Unity Backpedals on Its Horrible Plan for Game Install Fees Amid Developer Backlash::Unity CEO John Riccitiello reportedly sold thousands of shares of stock in the weeks ahead of the fee announcement.
They did not actually “backpedal” just yet.
We apologize for the confusion and angst the runtime fee policy we announced on Tuesday caused. We are listening, talking to our team members, community, customers, and partners, and will be making changes to the policy. We will share an update in a couple of days.
This is a nonpology making no promises whatsoever.
Yeah lol “Publicy traded company releases vague PR message to appease investors” is the headline
I don’t think investors are idiots. They will look at whether the development community will accept whatever those changes end up being, or see whether Unity will just quietly let this thing die and pretend it never happened.
It’s harder to be stupid when it’s your money on the line.
They aren’t, this PR message will do very little, but it’s still better than “going dark” after their announcements for now
Yup, this is a stop gap to give them time to figure out how much they can still get away with.
The absolutely are, because it’s not a binary “try it and see if it works” change. This is a one-time, irreversible loss of brand trust from game developers who have a lot at stake, and a TON of options. There are no take backsies on stuff like this. Choosing a game engine for your game is a big decision, often researched and backed by some form of business team who are never gonna swing for a company with a track record of pulling out the financial rug from their customers. They will loose billions, if not outright kill their company by even suggesting this sort of thing with a straight face.
I’m confused by what you’re trying to do with this comment. What does “the[y] absolutely are” refer to?
In this case the “they” is referring to Unity. The value of Brand trust is one of the primary assets any company has, and this sort of behavior destroys that. Why would you invest tens millions of dollars in developing a game in an engine that could suddenly bankrupt a company in licensing fees, with little to no warning or transparency? It isn’t 2010 any more, and there are plenty of options for platforms.
Step 1: Propose an incredibly stupid, greedy, unpopular move that gets everyone pissed off.
Step 2: Announce a change of plans due to the feedback, and implement your original less stupid, greedy, unpopular move.
Step 2 is sell/short stock not revert idiotic changes
That’s step 0. They’ve already done it.
I don’t know whether you care about the specifics, but just in case you do…
Selling stock you own before a price drop isn’t selling short. Insider trading yes, but not selling short.
Selling short requires you borrow stock you don’t own and then sell it, with a promise to purchase it later. If you know a price drop is coming, then you make money on the fact that you’ve sold it at a higher price than you need to pay to purchase it.
The comment I was replying to said “sell/short”, either being strategies to protect yourself when you’ve got insider info that your company is about to hemorrhage money.
This was my theory too.
CEO should not be compensated in shares because they have insider information and can benefit from manipulation. It has always been a recipe for disaster.
Equity is good. It encourages people to give a shit as to whether a product is launched or not and so forth.
The issue is more that we have this convoluted scheme to let people cash out their shares throughout their time with the company because it makes 'total compensation" higher
Personally? I would have almost no issues if it were just put into an escrow account and treated more like a retirement/severance package. Working at InterTrode? Those shares are untouchable. Leave InterTrode? YOLO.
I always thought there should be a minimum hold time. Somewhere between 1-5 years after they leave their position.
It encourages them to think long term instead of just the next quarter, and they really have to leave the company in a better place than they found it.
I fully agree with you and that sounds like a great idea. It sent me down a chain of thought that I find interesting. Say we implement this, CEO A does their job, but shortly before their time is up, they discover something awful. They are about to leave, so they want the next 1-5 years to be rosy, so they do some extremely unethical bullshit to ensure that and hide the problem just long enough for the next guy to take the fall. CEO B, who took over when A left, figures out the awful thing, but it’s been long enough that they kind of have no choice but to continue the unethical bullshit, to ensure their compensation when they leave. And so on with CEO C and D. That’s a feasible possibility to me and I also just realized they probably do that now, just on a shorter timescale. All in all I’d say the long term shit is probably better on the whole. Ooooor we could do something besides give one schmuck executive feudal authority over a bunch of people’s livelihoods. Maybe like some kind of democratic system.
All it does is encourages stock buybacks. Too many CEOs are trash at running companies.
I feel like no executive should be able to exercise their stock options while they still work at the company.
If I were a developer, the fact that Unity seriously considered doing this means I would stop using it as soon as possible. Even if they reverted it now, they can’t be trusted to not try something similarly shitty later.
Godot is open source, hope this news boost its development
Their development fund apparently doubled and every developer realizes the value of open source tooling now. I’d think it’s going to get plenty of attention, both in terms of development and contributions to the wider ecosystem.
Even if they actually backpedaled, I don’t care! They’ve already shown what they’re willing to try to get away with. Even if they didn’t succeed, it says a lot about where their head is, and I can’t trust a company like that.
Good to see businesses still backpedaling.
It’s getting frightening that companies are basically at the point of “We plan to take all your money and there’s nothing you can do about it, bitch.”
Fuck you unity. I wanna see this kill your whole platform.
I keep seeing this thing about the CEO selling shares. It was an automatic sell that was preplanned way in advance. That’s what the rule 10b-5 trading plan means in the disclosures.
I don’t see how this is a defense. If it’s scheduled, he knows it’s happening. He could have just delayed the announcement until the day after his shares were scheduled to sell, and the intention is the same. Having a schedule doesn’t exempt you from insider trading, it’s a procedure that needs to be followed.
On the other hand, the better defense here is that he’s a multi millionaire or billionaire, and he sold like $80k worth of shares. If he was really intending to dump, he’d be selling like 100x this amount.
Ethics are not the law
They know what was likely to happen and they knew when the sell was scheduled for. Tinfoil, but I assume the plan was for people to be disgruntled and devalue it enough for a buyout rather than result in half of game dev going scorched earth and significant parts of the company quitting.
It was a cancellable automatic sell. Which means it’s just a way to make insider trading legal. Everything is legal if you’re rich.
Too late, on my way to Godot, lesson 3, bye-bye suckas.
