Standard tactic when making unpopular changes, and a company would really like to keep them. Sacrificial CEO gets replaced, to make it look like things changed.
He should start a game company with Don Mattrick and the ghost of Bernie Stolar. Then everyone will know which games NOT to buy, just like back in the days of Acclaim.
Edit: Actually this guy signed onto Unity in 2014 Unity was still privately held. It went public in September of 2020. Unity's founder, David Helgason is still on their board and served as some sort of Senior Executive whatever position at Unity. Dude still has a 4% share of their stock.
So anyway, probably this David Helgason character who hired him. And/or whoever else (including Riccitiello!?) who was on the board at the time.
The relationship between CEOs and boards of directors is so fucked up and incestuous...
In any case and in retrospect, Johnny boy was 100% hired to cue them for up for the eventual IPO and boy did he ever. It's amazing how fast companies go down hill when they become publicly traded.
He’s been involved in several of the big Unity scandals, yes.
This most recent event wasn’t one thing, it was a culmination of poor decisions. If Unity had been sunshine and rainbows all up until now, then the reaction wouldn’t have been so bad. It was the final nail in the coffin, really.
Since he’s been involved, it’s been fuck up after fuck up.
Off the top of my head there’s failing to prepare for massive changes to the ads they could run on Apple and Google’s platforms and then realising that the money they were making was way less than expected, purchasing a company associated with malware, calling game developers “fucking idiots”, growing the company enormously over lockdown and then realising they’ve pissed all their money away. I don’t really know what a CEO actually does so a lot of that could be just company decisions, but JR definitely seems like a loose cannon who can’t help being wildly unprofessional.
There was also a bunch of sexual harrassment that was swept under the rug. He’s an incredible scumbag and a shitty CEO, which is why the psychopaths that inhabit corporate boards seem to love him
9 years of everyone telling him that forcing the UNITY splash screen on “baby’s first game” was a bad idea and was hurting the engine, because people were assuming all games made in the engine were bad, because good games didn’t show they also used Unity. Now that he is gone this changes.
Also he is a huge fan of the “metaverse” idea: venturebeat.com/…/unity-ceo-john-riccitiello-the-… and I am sure some of Unity’s money went there at a time they could not afford it and with nothing to show for it.
My only argument against your opinion, is that he actually has a trackable history of poor performance as a CEO and a trackable record of very bad monetization schemes. He’s the reason EA is the way it is.
This isn’t the first company he’s ruined the reputation of.
Granted, the board that elected him is still there. That’s an issue that will persist for a while.
My only argument against your opinion, is that he actually has a trackable history of poor performance as a CEO and a trackable record of very bad monetization schemes.
…which could be because he has offered this service to many boards in the past.
Bethesda has put themselves in an awkward spot by promoting niche and deep RPG mechanics for so long, and then becoming such a AAA developer with entire keynotes dedicated to previewing them that they no longer want to risk making deeper complex mechanics because they’re scared of “confusing” the base audience.
I want to say they need to take Starfield as a wakeup call, in comparison to games like BG3. But they don’t need to, because Gamepass numbers are practically imaginary sales numbers, and we’re just going to hear about how well it sold for the next half-decade.
I don’t know how unions work in Poland, but here in Germany you should organize, when there are lay offs in your company.
Unions can bargain better conditions for the lay offs like higher gratuities (is there something like this on the states?) or create a point system, who gets laid off first (based on family status, age, the likelihood of finding another job…).
Theoretically yes but union power has been eroded to the point where most wage slaves think they don't need a union yo bargain, we are all family here 🤡
Man am I tired of being shafted for not having kids, the when it comes to holidays, covering for other staff and things, employees with kids always take priority and employees without don’t have an ‘excuse’. Extending that to layoffs is extremely toxic and punitive to younger workers.
I don’t have kids either, but to me it’s logical, that that this has to be taken to account. I mean, those are people who are dependent on the situation, it’s not like they could do anything on their own. I’m happy, that at least this is something, where humanity comes into play. And again: I don’t have children and I don’t want them in the future.
And like I said, there are also other points, like age, or how long the people are working for the company.
What would be your points, to decide if someone has to be fired? And no, firing no one at all is not an option in this scenario ;)
I’m all for unions, but identifying layoff targets based on these things seems like a sure way for the system to get abused. Single people and people without kids get stuck filling in for people with families already-taking layoffs for them is asking a lot.
