John Riccitiello has ALWAYS been a scumbag - History of the Unity CEO
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- Опубликовано: 16 сен 2023
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• EA CEO John Riccitiell...
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• Why Car Companies Stil...
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www.pocketgamer.biz/interview...
www.theverge.com/2022/7/18/23...
unity.com/pricing-updates
9to5mac.com/2022/10/27/apple-...
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www.eurogamer.net/dead-space-...
www.eurogamer.net/unity-close...
Twitter: / swallowfire
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This is what happens when a CEO invests more skill points into Greed than Intellect.
Lol good one! I thought 'cunning' but greed is funnier.
There obsession with wealth has blinded them to any degree of rational thinking.
The CEO has blatantly insulted game devs and expects them to be okay with it.
I don't think that scumbag gives a sh*t...
And then he gives a non-apology by saying it was out of context. He is an actual sociopath.
He understands that most people are weak self hating cowards who are entertainment addicts and grateful sycophants with no professional confidence. That wouldn't be bad because its evident, but he weaponizes this understanding to make money from them. The dark occultists all believe in this dynamic.
Right after laying off 600 employees
His goal is clearly to drive profit, cut cost and drive the share prices up. Most hired CEOs dont gives a shit about the company and people.
Its insanity that they hired him, he hasnt got a past history of a person who performs and makes money, he has a history of completely screwing up, saying the quiet part out loud and alienating customers.
These people aren’t ‘hired’, they’re ‘appointed’.
Keep in mind that thing was already inside unity for years, just didn’t have the power of an ceo yet to fuck things up
The man is a genuine bona-fide sociopath. We know there's a high incidence of sociopaths in CEO roles, but they usually try to do a better job of covering it up and pretending to be normal. He has all the flags.
Yup … he is… and america is the land where these a-holes flourish in board rooms
Imo he’s more of a psychopath.
@@lizardwithinternet1314 i keep wondering… but he just has the low impulse control, not the explosive violence. but maybe u t right
He did not grow the company to $196, the tech boom during covid did. Didnt matter what the stock was.
In my video game programming formation in 2012, we learnt about John Riccitiello, he was a meme we would make fun of, a super vilain asshole in the industry. He was everything any passionnated game dev is against. This was 11 years ago, thought in college by teacher who came from the gaming industry in Montreal.
and this is why you guys never learn. You think this shitstorm has something to do with someone being a villain or asshole when in reality it's just how the system works. I hope you don't make the mistake of going to UE next...
This guy needs to step down and never take any type of management position ever again.
He should be in jail…
Indeed, my dude. The only thing he ever gives a shit about is his own personal wealth.
It's funny how often I see people like that making so much more fucking money than me.
Oh and of course they're in charge of a bunch of stuff, they can't solve a paperclip but they can sure as hell be in charge...
@@kamikeserpentail3778look at Blackrock CEO's face. Being CEO might means behave like shit
Good news guys
the crazy part is, that if Unity just came out and said "hey we want 5% royalty" they would have not only made more money, they also would not have this problem
Hilarious and accurate.
AND people would have understood their dilemma! Sympathized with them, probably.
THAT kind of plan is actionable and you can put it into your planning and budgeting.
keywords: planning & budgeting without nasty surprises!!! @@foldupgames
The majority of people on this train aren't devs and don't even know what they're complaining about. A week from now most of the people crying will have completely forgotten about what happened and will have found something new to cry about.
@@TryingPositiveNormally that is true, because these kinds of companies screw their consumers all the times. But this time, Unity is also screwing other companies, which might turn out differently.
Imagine Unity themselves messing with the numbers, because you just have to take their word for it as their analytics are entirely closed source and maintained on their end, they have a license to bill you as much as they feel like it. It's insane
"Trust us"
Sure we lied about the TOS, but what are the odds we'll do it again? 😈
What bogs my mind is how anyone with his crapsheet will just bail ship and will be able to find new ventures to bring down, enriching himself and the board in the process. Next time I hope workers unify against their board and just insta-leave when such horrid decisions are forced upon them.
Unfortunately, we know precisely what he's capable of as we've seen it when he was with EA.
This is why I always, always try to work with MIT licensed frameworks with mature and active communities.
It's normal to have to choose to put all your eggs in some frameworks basket. You need to assess the risks of doing that. If you're going to choose a company providing that to you on a proprietary basis, that's another level of trust, and it almost never ends well. Remember Adobe Flash?
For me, Unity would have to completely reverse its monetization sceme AND fire Riccitello.
