this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023
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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.

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[–] [email protected] 219 points 11 months ago (39 children)

Pisses me off that CEOs never get fired for their bullshit and get to "retire" or "resign" like they didn't just make the most boneheaded decision that severely hurt the company.

There really needs to be some organizational structure where the CEOs have the power to make the decisions they make, but the employees have the power to punish and fire them when they do shit like this. No golden parachutes for them!

[–] [email protected] 125 points 11 months ago (13 children)

This is actually wrong. There's a near 100% chance that the decision was made by the board, and also the decision to remove the CEO. So we're talking about the fall guy, but being an insider, the fall guy will get a tidy sum for the dive

Then the CEO can be recycled to some other project, and a new CEO instated at Unity, so they can pivot or double down with no moral dilemma. In reality, the board was there all along and it's all a big PR game

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Maybe, but I'm betting that the CEO who floated the idea that FPS players would be willing to pay per-reload didn't push back too hard against the board's ideas.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Unity is a public company. Look at their share price:

https://yhoo.it/3ZNqeJJ

The company IPO'd 3 years ago at $52 a share, it tanked in late 2021, and since then has been way below the IPO price. Non-investors only started paying attention in September when they came up with their ludicrous licensing fees. But, for investors what mattered was the way their investment cratered in late 2021 / early 2022.

The investors want returns. This isn't going to be a matter of finding a good CEO who can treat gamers and the gaming industry right. That kind of CEO isn't going to get the investors back to $175 a share. The board is going to demand someone who finds a new way to tap new revenue streams, even if it makes people miserable. This one particular gambit failed, but the board isn't just going to sit back and accept that the IPO price is too high. The chairman of the board is a partner at Sequoia Capital, one of the main pre-IPO investors. My guess is that the VC / Private Equity people didn't manage to cash out completely before the stock price crashed. So, they're going to figure out a way to juice the share price so they can sell, even if it means killing the company in the long term.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

They obviously recruited him for the role for his great work ruining EA

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