Unity is probably going to do layoffs / Though the company reported Q3 earnings within expectations, the company says it will ‘likely’ implement layoffs and other measures to improve ‘profitability metrics.’ https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/9/23954709/unity-layoffs-q3-earnings-runtime-program Gaming companies seem to be getting hit hang in there..
How long until meta acquires them?
With Meta de-emphasizing Metaverse, not likely
They haven’t completely deempasized. My bet is either them or Apple or Google will go for them eventually.
MS might acquire them.. layoffs won’t be surprising
The CFO said layoff and offices closure will be announced in the next weeks/months. So it is for sure that there is another layoff.
It is crazy how much money they burn and how messed up their balance sheet is. It is even crazier because they actually have good products both on the creative side with the engine and Weta as well as on the advertising side with IronSource. The previous ceo was cancer though - payed himself 46M in the last 3 years.
The management is cancerous
They took a lot of debt with iron source merger right. They merged with iron source at a valuation of 4.4 bill, the combined company now are worth only 9 bill.
It’s not a problem for burning money for tech companies but not at the current economy though, or not at a comparable rate of constantly dropping growth. Unity is one of the two main players in gaming and dominant in XR tools, but it is hard to monetize. Everyone is using it for free and it’s losing position in bargain both with developers and partners. It is an awkward business position as it depends on all platforms( it owns nothing itself) , no ecosystem itself build but only a strong community of free users. It integrates vulkan, OpenGL, Linux, windows and makes its Unity API but under the hood, it owns none of those tech. But it is a very lucrative acquisition target as games power lots of things in the tech industry. Windows get popular for games, new hardware front is pushed for games before AI, VR user acquisition again will depend on games. With a strong free developer base, these could be great value to some of the players like meta.
Selling developer tools is a very low margin business. Billion dollar companies don't care too much unless it grows some other, more important product. Microsoft has Visual Studio to drive its other products like Azure, Sql Server, etc. Unity has an issue because it has paradoxically good integration with Visual Studio and others, which makes acquiring them unnecessary. All the big players take money from these developers anyway when they sell on their platforms or respective app stores - - which is a much higher margin business
Agree. That’s why Unity need to get good partnership with its developers or it will lose its community support. It need to do it by educating its partners for a win-win mindset rather than I’m using it for free and don’t dare to charge me or I’ll leave mindset
Overdue.
Here we are, end of Unity.
What happened?
Wouldn't be surprised. Them changing their pricing structure was a move of desperation which will only alienate their customer base in the long term. Short term gain for long term destruction
It was such a stupid move, not only is it greedy, it was also so poorly worded many people were concerned if they would not owe money for a game they had developed previously
They literally send their users to Unreal engine which is always my #1 preference.