The only thing that can give any remote hope for the product's future is the resignation of the president and the board, and making the source code open-source. The company has self-destructed; what remains now is to try to protect and revive its legacy. If they do this and the product survives, they might try to restructure into a new, leaner company, focused on services (or perhaps limited to selling the editor).
I very much doubt it. People have had enough in this day and age. If the trust is broken I believe it's over. 🍎
Wtf will making it open source do?
well said
@yasho9008
Community driven development. If something sketchy happens, all it takes is someone forking it
@@Demopans5990 bruh the moment they make it open source monetization goes down hill which is crucial for companies like unity and unreal, they excel in particular fields and if they upload the code ppl can easily clone the stuff and it'll no longer be unique
Let's just say that as a student, who had used Unity for a barely updated portfolio. I'm likely inclined to bleach my entire archive/portfolio of (almost) every Unity Game I've made so far, that's available/playable online.
Well that's a you problem not the engine's
@@yasho9008 if everyone dumps the engine then i'm pretty sure that's the engine's problem lmao
@@BlueBohemianPictures the engine itself isn't the engine is great and I am saying it from experience, that's why ppl are outraged from the price changing
@@BlueBohemianPictures and most games made from ppl which ppl call shitty are mobile games which idiotic companies upload in the play which is basically a template you can basically see every 2nd game that's similar, so basically it's a skill issue unity is the best in cross platform games
And the moment gamers get into this stuff they just see the logo and go hey it's shit Caz they don't know their shit
Was learning Unreal. Needed much motivation to continue. Thus this is it. Also I am so tired of corporations using the consumers and devs to displays their dominance over us. It should be the other way around. With out the content creators nor the consumers corporations/investers/walstreet/Scum bags have nothing.
Epic is no different from any company. I don't like Unity but lack of decent competition kills the consumer, if Unity is done for than Epic can run wild with their policy.
@@IAMNOTRANA godot and gamemaker exist, unreal isn't the only engine
Quality videos, I always look forward to these.
I've worked 7 years with Unity released a game called Astralojia Season 1 on Xbox. I blame myself to be honest for not seeing the writing on the wall sooner. 😢 Gonna be changing engines but locked into this one for a while.
I'm working on a game, been so for a while. During this time Unity has adjusted its pricing scheme multiple times. Always becoming more restrictive and more expensive. This runtime fee seems like a way to get a profit share without actually stating that. I wonder if there is some legal reason as to why they cannot or if its just that they want to have a tiered approach to profit share without actually stating so.
I likely won't use Unity for my next project, if I am lucky enough to have one that is. I started programming on EA games and so I don't feel like there is a technical barrier to switching to something like Unreal. However, there is another game engine that the Bravely Default developers were trying to push to market a few years ago. it has C# support etc, cannot recall that name
Godot?
It's another indie-friendly game engine. Humble has a bundle of training materials on right now. Convinient timing hahaha
Stride?
Unreal
The first time I saw this was in a game called dragon nest. You would fight through like 45 minutes worth of junk mobs to get to the boss fight which was balanced such that you would likely lose but just barely. When you died it would pop up with a, for 50 cents you can get a rez. Now if you paid the 50 cents you got the reward for the boss and everything you had earned. If you did not pay the 50 cents you lost an hour of your time.
As Sims fan, I have to note that Sims 4, which was released after this guy left EA, is even worse when it comes to DLCs. Take Horse Ranch, their latest expansion pack (which in Sims language, is supposed to be the DLC with most game changing content) and compare it with Sims 3 Pets EP. Even if you only take horse things out of Pets and ignore cats and dogs, you'll still find way more stuff than what Horse Ranch has. And this theme is all around Sims 4, that their DLCs usually has less stuff than comparable Sims 3 DLC. However, Sims 3 had something Sims 4 didn't try, yet: Sims 3 Store. In that, you buy things, usually decorative, but there are some gameplay changing things and worlds (which, usually, also came with gameplay items you can't get separately) for SimPoints, which you need to buy with real money. And the pricing was not low, mind you. That's Riccitiello in his finest!
Interesting note: Unity execs sold millions in shares before this news.
Not interesting* typical move.
Yes! I read about that. There's just so much shady stuff I couldn't fit it all in the script.
Glad this video blew up Alex. @@Swallowfire
And now he's stepping down
Now they've put out an apology but it feels more like "sorry I've been caught, please continue paying me" than "sorry for being an asshole, I'll do better in the future". They had tons of internal controversy, the time to back down was then if they cared about the criticism. They didn't care about the criticism, so they went ahead and published. The only reason they changed their tune is because it's losing them business.
Imagine being TOO GREEDY FOR EA
It's painful, because of the work me and my team put in too our first game. We are specialized in unity and we also signed a ToS of 2021 where the instal fee doesn't existed!
