Unity has announced the departure of its CEO John Riccitiello, just weeks after the company became mired in controversy…
    • AdmiralShat@programming.devEnglish
      74·
      1 year ago

      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.

  • thingsiplay@kbin.social
    77·
    1 year ago

    He almost destroyed EA. Switched to Unity and almost destroyed Unity. Now what project does he join next?

    • ripcord@kbin.social
      5·
      1 year ago

      Did he do things over the last 10 years at Unity that almost destroyed them, or was it just this one thing?

      • AdmiralShat@programming.devEnglish
        21·
        1 year ago

        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.

          • smeg@feddit.ukEnglish
            18·
            1 year ago

            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.

          • Wirrvogel@feddit.deEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            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: https://venturebeat.com/games/unity-ceo-john-riccitiello-the-metaverse-will-have-millions-of-destinations/ 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.

          • interolivary@beehaw.org
            1·
            1 year ago

            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

      • Pigeon@beehaw.org
        9·
        1 year ago

        I wonder if he’s actually just becoming a career scapegoat, taking the fall + a nice severance package(?) for decisions that were made by groups.

  • ulkesh@beehaw.orgEnglish
    33·
    1 year ago

    Good. Whoever thought he would be a good CEO at Unity should also be fired. Time to clean house and promote people who have a fucking clue.

    • Cylusthevirus@kbin.social
      20·
      1 year ago

      Pretty sure that’s these people, right?

      https://i.imgur.com/hVeDn48.png

      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.

  • jlow (he/him)@beehaw.org
    21·
    1 year ago

    So which company will he destroy next? He devastated EA before he did all this to Unity if I’m not mistaken.

    I hope people will still learn from this and come to Godot and help making it a better game engine __

      • jlow (he/him)@beehaw.org
        2·
        1 year ago

        Haha, o god, no. Bit a guy like him would probably not even for a second think about working for them even of they would give him 100% of the funding they receive now (50k?)

  • QuentinCallaghanA
    14·
    1 year ago

    He heavily endorsed the bad decision made by Unity and his comments really didn’t help the situation so this is a welcome decision. Of course this will likely not change Unity’s direction.

  • Sivick@universeodon.com
    12·
    1 year ago

    @chloyster good, he’s been a plague on the industry. When you see your customers as wallets with legs you are bad for the people and bad for the company.

  • ArugulaZ@kbin.social
    6·
    1 year ago

    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.