Unity fires 3.8% of all employees due to ``company reset'' and also ends contract with video production company Weta Digital
Unity, which caused a huge uproar in the gaming industry due to its price revision issue, has announced that it will lay off 265 people, or 3.8% of its employees worldwide. In addition, it has also been revealed that the contract with Weta Digital, a VFX production company founded by the director of The Lord of the Rings, will be terminated.
Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset' | Reuters
Unity lays off hundreds of Weta Digital engineers as it pivots back to games | Ars Technica
In September 2023, Unity announced that it would review the usage fees for its game engine and introduce the ``Unity Runtime Fee,'' which will charge developers a certain fee every time a game is installed. However, this announcement received a lot of backlash from game developers, and the company announced that it would reconsider the price revision.
During this time, angry comments from game developers were posted online one after another, stock prices fell, the Unity development community closed down , and the industry was in turmoil. A tense situation arose, including a threatening letter being sent to the office, and CEO John Riccitiello, who took the situation seriously, announced his resignation about a month after the price revision was announced.
Unity, which is in turmoil due to price revision issues, announces the resignation of CEO John Riccitiello - GIGAZINE
In subsequent financial results announcements, Unity revealed that it had recorded revenue of $544.2 million (approximately 82.37 billion yen), an increase of 69% year-on-year, but the results were lower than analysts' expectations. As a result, the company has promised to take steps to strengthen the company in the fourth quarter of 2023, including ceasing operations and reducing personnel and office space.
About two weeks after announcing its financial results, Unity announced that it would lay off 265 people out of a total of about 7,000 employees, and that its contract with Weta Digital, which it signed in 2021, would soon end. Unity spent $1.625 billion in cash and stock to acquire the technology division of Weta Digital, led by 'Lord of the Rings' director Peter Jackson, and in the process acquired $275 million in cash and stock. However, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and a report from Reuters, Unity is laying off most of those engineers.
According to AI researcher Andrew Kemendo , who was working at Unity at the time of the acquisition, he felt both joy and confusion when the acquisition was realized. It seems that the atmosphere at the company after the acquisition was not a good one, as there continued to be little communication between the company's top management and staff, giving the impression that the management team was only thinking about themselves. I am.
Unity has announced that it will close 14 offices, including in Berlin and Singapore, and significantly downsize its remaining offices in San Francisco, California, and Bellevue, Washington. Going forward, Unity is considering plans to no longer require employees to work in the office three days a week, and to have most locations shift to remote work.
Unity interim CEO Jim Whitehurst told Reuters that ``further product and employee reductions may occur.''
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