Eh - never trust "free" from a proprietary company. There's always a price, even if it isn't an upfront cost... In this case, people got locked into Unity, now they need to pay for it.
I don’t think we should be discussing JR rather the people that keep bringing him into their companies, despite his obvious business failings and sociopathy.
Public companies find this sort of intestinal-fluke difficult to resist. They have shareholders now, and those shareholders could be - anyone. Like Blackrock. Blackrock's board don't play Unity games; their casino is Wall Street itself.
They get a plurality stake, then get their boys onto the Board. Boys like Don Giovanni Riccitiello here, also rich enough by now to buy a lot of shares.
So I guess I'm agreeing with you.
PREACH! I SEE A CLASS ACTION SUITE COMING 😢😢
I'm learning unreal as quickly as possible. I was content being dedicated to Unity but now I'm seeing so many Unreal benefits, faster code language, versatile, AAA Studio career opportunity access and a new challenge.
Unity says that if you make a successful game you owe them money. And games that are already successful will owe them money, meaning games devs have to d-list their games or pay a fine that they never agreed with when they first made the game.
They also said that they have a way of determining how many installs a game gets, meaning they'll either bullshit the numbers or they're going to put in something into to the engine to monitor people's installs.
At this point any developer who used Unity to make a game doesn't actually own it anymore.
And you still have to pay the per seat fee even if you're not successful.
Once you realize why exactly the guy is a scumbag, many other coincidences will fall into place.
The CEO is the boss, he is 100% responsible for the actions of the people under him.
Hear, hear!
Facts over and over, thank you so much!
I don't get how this people are hired again and again. They are a becoming a real Problem, not only in the Software industry . Had a " boss" like this for around a year. Strange changes and "small dick behaviour" let to him leaving in disgrace, but the company was in a bad place after that for a long time.
Think of the Google Play Family Library: 6 people install the game which only one family member paid for but the devs has to pay install fees for all of them.
We, as a community, need to take ACTION. Either make sure CEO steps down and Unity come back with their payments system, or we simply move to another engine.
Either support a OpenSource one to bring it to the level of Blender like quality or go with Epic's Unreal.
But something has to be done, let's organize!
This is market manipulation. This is not about Unity.
Beat Saber "used" to run on Unity? Did they switch tech?
My mistake. It still uses Unity, but a significantly more up to date version.
The CEO and his protege sold their Unity stock right before this became news.
As a (former) Unity Developer, I have completely lost all trust in the engine and am now learning Godot. This new Runtime Fee is overall jsut shitty and many people, including myself, have completely lost trust in the company and are now looking for alternative engines that won't repeat the same mistake. I personally find it sad to see this scummy CEO drive my (former) favorite game engine into the ground like this.
Once Unity dies, the executives will just fail upwards. And destroy something else, like a parasite. No accountability.
@@Lord_Thunderballs Thing is, Godot is open source meaning anyone can modify it.
If the CEO still cannot imagine how this could have played out better--while his staff roll back some of HIS egregious changes--why is he still there?
Precisely. It’s a well considered point of attack.
I think this guy killed westwood and other multiple acquisitions under EA
I am learning Unity because my game design school decided to make students use it for their projets years before this drama.. but now, i am a little lost, should i continue learning Unity to create the projects needed to validate my year and have my diplome, or throw Unity away and learn Unreal which IS So much better?
Excellent research nobody else did so far.
_pray they don't alter it further_
🇨🇦 You should read the comments more. Because he is just one cog in the digital-dystopia & capitalist tyranny.
Oh I'm very aware of it. I have nightly bouts of existential dread about all kinds of things. Most recently the increasing severity of typhoons. Watch the Real Science video about them if you want some climate anxiety.
So what exactly is this guys history?
"He was the CEO of Electronic Arts from-"
Say no more, I understand it completely!
When Unity Technologies went public in 2020 the market valued the company at $13.7 billion. This was above expectations and was prompted by the revenue and subscriber numbers which featured heavily in the sales pitch. Fast forward to 2023 and the company is valued at about $14.0 billion. That figure doesn't take into account acquisitions and mergers of over $7 billion since the initial IPO. Do the math. It's a disaster. The user base has expanded yet profits (such as they were) have declined. The share price has been volatile to say the least which isn't too surprising given the CEO's frequent stupid remarks. I would be surprised if the company wasn't looking for a buyer but that may be hard as long as they retain the same CEO. If a sale does go through I'm pretty sure it wont be for anything like $14.0 billion. It will probably depend on the perceived value or to put it another way how the buyer thinks he can increase profits without slashing revenue. He can hardly make it any worse.
ou can trust the people who sold shares in the company right before they decided to exploit developers. At least until the CEO decides he want's a 5th summer home in Italy. Then His Majesty will squeeze the peasant developers for more taxes. It was brazen, naked exploitation.
