Well after their pay-per-download debacle, their latest quarter’s earnings may not be indicative of the shit that is coming down on them. There are dark clouds on the horizon for Unity.
After earning $544 million in its most recent quarter, Unity says even more layoffs are 'likely'
Submitted 1 year ago by DannyMac@lemmy.world to games@lemmy.world
Comments
Red_October@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 1 year ago
The best programmers there probably see the writing on the wall. The best small game dev studios will also.
I think unity is going to see a big quality drop even if it manages to get out of this death spiral.
And I’m still curious if they’ll get targeted by regulators for the anti-competitive shit that started this (the whole thing was intended to strong arm developers into using their ad platform to get an exemption from the new pricing model and put a rival ad platform out of business).
Laxaria@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Exactly. The colossal lost of trust is not easy to regain (if it can ever be regained at all) and that’s will be a specter haunting Unity’s economic performance for the years to come. I’ve seen so much outpouring of support for Godot and other open source / free game engines, and really hope that support continues.
Godnroc@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Oh, it’s dead, but the twitching hasn’t stopped yet.
spudwart@spudwart.com 1 year ago
One more reminder that Godot exists and has been receiving a lot of praise for its intuitive user-friendly ui and design.
slazer2au@lemmy.world 1 year ago
From their quarterly SEC filing.
We are dependent on the success of our customers in the gaming market. Adverse events relating to our customers or their games could have a negative impact on our business
Remind me, why did you alienate your customer base with a per install fee Unity?
Alto@kbin.social 1 year ago
Headline really feels like it's trying to imply unity is currently making a profit. They haven't been out of the red in a while. Businesses tend to die when they're bleeding money and there's no VC.
Cheesus@lemmy.world 1 year ago
It’s a bit more complicated than that. There are a lot of accounting tricks to be constantly making losses but end up cash flow positive.
I don’t work or invest in Unity so I don’t have a great understanding of their metrics but companies I worked at would constantly capitalize new projects to add expenses in the future. You can structure sales deals so a new feature is added late in the contract. That pushes revenue out, but you can collect more cash early.
If unity didn’t do share buy backs this quarter, they would have a positive cash flow. Which points to they should be a profitable company but instead are using accounting tricks to post losses to lower tax bills.
theodewere@kbin.social 1 year ago
i guess the guy at the top just isn't getting paid enough yet
BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social 1 year ago
https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/10/23911338/unity-ceo-steps-down-developers-react
The guy at the top actually just got booted, if you care.
fartsparkles@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
…but remain as a Unity employee until April 2024
So they’re getting paid to do nothing after burning all the company’s social capital. Unity have a very strange board.
empireOfLove@lemmy.one 1 year ago
Slow burn to death might not be so slow. Good riddance.
YurkshireLad@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
They have to claw back the money they gave to their CEO when he “retired”.
Tronn4@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Yall forgetting about the shareholders first
galloog1@lemmy.world 1 year ago
The shareholders lost out too. They have never issued dividends and their stock has tanked. Stop spreading ignorance.
spudwart@spudwart.com 1 year ago
The shareholders lost out too.
Good.
Sanctus@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Its insanity, Unity is a good product. There is a place for it in reality. In any sane world this prpduct would have continued to operate how it was and it would have benefited people. But since profits are attached everything will have to be ruined eventually. Unreal is next to bat.
Shadywack@lemmy.world 1 year ago
That’s really well said and an underrated comment here. In a sane world, Unity would “make a living” just fine. Another user commented on where they spent their margins, and my bet is that it’s on bullshit. Executive compensation should be first to get slashed, and if anything they should concentrate on keeping the “golden goose” or core development team alive.
Sanctus@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Allowing leaders to use profits however they wish has been a disaster. I don’t know if it was codified into law, but when companies had to invest in R&D, and they had to invest in employees before drinking their own koolaid the world was a better place. Employees were taken care of, average people could thrive. Now its an open feeding trough everyone else is exempt from. The modern world only thrives with checks and balances, its proven that without them the powerful cannot be trusted.
caut_R@lemmy.world 1 year ago
My brain can‘t fathom how you can generate that much revenue and not be profitable as a game engine developer
echodot@feddit.uk 1 year ago
It’s because they keep buying random companies. Then weirdly there’s those random companies don’t make them any money, and so the obvious illusion is to buy some more random companies.
ExLisper@linux.community 1 year ago
554M? I co oni mają sobie za to kupić? Waciki?
Cheesus@lemmy.world 1 year ago
They didn’t earn $544M, they had $544M in revenue. They lost $124M but it’s all due to their decisions. They have a great operating margin in the 60s and spent all the money elsewhere.
echodot@feddit.uk 1 year ago
What are they spending all of it on? Because it certainly not updates to the engine.
Honytawk@lemmy.zip 1 year ago
420M in profit is still way too much to be laying off people
slazer2au@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Revenue is not profit.
Revenue is income. Profit is how much they made after some expenses.
Cheesus@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Revenue is how much you sold stuff for. Profit is how much did you make after paying for everything to run your business. They got $544M but spent $668M, so they didn’t make a profit.