Former EA CEO will be replaced in interim by James Whitehurst from IBM/Red Hat.

John Riccitiello, CEO of Unity, the company whose 3D game engine had recently seen backlash from developers over proposed fee structures, will retire as CEO, president, and board chairman at the company, according to a press release issued late on a Monday afternoon, one many observe as a holiday.

    • baldingpudenda@lemmy.worldEnglish
      124·
      2 years ago

      Then 6 months later gets a VP job somewhere else because he “has experience” all the while eyeing another run at CEO.

      • TornadoRex@lemmy.worldEnglish
        92·
        2 years ago

        Nah once they’re CEOs they’re good. They just go sit on various boards making millions for doing relatively nothing.

        • gregorum@lemm.eeEnglish
          46·
          2 years ago

          “I just voted to keep employee pay low. Now I have to go fly my private jet around to justify the cost of owning it. Bye!”

        • baldingpudenda@lemmy.worldEnglish
          101·
          2 years ago

          I thought VPs already didn’t really do anything, but being on the board and meeting 2 or 3 times a year is definitely less.

        • NOT_RICK@lemmy.worldEnglish
          91·
          2 years ago

          They just go sit on various boards making millions

          I am become lizard, sitter of boards

        • WYLD_STALLYNS@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          3·
          2 years ago

          Yup, my uncle was a CEO, and his monthly house payment is more than I make in a year… even combining my significant other’s salary. I do not like this timeline.

    • GBU_28@lemm.eeEnglish
      2·
      2 years ago

      Hmm can he exercise his stock at a lower rate now?

      Then, with the assumption that the company adjusts in the coming years, sell for profit?

    • merc@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      2·
      2 years ago

      I’m not sure if it’s an accident, but the value of $400m is exactly how much private equity firm Silver Lake invested in them in 2017. They were backed by a lot of private equity and VC money before they had an IPO.

      Unity IPO’d 3 years ago in Sept 2020 at $52 per share, they’re now at $30/share, and have been under $50/share since May of 2022. The chairman of the board, Roelof Frederik Botha, is a partner at Sequoia Capital.

      This is a business run by VC / PE people, that’s doing shitty in the market, and was doing badly before this whole license fee event. It’s not going to come to its senses and start behaving well just because the scapegoat CEO is gone. They need to juice their revenue streams to make investors happy, because it’s worth significantly less than it was at the IPO.

      I just hope nobody is saying “Yay, now that the evil CEO is gone, Unity will be good again.” Anybody thinking that is just setting themselves up for whatever the company does next to juice their failing stock price.

    • The Barto@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      691·
      2 years ago

      I swear they treat CEO’s who tank companies like they do priests who molest kids and just send them to another place whenever they get caught.

      • APassenger@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        2 years ago

        If you need someone to implement a greedy, extreme position then “pull back to something reasonable” (still further than original), he’s on the short list.

      • chrishazfun@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        2 years ago

        That’s more at the feet of current leadership at IBM/RH, he resigned in mid 2021. The licensing move could’ve also been made and it just took a while to be official though so who knows.

  • LostMyRedditLogin@lemmy.worldEnglish
    571·
    2 years ago

    They treated a game engine company like a Silicon Valley startup. It’s a limited customer base. It was never going to scale. Dummies.

  • Aceticon@lemmy.worldEnglish
    48·
    2 years ago

    It’s a start.

    Now do the Board who chose an EA CEO with his track record to lead Unity and stood behind this until finally forced by the consequences of his actions to push them out.

    Certainly and after what happenned, merelly pushing out one guy in the nicest, most career protecting way possible, isn’t sufficient to restore my trust in Unity as a platform on top of which to base my business.

  • Chessmasterrex@lemmy.worldEnglish
    361·
    2 years ago

    Too late, I wouldn’t trust Unity from this point on. Spend tons of time and effort only to have it all yanked away. Screw that!

    • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      2 years ago

      We’ll see what happens with Dyson Sphere Program. They’re too far into development to switch engines, and are still in early access with a technically “complete” game already.

  • mycroft@lemmy.worldEnglish
    25·
    2 years ago

    Wow he only had to tank the company before his 50m worth of EA ownership became a problem…

  • cley_faye@lemmy.worldEnglish
    20·
    2 years ago

    Yeah, after burning down something popular, he get off without any repercussions (aside maybe a big bag of cash) and is likely to go find the next successful thing to burn it down, to get another big bag of cash.

    Can we purge these people out once they failed everywhere?

    • knotthatone@lemmy.worldEnglish
      14·
      2 years ago

      He didn’t fail. He did what the board asked of him which proved to be more unpopular than they all had expected. So they gave him an obscenely generous severance package and sent him on his merry way.

      He’s been rewarded and they’re just trying to position it so it looks like the company leadership gives a shit and won’t try the exact same thing at a later date.

  • deaf_fish@lemm.eeEnglish
    15·
    2 years ago

    Out with the old guy and in with the new guy. No change to the incentive structure. I wonder if things will turn out differently this time?

    I hope Unity users will get to continue to use the tool they have spent so many hours learning. I also think the industry should try to make things more CEO proof.