Unity's new CEO is netting an $850,000 base salary and a $2 million signing-on bonus just for joining the company, it has been revealed.
  • Poutinetown@lemmy.caEnglish
    1930·
    2 months ago

    “wow, laying off so many people when he’s getting 2M in salary”

    Look I also think 2m as ludicrous as a bonus considering he hasn’t done anything yet. But that’s like the salary of 5 senior engineers in SF (where Unity is HQ’d).

    Laying off 1800 sounds harsh and will hurt a lot of people, but the reality is that they are losing 100s of millions per quarter and the only options they have are: hiking fees (what the previous CEO tried) to increase or aggressively firing people to lower operating expenses; status quo would just resulted in unity running out of money and going bankrupt, meaning the choices of engine will be Unreal and Godot. As much as I wished the latter would be more utilized, the reality is that most existing indie games rely on unity, them going bankrupt would have massive repercussions on the gaming community.

    So the CEO. I think most fail to realize his job isn’t to push a button saying “layoff 25% of the workforce” and get his paycheck. He decides which teams to kill, which offices to blow up, how many can be sacrificed without shit hitting the fan, then make sure post firing that the company will keep running. Cause as much as reddit/Lemmy like to trash on unity, they tend to forget that unity is not just an engine, but provides a lot of the services for running a game (updates, maintenance, multiplayer servers, in game transactions), them shutting down would mean many games would just go down with them.

    • nahuse@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      282·
      2 months ago

      Then by the logic of modern capitalism, doesn’t Unity (and thus, modern gaming) need a hard reboot? It sounds like there is t enough competition in the market, and one company has become “too big to fail” without massive repercussions.

      Alternatively, you mention another engine. I don’t know shit about the nuts and bolts of gaming: but if another engine exists, then it should take up space. And if Unity fails, then other games should have a stake in making sure they hire the right talent to keep their games going. Or they risk going under themselves.

      • DasGurke@feddit.deEnglish
        12·
        2 months ago

        Both things are happening to a certain degree:

        • An Open Source Engine called “Godot” is gaining traction. But games are multi year projects and the cost of switching is an immense investment of time.

        • So the clients / users of Godot are stuck in a really awkward position: If they switch and Unity somehow recovers and regains trust they made the wrong choice. And if they stay and Unity changes the rules (again) or goes down they also made the wrong choice.