I just bought Unity assests, already paid to Unity more than thousands through my plus license (4 years), also had team license for about 2 years, and now I am to spend more even though I am still not even made enough to pay what was invested? (my best game has 500k even though its beta and still under development). I am one dev team studio with occasionally using freelancers to help me, so even without fees, I was thinking to breakeven in two years. With this, it risks to never happen.
We, as a community, need to take ACTION. Either make sure CEO steps down and Unity come back with their payments system, or we simply move to another engine.
Either support a OpenSource one to bring it to the level of Blender like quality or go with Epic's Unreal.
Anyone one here played Travis Strikes Again and/or No More Heroes 3? If you have you may remember a character named "Damon Riccitiello", he is very blatantly based on John Riccitiello. This was because Suda51 had his vision ruined by EA when making Shadows of the Damned. Ironically, while most of suda's games since Shadows use Unreal. The remakes of The Silver Case & The 25th Ward use unity.
They thing people are missing when looking at him when they're being blinded by him being rude and cruel and callous is he's PROFITING off of it - he dumped a ton of stock and so did many of his cronies right BEFORE this announcement. He knew exactly what he was doing and he's doing it on purpose.
On the plus side, dumping that stock meant he was in a weaker position when the board fired him and ousted him from the board itself.
Great video!
The difference is moving into a new mansion this year instead 5 years later. It's all a matter of perspective. Long-term business plans? Trust? You don't get it.
They should fire the CEO and get someone else.
Don't forget the farce that was EA Online. $200m down the drain that should have gone to support games. So much great stuff was cancelled because of that.
I don't have much to say about this particular situation but Im a software dev with an education. And the "shortage of developers" is a myth and people like this CEO are to blame. 95% of IT companies are liars and frauds that get away with manipulations like that.
Paid weapon upgrades in Dead Space 3
Gamers: (Rightfully angry)
Paid weapon upgrades in RE 4 remake
Gamers: ITS JUST OPTIONAL!! STOP INSULTING CAPCOM!
Looks like he's gonna win that award a third time
the human turd nozzle known as Riccitello is now gone from Unity but his legacy of hating gamers and almost tanking two of the biggest names in gaming will shine forever.
FFS, I remember when "Starflight" was an Electronic Arts game. EA used to be a gold seal of quality storytelling.
But then, 1986-7 or so, Madonna was still talented and even pro-life
Man, and this is not even touching on what EA did to Spore and other games - the aggressiveness of DRM in EA products while it was under his wing practically lost the company its credibility.
this is like paying for a sandwich and then you have to pay every time you want to take a bite of the sandwich
This has taught me that Game Developers are people you really don't wanna mess with!
Don't start counting chickens yet. This is the outrage & bluster phase. Let's see who's put their money where their mouths are at come January. Stupid and/or crushing monetization didn't kill Twitter or Reddit. I will not be surprised to learn this ends up another tempest in a teapot that everybody just eats, to the further detriment of all mankind. Having principles is hard!
Yeah, no one wants their game to become a trap they will be constantly afraid of stepping into. I really hope that they will come to their senses at Unity very soon and come up with a reasonable model. Although, it's also a common sales tactic that first a company makes a ridiculous offer and when people get angry, they will make a new one that people will accept feeling relieved, because it's less ridiculous than the original one. When the CEO is the way he is, everything is possible. Who at Unity thought he would be a good person to run the company? What did they expect and what did they want to achieve by hiring him?
Yup.. started to port my project as of yesterday. I would'nt pay this fee i think but i dont plan to wait till i start. I dont want to work with psychos.
I have a feeling they have something else in mind planned. There’s NO way they couldn’t have expected this backlash. I don’t believe they are that dumb.
Moving from one closed source engine to another closed engine will have the same outcome.
If you can't fork the engine, it will fork you.
Haha good way to put that. Replace engine with any software or service.
so, do i get it right, that if you distribute your game without the engine, probably in source code, that a user can compile with the runtime coming straight from Unity - will Unity charge themselves? :з
Unity should kick out John Riccitiello
I have a hard time deciding whether to switch to Unreal or Godot. Both engines have their pro and cons. But yeah, not Unity anymore. I don't care what they do next.
Here's some info to help you decide:
Unreal is a famous and old engine and thus has accumulated many tutorials to help developers. I haven't tried it myself, but I've heard that things can be a bit convoluted sometimes. It uses C++ for scripting and supports breathtaking 3D graphics. It also requires some good hardware to run on.
