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John Riccitiello, the CEO of Unity Technologies, famous for their cross-platform game engine, Unity has resigned from his post. He also stepped down from his role as a member of the company's board of directors and resigned as the chairman of the company as well. Former IBM President, James Whitehurst will take over as Unity's interim CEO.
John Riccitiello's resignation did not come as a surprise as calls for the same were made prominent in September. This came after Unity was set to change its pricing model to introduce a runtime fee for game developers every time users download a title after their game hit a certain amount of installations and revenue.
John Riccitiello steps down from Unity
On October 9, Unity put out a press release, confirming the news of John Riccitiello stepping down from his current duties in the company.
"John Riccitiello will retire as President, Chief Executive Officer, Chairman and a member of the Company’s Board of Directors, effective immediately. James M. Whitehurst has been appointed Interim Chief Executive Officer, President and a member of the Board," the press release read.
The note revealed that John Riccitiello would still continue to advise the company to ensure a smooth transition amid this drastic change. Unity also stated that they would be making use of the services of "a leading executive search firm" in order to trigger a comprehensive search for a permanent CEO. The company quoted John Riccitiello, who said:
"It’s been a privilege to lead Unity for nearly a decade and serve our employees, customers, developers and partners, all of whom have been instrumental to the Company’s growth."
He added:
"I look forward to supporting Unity through this transition and following the Company’s future success."
Although the company did not state why John Riccitiello was stepping down, his involvement in the pricing scheme debacle had been the talk of the town since last month. The universally panned pricing changes introduced by Unity in September, under John Riccitiello, had made him a target for game developers worldwide.
John Riccitiello did not have a great reputation with gamers and game developers as the former Electronic Arts CEO was well-known for his aggressive pricing strategies. When asked about pushback from certain developers against early implementation of monetization in a 2022 Pocket Gamer interview, John replied:
"They’re (developers) the most beautiful and pure, brilliant people. They’re also some of the biggest f**king idiots."
Unity's runtime fee debacle led to massive backlash
On September 12, Unity introduced a plan for a drastic change to its fee structure. The change, which was all set to come into effect in 2024, introduced a runtime fee that was based on game installations. Game developers using Unity to develop their games had to pay a certain amount of money for each game installation, after reaching a particular number of downloads and revenue.
The runtime fee was altered according to developed and developing regions, and according to the version of Unity and their assets being used by the game developer. These changes were retroactive, meaning they affected projects in development and those that were already released.
Here's a table of the pricing changes that were to take place:
This move triggered massive backlash from game developers who stated that they were "blindsided" by the move. Individuals were outraged by the new pricing model and claimed that it could drastically affect many small developers. A coalition of game developers, including Azur games, Voodoo, Geisha Tokyo, and more wrote a collective letter to unity, expressing that they were against the changes.
"While we’ve always viewed our work as a collaborative effort, this decision blindsided us. With one stroke of the pen, you’ve put hundreds of studios at risk, all without consultation or dialogue," the letter read.
They added:
"To put it in relatable terms—what if automakers suddenly decided to charge us for every mile driven on the car that you bought a year ago? The impact on consumers and the industry at large would be seismic."
The collective proclaimed that they would be turning off IronSource and Unity Ads monetization across their projects until the company reconsidered this change. They encouraged everyone with a similar opinion to do the same and said that the new pricing model was an "unacceptable shift" in their partnership with Unity.
Unity immediately backtracked on the decision a few days after the changes were announced and added an editor's note to their press release about the pricing changes as they stated:
"We have heard you. We apologize for the confusion and angst the runtime fee policy we announced on Tuesday caused. We are listening, talking to our team members, community, customers, and partners, and will be making changes to the policy."
Unity released an open letter on September 22, making changes to its initial proposition. Now, games that were subjected to the new runtime fee were given a choice of a flat 2.5% revenue share if they chose to not abide by the new engagement-based pricing model. They also announced that games built on Unity Personal would no longer have to use the Made with Unity splash screen.
