices

Unity Forum
Official - Introducing Gigaya: Unity's upcoming sample game

Would really appreciate an official response here. The announcement of Gigaya (and the GDC presentation, which was wonderful) was the first time in a...

gritty fog
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Indeed...Stopping that project was a mistake, amongst the many that they made.

worn roost
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one thing is clear. the aggressive expansion during covid was a big mistake for nearly every tech company.

willow plank
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Watch for exec departure packages. Unity needs to focus on getting the platform compile and distribution working. Drop the ads and tracking bovine sequence. The forums are polluted with noobs who dont have the system knowledge to fix crashes in compiles and distros. This will close out any future Unity community. I for one dont push to Android for the last 3 years because Unity has no depth team or focus to realize what they effed up. Yet they are dumping teams.
If you want to 'KNOW' the future watch what Unity does with its new found resources and see if they apply it to getting things working for the new guys and the non production houses instead of delivering golden parachutes.
I have 50 years corp experience so this means I have seen this kinda of trouble before.
Lets see if Unity serves the people who truly support them. There have been a large number shift to Godot and Unreal. Gee I wonder why? Crucify me if you think I am incorrect here. I have been having the last laugh on Unity for the last 1 year ever since I realized they have not done shit to fix the compile and distro scorched Earth void. I fixed the Gradle lvl 41 problem only to have a subsequent failure repeat show again at the next iteration and I wont do their work ever again.

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I have 5 apks in the que and one deliverable that will probably never see the light of day.

fringe widget
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Sure got the last laugh, I guess?

rigid raptor
# willow plank Watch for exec departure packages. Unity needs to focus on getting the platform ...

I can guarantee that "the forums being filled with noobs" will not "close out any future Unity community". Those noobs are the future Unity community. Obviously hobby/indie is only a small piece of Unity's revenue, but it seems like there's more people using and talking about Unity than ever.

I don't have 50 years experience in anything, but I fail to see how pushing to Android is not doable because of Unity, plenty seem to be doing that just fine. Or is it just more of a hassle for you to do inside of Unity when compared to iOS?

willow plank
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I used to be able to connect a phone or 1 of my 3 headsets and just push then run. Now the compile and distro errors are too numerous. There are many experienced devs who cant get past the problem somewhere between android studio, google ads, tracking lib or the explosion in size of the final push. The doubling in size was a push by google and their store requirements changed. What if a dev doesnt want to go to the store but just push an apk to the device? Well good luck with that. Just go forum search any of the errors.

willow plank
covert lantern
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  1. Check any diffs from older APK's that work to the current that does not.
  2. Ensure you're on the latest ADB version and that it's compatible with the platform you are targeting.
  3. See if there were any platform target updates (meta quest?)
  4. Can check manifest/gradle configs; these are the .gradle and .xml files and specifically about any new perms or changes that could be causing an issue.
  5. Old fashioned log/dump checks
  6. Can also try rebuilding the project
  7. Can also try deleting cache/library and generating a new APK
  8. Any snytax errors or flags
  9. Try another device if available?
covert lantern
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IronSource Founders leaving Unity. Sounds like good news to me.

tidal umbra
tidal umbra
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Honestly, i did NOT expect that some of the higher ups would step down, normally they would hold on their guts.

lethal canopy
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Looks like they clean the house like many other companies like epic and several large companies. There is certainly a reason for it.

wary gyro
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Yeah, sadly I knew unity of ALL companies wasn't gonna get out of this dip in the tech industry without some layoffs of their own, when more wealthy and smarter corps had to downsize. Especially not after the crap they tried to pull

sage tiger
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They're still twice the size they were in 2019, the real issue is that key people are leaving on their own terms.

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Many already left after the first round of layoffs last year.

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There are also rumors floating around that R&D was majorly hit for everything not mobile related.

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If true, that also will have long term consequences.

tacit slate
wary gyro
tacit slate
wary gyro
tacit slate
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ah, then i interpret your original message wrong, my bad

wary gyro
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I understand that hind sight is 20/20, but it's known that Unity had a pretty large work force to begin with...

wary gyro
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The situation itself, not necessarily unity itself

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Tho, I don't think it's wrong to say unity as a Corp is at least a bit dumb

tacit slate
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yeah fair enough, im on your side :D

wary gyro
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Yeah

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I do hope that at the VERY LEAST unity will start going uphill

tacit slate
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like nanite and lumen technology

wary gyro
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I wish for it's success, but am not afraid to be critical

stoic night
# willow plank Watch for exec departure packages. Unity needs to focus on getting the platform ...

There is absolutely no way they would spin down the ad platform which is currently market leader on mobile, making up a commanding majority of their revenue at a fraction of the maintenance cost vs. "create" (the engine).

I understand and agree as a customer and former developer on that engine that such a move would seem more in my personal interest, but I also am keenly aware that the company does not exist for my personal benefit and should make moves to best ensure its own future at this point. I am assuming your 50 years corp experience can nod to that.