Godot has less tutorials but is very well documented; things might seems hard at first, but it gets much simpler after the initial bump. Its unique node system is very well suited for games and makes it easy to reuse and combine your creations. It has its own language, GDScript, but fear not: the syntax in really simple and the functions are like those of any other language, it is not hard to learn, really. This also allows it to melt with the engine and make things simpler, but you can use C# if you really want to. Godot is the best engine for 2D and a good choice for 3D, albiet not as beautiful as Unreal. Now for the best part: it's 100% FREE! No costs anywhere, you don't need an account or subscription and all that you make is fully yours forever. It has lower hardware requirements than Unreal.
This is a guy who's hired by major shareholders and board members to pump-and-dump stock. I can't imagine any other reason to hire someone like this, with this track record.
Don't forget to look into recent as in last month ventures between Apple's Vision Pro and JR from Unity... They seem to have something coming down the line and this whole ordeal doesn't pass the sniffer test.
this man should be required to pay a dollar for every action he performs.
You're talking to a friend, pay a dollar first. you drink coffee, pay a dollar, you go to take a shit, pay a dollar
You breathe? Pay a dollar
Come on Father Time... Send the Reaper to John early.
Bro is a nft game ceo before it was even mainstream
I started learning Unity 3 weeks ago. I stopped learning it 5 days ago. Not sure what to learn next, but Godot looks promising.
I've never worked with unity. but the fear and distrust passed to all engines. I can't speak for all devs but I fear that others will try to follow this model if Unity is successful. and if they do, I'll be out of business as an independent.
John Riccitiello is so hated that in No More Heroes 3 you fight a parody of him as the final boss in a smash bros style tournament,
Just wondering if all these moves have been carefully planned to make it easier to Apple buy Unity entirely for the sake of their AR/VR headset interests.
You forgot to mention he is the reason why Bullfrog and Westwood studios were closed, two of the most innovative games studios to ever exist
RIP Bullfrog. Theme Hospital was my jam.
@@Swallowfire Bullfrog's death still gives a pain in my chest to this day. I swear, a modern day Magic Carpet / Dungeon Keeper franchise would have been juggernauts. I still have my CD/floppy copies T_T
A close friend of mine played Dungeon Keeper religiously as a child. I don't think any of the modern equivalents really do it justice. Except that Lego Rock Raiders remake that thing is awesome.
Straight from the unity blog : "The fee applies to new installs beginning January 1, 2024"
so devs will not be changed for previous installs.
still sketchy that they want to charge for installs rather than sales though.
I'm Unity user and come here to like the video!
Seriously considering tracking where he goes next so I can make sure to buy stock and watch the news around that company like a HAWK so I can get out before the price takes a nosedive.
Ya know, like him and his friends are probably doing.
no need to watch the news, just sell whenever he sells.
He'd fit right in with Activision! Or maybe even 2K's sports division. Or who knows, EA might want him back! Either way, I'm not buying games from any of them.
If I was a game dev there is absolutely no way I would be releasing anything made with unity after this. I honestly wonder if those who still are releasing unity games are going to get hit with the hate-installs simply for not boycotting unity.. which of course would be wrong.. but not unthinkable
that's kinda funny tho 💀
On point! And let's not forget this is the same guy who wanted to charge a dollar per reload on Battlefield when you are vulnerable. Same toxic mindset, he will not change. Happy to cancel my Unity subscription last week. Good riddance, I'm out!
Not sure if it's in the video, but three words: Dungeon Keeper Mobile.
I'd completely forgotten about that hahaha. I think I blocked it from my memory. Trauma response.
@@Swallowfire Fair enough.
Next time you pay per line of code written on our engine and pay per mili second of gameplay on unityruntime.
Aaaaaaaaand He's gone. :D
I hope devs move to Godot
I think UE is brilliant and probably superior but let's not have a monopoly
You're right about the monopoly. I only found out about Godot from the Humble Bundle on it haha, it looks cool!
there has to be an executive leadership change. the whole current c-suite and board needs to go
His name is $1 Reload Guy, and don't you forget it
We the gaming industry and community need to blacklist this former ea ceo
This whole pay per-install plan is a JOKE!
Not all of his decisions were bad. I'm glad he is gone. but i wonder who will replace him.
It's like they didn't do a background check on the scumbag. I can't imagine a game engine company never having heard of the douchebaggery he was upto during his stint at EA
Yes, he has always been a scumbag. The Unity forum didn't want him criticized, though. No shock there, I guess.