Summary
UnityCEO John Riccitiello is retiring from his role as the head of the company effective immediately. Riccitiello became the Chief Executive Officer of the company in late 2014 and had previously served as a controversial CEO of Electronic Arts from 2007-2014. His retirement fromUnitycomes following the recent controversy over the engine’s pricing.
The controversy started in September and escalated rather quickly. It was revealed thatany game made with the Unity Game Enginethat passed certain installation and revenue thresholds would now be charged a fee every time the game was downloaded, and there was not an option for developers to opt out of it. The pricing structure immediately generated outrage from developers before the company attempted to justify the decision and failed to bring the public to its side. Now, it appears that the controversy may have inspired a corporate shakeup.
RELATED:Rust 2 Won’t Use Unity Engine After Controversial Announcement
On October 9, Unity Technologies revealed that President and CEO John Riccitiello was stepping down from his roles effective immediately but will still advise the company as it searches for a new CEO. An exact reason for Riccitiello’s departure was not given though it is possible that the backlash against the company’s new policy may have had something to do with it. In addition, the formerUnity CEO sold over 2,000 shares of stockhe owned in the company, possibly indicating he knew what was coming in some way.
Following the initial announcement of the changes,hundreds of developers protested Unity’s new pricing structure. Popular messaging service Discord also threw shade at the company, and Unity offices were temporarily shut down due to death threats. Developers would even go on to boycott Unity Ads over the new pricing policies. All of these protests, however, seemed to have worked to some extent.
Less than a month after the initial announcement,Unity changed how its feeswould work following the backlash. Under this new policy, there would no longer be fees for games using previous builds of the engine. In addition, Unity Pro and Enterprise users would only be subjected to fees if their games made over $1 Million in revenue over twelve months and would be self-reported by developers. Currently, it isn’t entirely clear whether any of this had anything to do with Riccitiello’s departure or if the timing was just an unfortunate coincidence. Only time will tell if developers will continue to use the engine following this controversy or if Unity will stick to this new policy after a new CEO is found.
