Maybe they shouldn’t be doing everything possible to drive off consumers. Exclusivity deals everywhere, prices that don’t like to dip, multiple versions of the same game so you need to pay more for the complete thing later. I tried to get into FF with 15, and I actually really liked it. Then all this nonsense happened with FF7R and I just gave up because it seemed like a pain to try and follow the series.
Bloomberg reports that newly-appointed CEO Takashi Kiryu is aiming to improve the company's profitability by whittling down the number of smaller projects it releases, while focusing on big-budget games with a higher potential to improve profitability.
So you're disappointed with the sales of these enormous games that spend far too long in development and don't get the return you want, and your plan is to double down on these games instead of Dragon Quest Builders and Octopath? Here's an idea: take someone who's successfully led a smaller game and then give them progressively larger projects to lead. And maybe don't make a main entry in your marquis series exclusive to a single console in an age where the PC market will likely outsell it.
That person ends up being the success or failure of the project. If they're doing a bad or mediocre job there's nothing that can change that course because you won't know that until it's too late. The flip-side is that it prevents 'design-by-committee' mediocrity and can allow people with bold visions to express those ideas.
Having the scumbag of a CEO in the headline may have been a mistake. Riccitiello sold the least shares in the recent transaction history of the company. Also, I don’t know where you get your "retaining over 3000000 shares’ from. The source says Riccitiello sold all his shares in his possession.
The article mentions two others:
Tomer Bar-Zeev who sold 37.5k shares on 1st September, for around $1.4m. Shlomo Dovrat, meanwhile, sold 68k shares on 30th August for around $2.5m.
Bar-Zeev sold 37500 shares of ~1300000 owned on automated sell. That’s a factor of ten and a fair bit away from 2k sold from 3 mil, but that might be normal. It was automated, after all.
Dovrat’s transaction is mostly the same, roughly double the shares sold and roughly double the shares owned. However, it was not automated.
I believe the article mentioned them because they sold the most, but they clearly weren’t taking the amount retained into account. The third most sold, however, by Robynne Sisco was a sell of 25768, retaining 14700 (sold ~64%).
There are a fair number of other sells, but if the Bar-Zeev and Dovrat sells don’t look suspicious, nothing else will stand out.
What does seem a little odd- and I have no idea if this is at all unusual- is that in the last twelve months, more shares have been bought than sold (net shares almost 10,000,000), and in the last 3 months more shares have been sold than bought (net shares almost 3,500,000). In the last 3 months, the number of insider traders is a little over 1/3 of the amount of insider trades over the last 12 months (under the assumption it should be about 1/4). All of the insider buys seem to be the options granted for working for Unity. I assume it isn’t too odd for the board of directors to sell and never buy, but they have increased selling a fair bit in the last 3 months, and it seems specifically the last two weeks.
More confusing accounting that I’ve never learned, and probably never will.
At first I thought it was because of direct/indirect ownership. But what is the point of “5. Amount of Securities Beneficially Owned Following Reported Transaction(s) (Instr. 3 and 4)” being 3mil with no transaction, but the 2000 stock transaction showing they owned none? I see nothing on the form or in the definition showing that direct or indirect ownership show be reported differently. They are all owned by the ‘reporting person’. But clearly this is all me just not being able to read how they filled it out.
I agree $80k is nothing to $100mil, I do believe that if they have 3mil of securities, then it doesn’t matter, no matter how high or low the securities are worth. I disagree with the idea that automation makes it not suspicious, though. If the stocks were all automatically sold off, then the company devalues itself afterwards, it has the same intent and outcome as any other insider trading.
Ok, so the report is on the person (CEO in this case). Only directors and certain executive levels are required to report.
Table I shows ‘non-derivative securities’ (regular stock). The CEO holds in their own name 3 million+ shares. No transaction was reported for those, but they have to be listed.
The CEO’s spouse aquired 2000 shares at a cost of $1.425 each. After this transaction, they had 2000 shares total (column 5).
They then sold those shares for $40 each. After, they weren’t holding any stock, so column 5 shows 0.
The CEO financially benefits from this, so the transactions are listed on their form, as (I) for indirect. If the spouse also had a position within Unity which required reporting this would be listed on their own SEC form as well.
Oh man, people are releasing physical copies of new games on retro consoles, right? Is anybody making a game that you can plug into the Sonic & Knuckles cartridge?
I think the Sonic & Knuckles cartridge could be added to any game and it would generate a new level based on the content of it, but I’d love to see someone check!
Very weird how those were absent from release, but I'm glad they're getting added. Good to see I'm not the only one who found the lack of an "eat" alt-option annoying as well!
Yeah the base colour tones are absolutely nuts. I spent a lot of time on launch just trying to figure out if my HDR display was bugging out or something.
Isn't this insider trading? If I owned a company and sold all my stock and then tanked my company with stupid news, that'd be illegal.
Though I'm surprised they sold it before the news. This kind of fund-raising tactics piss off customers but investors usually love it, the short-sighted creatures they are.
The guy who owns the company knows what it means for the long term stock price: a plummet. He knows that’ll come eventually if these changes go through.
Investors may react positively to the news, but when they see the damage it actually does, they’ll pull out too.
The guy running the company has shares that are valued way higher than when he earned them, he is sitting so high right now it’s far worth selling here instead of gambling on the response to the news. It’s just simple “quit while you’re ahead”.
No it’s not. If he unloaded a huge bunch out of nowhere just before the announcement then sure, it probably is, but that’s not what happened - he has been consistently selling stock the whole year, buying none.
What likely happens is he is paid partly, or was at some stage, in stock. To convert it to cash you need to sell it.
As much as I can't stand John Riccitiello, anyone with RSUs will have vested stocks sold on a fixed schedule to cover taxes. They don't get to choose when or how much is sold as long as they have their RSUs configured as sell to cover. The executives are no different in this regard, except they have a great deal more stocks than the average employee. However, this doesn't absolve them of the awful new pricing structure. That shit should have been walked back before it ever left the planning stages.
Don't get me wrong, the timing was fucking abysmal. They really should have thought about that ahead of time, but these executives rarely think about anything other than how to line their own pockets.
So your saying they didn’t time the share sales with respect to the announcement- they timed the announcement with respect to the fixed share sales date.
If you’re selling shares monthly it doesn’t matter when the announcement is, you’re going to have people questioning your sell anyway. They would not have thought about the timing in relation to automated share sells at all because it’s a non issue.
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