Submitted 9 months ago by ConstableJelly@beehaw.org to gaming@beehaw.org
https://kotaku.com/game-industry-layoffs-how-many-2024-unity-twitch-1851155818?
Mostly from Unity: 1800 through the end of March.
Unity is firing people as a result of a failed monetization attempt by the chief executive. I would argue the employees should have a case against the company and the chief executive. As this was so poorly implemented, fault could be argued.
We all could see that Unity’s layoff was coming, that pricing backlash not only drove away many developers, also probably was driven by troubling financial within the organization.
Twitch is sort of unexpected, but when I see the number of impromptu rules they rolled out and rolled back last year, whether from restricting multi-streaming, to limiting showing brands logo on stream, to restricting / unrestricting female streamers from showing too much skin, etc. I assume that means that even with all those intrusive ads, Twitch is still losing money.
I guess from now on, when a tech company starts to arbitrarily change their T&C / rules to either protect their revenue / market share, and maybe rolling back from backlashes, then it’s a sign that there’s trouble brewing (if you work at those companies, beware)
It's looking like many companies are doing it at once so not any one of them gets focused on for backlash.
GammaGames@beehaw.org 9 months ago
Wow, 35% of Twitch! What a shitty start to the year
zhunk@beehaw.org 9 months ago
Twitch having 1400ish before the layoffs doesn’t seem too crazy, right? Cutting 35% is insane, though.