Unity, the company behind the Unity game engine that had caused controversy recently with its pricing change, has announced John Riccitiello will be retiring from his current role of President, CEO, Chairman and member of the Board Of Directors.
Unity has appointed James M. Whitehurst as Interim CEO and President, and is now a member of the Board with Roelof Botha, Lead Independent Director of the Unity Board as Chairman.
Unity’s pricing changed caught game developers off-guard and was egregiously greedy and short-sighted. The Unity Runtime Fee charges developers per unique install, and so many edge cases not covered well enough in the announcement that it led to more confusion and anger. In particular, games that had sign deals to be in game subscription services like Game Pass.
It was a mess, and having Riccitiello be no longer part of Unity is unlikely going to regain the loss in trust from its developers again.
Source: Business Wire