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The Ironsource exec exit just looks like tidying up a bit. The execs & board responsible for the unsustainable growth in the name of stock price are all very much there - with the noted exception of the CEO.

willow plank
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Unity should allow for no ads and no tracking until the dev wants to promote publicly. This would give new concepts an open environment to grow into something in an environment where there are no huge modules, device or game crashes. Ya know like before. If Unity feels they are so on top of the game then let the little guys alone so they can grow or at least get small apks on android devices like before the growth buffoonery.

stoic night
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We're not in disagreement that old Unity was significantly nicer from a small customer perspective. However reality is that today the Unity ad network is a major asset and makes up a majority of their income at a comparatively low cost. There's zero financial sense in fixing budgets by cutting off that aspect of the company.

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Zooming out, the overall structure of the ad business funding the engine business is nice for engine customers. The implementation and prioritization of work on that engine vs. services is one area where things start falling apart.

willow plank
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But the little guy is still screwed. The little guy is what creates behemoths. Hewlett-Packard, Woz and Jobs, the Wright bros. Corporate justification / blather is not needed. Unity IS going to fail because now Google store accounts have to update for some reason and that reason is to keep devs in tow with ad and tracking inclusion or the account gets closed. Excuse me? I have a game thats in in my dashboard and completely ready, no ads, no tracking, no accounts yet denied by Islamic and communist countries for gambling. Its a freaking calculator. Oh and does anybody know who isnt seeing this post? The Blender/Robolx/Armory devs that get their entry for free. So that means the dev investment is cemented over there and not in Unity. Wake TF, corp. You aint the Pied piper any more. He's in another town. 40 years in corp and the same old shit.

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My investments have shifted over to Blender. I am here to watch the dead and dying.

willow plank
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As of right now due to Google's, Unity's and Android's need for ads and tracking that they are foisting on the devs there are young devs getting evicted by system crashes. Hello? So guess where they are heading over to? Roblox, Blender, Steam, and Armory. I know an 8 year old that is working in Blender and has created multiple games on Roblox, Blender and steam. The adults allow him to mock us in our idiotic loyalty. He aint stupid. He sees the pitfalls we show him in the support forums. Him and his buddies all laugh at the hanger ons while they unleash creativity.

lone flare
willow plank
young pumice
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Or maybe I'm misreading

potent marsh
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WHAT

willow plank
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I posted the children to show that the next up and coming tribe of devs are not in Unity. Unity should be concerned as this is a huge market share not in Unity.
Who knew 'children' would be a trigger word?

patent pollen
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Your tangential screed really has ruined the integrity of this thread. Perhaps post on Reddit, or reach out to that 8yr old you know to start a business.

I'm sure Unity is well aware of their state in the industry, and posting about how you're personally affected by Roblox and Blender's success, or your incapability to read a build log, really stands out as obnoxious in a thread where hundreds of people lose their jobs

tidal umbra
patent pollen
half blaze
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there was a plan to move URP under the tutelage of the HDRP team

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usually that means egos get rubbed the wrong way

sage tiger
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He is a graphics engineering legend with Nvidia background and the inventor of FXAA.

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So what ever this company restructure is, it's not tech focused.

half blaze
stoic night
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How so? I really don't see how these responses are any different than the falling sky ones in the above Unity forum thread. People will be exiting utech and utech has generally been very good at hiring very talented people, meaning the people exiting will be very talented.

short plaza
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Just checking are these lay offs or complete firing.
I am guessing probably 70% firing/30% lay offs.

Please take the following with a grain of salt. Due to not being able to say too much for not having a more recent update on accurate information, but wanted to give some information.

Some of the Unity dev teams were laid off from external teams to be brought into the core development team.

So Unity Technologies the company that owns Unity Engine is the one that did the group firing/lay offs. These came from several mini companies or studios.

Example Unity Technologies did end of firing a lot of people from the Iron Source merge which is honestly good for us developers. Do note I say that as my personal opinion.

Basically Unity had a lot of sub companies/groups that were making tools and they were laid off from the external groups while some were offered to come into the core company.

Example Weta group had some devs that were brought into the SRP (scriptable rendering pipeline) after being laid off from Weta.

For anyone wondering they helped look into the GPU Resident drawer and Render Graph System that is making new Unity graphics API a lot easier to deal with which was literally updated this morning.

Some of the cloud teams got moved around do to the new Cloud Services API. It is a new uniform API for everything cloud based for multiplayer games, ads, REST calls, and so forth.

Some of Unity tools for machine working, automobile,and simulation stuff with CAD got moved in a way that is technically being fired, but no one lost their job yet. By this I mean Unity Technologies gave the software to a partner through a deal. This means the devs apart of that team don't work for Unity aka fired, but hired by the partner.

So the lay off spree is not as bad as it seems. There are people who did lose their job though sadly that were amazing devs, but it is not as horrible as it seems first glance.

young copper
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Sucks to have that happen to so many people tho

young copper