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Unity Laying Off Hundreds of Staffers (kotaku.com) 19

Unity, the company behind the popular game development engine of the same name, has recently laid off hundreds of staffers, multiple sources tell Kotaku. From the report: Founded in the mid-2000s, Unity is used by thousands of developers; you've almost certainly seen its logo pop up in the loading screens for some of your favorite -- or least-favorite -- games. In 2014, former EA head John Riccitiello took over as CEO. (In 2020, Riccitiello reportedly saw his compensation jump by 160 percent to $22 million.) The firm employed 3,300 people as of June 2020, according to its IPO filing with the Securities and Exchange Commision, though the company's LinkedIn and Glassdoor pages peg that figure as north of 5,000.

Layoffs have afflicted Unity's offices across the globe. Sources tell Kotaku that pretty much every corner of the company has taken some sort of hit, though there's a concentration in the AI and engineering departments. On Blind, the anonymous messaging board commonly used by employees in the tech industry, Unity staffers say that roughly 300 or 400 people have been let go, and that layoffs are still ongoing. Kotaku's sources have said the same.

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Unity Laying Off Hundreds of Staffers

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  • by slack_justyb ( 862874 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2022 @08:02PM (#62661068)

    This isn't the first mass layoff in the industry I've heard of (shit's there is still a story about some other mass layoff on Slashdot's front page as of now) and I hardly doubt this will be the last.

    DOW is down 14.6% YTD, inflation through the roof, people being laid off from good paying jobs and only the people paying a few dollars over minimum wage still hiring. I'm not saying we're heading head first into a rescission, but I am going to say I think everyone ought to check the economic altimeter.

    And yeah, a nephew of mine recently applied to work for some lumber yard, paying $13.50 an hour, maybe 30 hours a week, irregular schedule, no benefits. He indicated hard pass. $13.50/hour with "maybe" 30 hours wouldn't be enough to rent you a 500 sq. ft apartment in his neck of Tennessee. And he lives like a hour's drive from Nashville, so we're not even talking prime area he's trying to live in. Food is high, gas is high, rent is high. Yeah, none of this looking positive for anyone.

    • Don't worry too much about game developers. As much as it sucks getting laid off (almost all of us in the industry have been here), any decent programmers will land on their feet, most likely. Companies are currently scrambling to hire experienced devs. I work for a company that treats and pays people well, and the company is still having trouble retaining it's talent. Personally, I'm getting a recruitment e-mail every few weeks or so, not just generic, but specifically for my development specialty, els

    • Use unreal engine. Unity failed to respond to Nanite and Lumen.

      • by G00F ( 241765 )

        Nanite and Lumen are almost worthless. Oh cool shiny new thing that would go almost unnoticed and something most people buying games can run anyways because they are not using new high end graphic cards.

        Infact I hate when I get an indie game with what looks to be ok graphics but the engine requires hot new hardware. Like why require dx 12 and new $300+ graphics for a game that looks like it was made in 2005-2010

      • by fazig ( 2909523 )
        Graphics are overrated by many people.

        Nanite and Lumen are there to make the workflow for creating virtual assets a bit more comfortable where you don't have to waste a lot of time with things like:
        Re-topology of your high poly meshes to a low poly mesh where your normal, ambient occlusion, and curvature map bakes look good.
        Faking good lighting and shadows.

        Though on the developer side, both of those features come at a cost of a higher entry barrier, where you need software that can deal with high vert
    • Did they get caught up in the crypto pseudocurrency hysteria as well?
    • So they were making most of their money off of Ad supported mobile games and they took that money and used it to go on buying sprees and trying to expand into doing 3D CAD and modeling for businesses. Apple changed the privacy rules which tanked app based advertising revenue and cut off unity from there main sorts of income and suddenly they couldn't meet their obligations. Basically their management made a bunch of boneheaded expansion and investment decisions and as usual the employees are going to suffe
  • by NoSleepDemon ( 1521253 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2022 @09:05PM (#62661128)
    And not one of them could have designed a better UI than that clusterfuck? Fire them all for fuck's sake.
  • Zero skilled workers have been laid off.

    These are just letter people they hired to look all modern and inclusive.

    Expect better things now,

    • Are you basing this on anything? Or just trying to link everything that happens to a personal viewpoint?
      The articles states:

      Unity has been a “shit show” lately, one person familiar with the situation, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal, told Kotaku. Attrition. Mismanagement. Strategic pivots at a rapid, unpredictable rate. Unity has also gone on a bit of an acquisition spree lately. Last year, Unity purchased the digital effects studio Weta—founded by film director Peter Jackson

  • Probably. Or a new Lambo or something.

    Seriously. If you earn millions a year, firing staff is a dick move when you're not taking a cut to your paycheck at the same time.

    Maybe there should be a law about that? Lay off 10% of the workforce, lose 10% of your CEO compensation (all forms of it - salary, stock options, etc.)

    • by jemmyw ( 624065 )
      Tax company profits at a rate relative to the disparity between management and the lowest paid employee, including all benefits bonuses and shares given. That'll encourage shareholders to think about the value of that overpriced CEO a bit more.
      • by Tom ( 822 )

        That's actually an interesting idea there. Of course, the first thing that will happen is that all low-paid jobs are outsourced to a newly founded daughter "services" company, but in principle I like the idea.

    • by chrish ( 4714 )

      This was my first thought too... rich-asshole CEO pumping the numbers to get that quarterly bonus or to make things look better for the IPO.

      When I've been at a company doing layoffs, I've always had "fun" dividing the CEO's salary by my salary and comparing that to the number of folks losing their jobs.

    • It's dumber than that, even. Firing a ton of employees right now means that future hires - hires you NEED at some point - will see your mass firings as a huge red flag. Getting new talent to come aboard is now going to be impossible, and anybody remotely hirable in your current workforce (i.e. your best employees) have already dusted off their resumes and will get work elsewhere for better pay and more job security. This happened at HP (The EDS remnant part) when Meg Whitman started issuing all sorts of s
  • So John Riccitiello's salary before was ($22M / 2.6) = $8.5M. That $13.5M could have avoided "Unity Laying Off Hundreds of Staffers." At $68K/yr each, that's about 200 people could have not lost their job in a recession. Why is John Riccitiello worth north of $1M, never mind $22M?! I for one will take a stand and boycott ALL games running unity, because if there is NO RISK for paying stupid money for executives, then they will keep doing it.

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