At Amazon it’s a certainty, at Unity it’s “likely,” but even with the conditional mode, there will certainly be more layoffs.
Six months ago, Unity laid off 600 people and closed half of its international offices. Despite this, the latest quarterly report says that Unity is still losing money, so there will be more layoffs, while in the third quarter the company made 69% more revenue than a year earlier. Still, at least 200 people were laid off in June of last year, nearly 300 in January of this year, and in September, Unity was hit by the runtime fee scandal. The affair became so embarrassing that John Riccitiello (who used to run Electronic Arts and called developers “fu__ing idiots” for not thinking enough about monetizing their games…) was forced to leave.
According to Unity, the announcement of the cost (originally it was going to be per install) has not affected the business results and may even bring higher profits in the long run, but ultimately the impact on the company is still uncertain. Interim CEO James M. Whitehurst also doesn’t like the current state of Unity and wants it to be “more agile and leaner. We all know what that means.
In a message to Unity shareholders, Whitehurst said, “We are doing too much right now, we are not capturing the synergies that exist across our across our portfolio, and we are not operating at our full potential. We intend to opportunities to emerge as a leaner, more agile and faster growing company. growing company. We will share details as plans are finalized over the next months. In the fourth quarter, we underwent a CEO transition and began a comprehensive comprehensive assessment of our product portfolio to focus on the offerings that are most offerings that are most valuable to our customers, which are the core aspects of our and grow our solutions. This assessment will likely result in decisions to discontinue certain offerings, reduce our headcount and reduce our office footprint. While it is painful in the sense that we will have fewer people, I think people will hear the I think the people who will hear this will be very inspired by the mission. And what we’re going to be doing is kind of all around our mission and our values. And you get engaged as you see success and [profitability] and growth. I feel very, very good that as we come out of this phase, people are going to be both inspired and inspired by what we’re doing and proud of the success that we’re able to generate.”
Aftermath reports that 180 people are being laid off from Amazon’s video game division, and there have already been layoffs this year, with 100 employees laid off in April. The Crown Twitch channel will be shut down, and the games growth team will also be gone as the company refocuses on Prime Gaming.
Amazon Games VP Christoph Hartmann said in an email to employees, “We’ve listened to our customers and know that delivering free games every month is what they want most, so we’re refining our Prime benefit to increase our focus there. With these changes to our business approach comes changes to our staffing, resulting in the elimination of just over 180 positions. I know this is difficult news and that the impact will be felt far and wide. It never feels good to say goodbye to colleagues. This isn’t a decision the leadership team came to quickly; it’s the result of extensive thought and road mapping for our future. We are proud of the work the teams have done, pushing into new areas with weekly content on Crown Channel and finding more ways to help publishers reach new audiences with Game Growth. But after further evaluation of our businesses, it became clear that we needed to focus our resources and efforts on delivering great games to players now and in the future.
This isn’t a one-off. Xbox Game Studios, Epic Games, Sony Interactive Entertainment, CD Projekt, Unity, Ubisoft, Riot Games, Blizzard, Crystal Dynamics, BioWare, Striking Distance, Team17, Frontier Developments, Telltale Games, and Digital Extremes have all experienced layoffs…
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