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John Riccitiello is stepping down as CEO and president of Unity (investors.unity.com)
submitted 2 years ago* by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Unity (NYSE: U) (the “Company”), the world’s leading platform for creating and growing real-time 3D (RT3D) content, today announced that John Riccitiello will retire as President, Chief Executive Officer, Chairman and a member of the Company’s Board of Directors, effective immediately. James M. Whitehurst has been appointed Interim Chief Executive Officer, President and a member of the Board. Roelof Botha, Lead Independent Director of the Unity Board, has been appointed Chairman. Mr. Riccitiello will continue to advise Unity to ensure a smooth transition.

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[–] 40 points 2 years ago (10 children)

On the flip side, no dev worth their salt was going to trust Unity with him still as CEO.

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  • [–] 53 points 2 years ago (9 children)

    No dev worth their salt is going to trust Unity period. When someone tells you who they are, believe them. Investing in FOSS has never failed me, and Godot is growing exponentially as a result of Unity’s actions.

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  • [–] 34 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (6 children)

    The craziest thing to me about this whole situation is how Unity even came into being.

    I was in school learning Unreal back when it was an absolute trash fire - pre “UDK” days when Epic was splitting their time between working on their engine and making the next Gears of War game.

    Unity was this breath of fresh air that made it so the interface made sense. No more “clicking the 3rd green checkmark” to import your skeletal mesh that you generated from your $2,000 software from Autodesk with a plugin that barely works made by desperate people in forums…

    Unity's main initial release (version 2.5)...

    initial release

    ...was not only BEAUTIFUL by comparison to the "Unreal Editor..."

    "Unreal Editor"

    ...software from around that time, but it worked with interchangeable file formats and eventually native program files like PSDs.

    They are the main reason that Epic got scared, lowered their stupidly high price of ~$1,000,000 to license their game engine, and started really redoing the whole UX to the point that it actually wasn’t cryptic arcane magic but on par with and sometimes even above what Unity offered… and they helped make the entire indie game industry able to hire folks with skills in an engine that wouldn’t break the bank and that everyone could carry over.

    It used to not be like that. I worked at a studio with 20 guys and they had their own engine… and the original engine programmers were all gone. It was like trying to do maintenance on a commercial jet liner while flying it and never having been given a manual but just a few guys with second-hand knowledge.

    It’s so goddamn maddening to see them completely destroy themselves like this. It’s some Star Wars prequel “you were the chosen one” type meme shit.

    I’m happy that Godot was there to fill the gap, because I hate to think what would happen were Unreal not to have any competition with the 3rd party engine market again… but Unity… man… it never was “as good” as Unreal visually, but it had gotten to a point where it was “close enough” that everyone used it.

    Now though? I can’t ever see any studio wanting to risk using it again at the chance they get greedy again and try to rug pull small dev houses.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    It’s some Star Wars prequel “you were the chosen one” type meme shit.

    great post man, that quote had me laughing.. this whole saga is really high on the scale of legendary ego blindness or something..

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Seems to always go back to that one Dark Knight quote...

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    The craziest thing to me about this whole situation is how Unity even came into being.

    Ok, how?

    Are you saying it's "crazy" that something was created to fill the massive hole in the market that you described, or...?

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago

    Yeah... it's crazy because it was created specifically as a way to take advantage of how completely arrogant Epic was licensing their trash fire game engine for $1,000,000... and now they did something in the exact same sort of vein of arrogance.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    We're using godot at the university this semester

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago

    Exactly. The biggest hurdle to getting new FOSS off the ground is adoption. It’s really hard to gain inertia when the vast majority of users refuse to switch. When they already know how to use the closed-source version, they’ll be resistant to change. Even if the closed-source version is less user friendly and more annoying to use, people will still continue to use it because they don’t want to start learning something new. Unity did Godot a massive favor, by scaring all of their users away and leading them straight into Godot’s open arms.

    It would be like if Microsoft did something stupid enough to cause 50% of Windows users to switch to Linux overnight. Even if Microsoft later rolled those changes back, a lot of users have already installed (and started to learn) Linux, and aren’t going to go through the trouble of switching back again. And by that point Linux will have an established user base and will be able to maintain and grow that population much easier.

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