Definitely agree on the spirit of your comment though- unionizing is pretty much always a good idea.
If their main concern is layoffs – which it sounds like, at least from the article text, though I don’t know if that’s just the author’s take or not – I doubt that the union is going to have much leverage. CDPR isn’t laying people off for fun; the whole industry is seeing a major decline in investment at the moment.
Video Game VC Funding Slumps as Publishers Battle Covid Hangover
Funding opportunities dry up with game companies cutting jobs
Total peaked when people were still indoors because of Covid
VC groups invested $700.3 million in gaming in the third quarter, the lowest total since the second quarter of 2020, according to data from PitchBook. The industry attracted more than $2 billion in every quarter for two years ending in mid-2022.
The past few weeks have been marked by layoffs and studio closures by game companies. Epic cut 830 jobs, while Sony Group Corp.’s Naughty Dog and Worms maker Team17 have also let go dozens of workers.
The Swedish video-game holding company Embracer Group AB, which bought up dozens of gaming companies starting in 2020, is now canceling games, eliminating jobs and closing studios. The company is looking to sell Borderlands developer Gearbox Entertainment.
Since the beginning of 2023, there has been an abundance of layoffs that have hit the tech and gaming industry like a storm. Disney, Take Two, Unity, Twitter (now ‘X’) and even Microsoft have faced massive layoffs since January, and CD PROJEKT RED is the latest to follow this unfortunate and growing trend.
That’s how employment works. Calling them slaves is ignoring the fact that they have agency and compensation, unlike actual slaves.
No job is permemnent, it would be ridiculous to expect otherwise, but it varies between industries. Gaming is a low-frequency project-based industry, you know there will be lots of work while in development, and once that’s over, there’s not going to be as much work to do.
I believe this sentiment is taken not because of the actuals of the situation, such as waning work and ended employment, but because at the end of the day when everything is done and packed up it seems like the “boots on the ground” made just enough to scrape by, while the ceos/x suites fly away in private jets to jump out and golden parachute to their mansion.
Single employee doesn't have much negotiating power and shit flows down hill.
Shit industry practices are management's poor planning and workers have to take it.
If they got royalty share for their work like pre streaming TV shows staff did, this system would make some sense. Currently worker is getting a shit deal for the "privilege"
If they (the boss) knew the job was temporary, then they (the workers) should have known that going in and had been given proper compensation to make up for the looming layoff with plenty of heads up time to prep for the next job hunt.
The formation of a union tells you that the boss did not share that tidbit with the worker. Thus the problem, as the money keeps rolling in for the fatcat for the next decade, the workers who actually did anything of value are starting from scratch at a new job after losing insurance, healthcare, rent and food money, any chance at a raise, etc etc etc.
How else should it work? Almost any other way, is how. With honesty and respect for the people who actually did anything of value, is how.
I mean, what are their salaries? I genuinely don’t know, one would assume that a specialised job like that would command a pretty solid salary, and the assumption would be that working on a project like this would get them to the top of the list for applications to other companies.
I don’t know how the job was advertised, but seeing how the industry works from the outside, I would never assume a job for life at a game studio, but you could still count on security after working on a project like this.
I work a steady job, it’s hard, and the pay is okay for me, I suspect a game dev will earn several times what I do, part of which is due to the short term, or at least risky nature of the roles, the rest would be down to the specialist skills.
I don’t really think that forming a union signifies that at all, I’d say it’s more likely down to the ongoing working conditions.
Because you can always go and get a warehousing job or similar, it’s steady, but kinda boring and lower pay.
The money may keep rolling in for those who invested the most and took the largest risks. But that’s irrelevant IMO. You take a job for the pay that’s offered, and it lasts as long as it does, how long that is depends on the kind of role.
I’m making assumptions, but I think everyone here is too. But I do particularly resent the ‘slaves’ comment as it is disrespectful of the employees, and diminishes actual slavery which is bigger than ever.
Your first paragraph is so wrong its funny, then hurts, then wraps back around to being funny again.
Game development is pretty infamous for being paid like shit, where management gets you to do it as a passion project or dream job. They likely did not make much more than you do, with almost guaranteed worse hours given how normal crunch time is in the gaming industry.
A lot of game developers abandon game design, even after making massively successful titles that are beloved for decades, because they literally cannot afford to keep the job.
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