Unity: An open letter to our community

Just remember, the current CEO was too greedy even for EA

John Riccitiello is his name. Dude has the anti-Midas touch. Everything he has ever touched turned to shit. How people keep hiring him is beyond me.

That said, the board of directors is also part to blame for this. One name stands out, Roelof Botha. Same guy from Sequoia Capital that backed the whole Elon Musk taking a loan out for Twitter and old buddy of Musk's from PayPal days. He's also been known for some "choice" selections on where to put VC money.

And of course you have Barry Schuler of "I made AOL popular" fame. So… Yeah, he's a choice selection for the board as well.

But on the other side of it, you've got David Helgason one of the co-founders of Unity who has been pretty vocal about "We fucked up!". But to me that is a tell-tell that Riccitiello et al. sold the rest of the board on the change.

Point being, the board is made up of hard going MFers who fuck up along the way and folks who are easily rolled over by promises of $$$. So while the CEO is indeed "a work of something", the board is a perfect storm of "egos and pushovers".

Either way, yeah, I think that since literally no leadership change is coming from this "you put the same chemicals in, you're absolutely going to get the same reaction out." The only thing they have likely taken from this whole thing is that they cannot be as obvious about changes as they were.

It's not just the CEO, most of the Board are buddies with Elon. If the Board of Directors didn't specifically want this, it wouldn't be happening.

It’s almost funny. Honestly, the only way I can see them regaining any trust at all is by a complete change in leadership and increased transparency and accountability.

so obviously it is not happening, and by the time the CEO is replaced it will be too late

They obliterated most of the goodwill they had and long term this stupid greedy move probably will have cost them more than the change could ever have gotten them. This is what quick buck exec's van do to a company

It would have been perfectly fine if they did it this way to start. Tie the new licensing costs to a future engine version, give lead time before you start collecting data, and have the number be manageable.

But trust in such an absolutely critical vendor that your entire business relies on, and they told you they're perfectly fine trying to retroactively change contracts. The uncertainty of legal costs to protect your rights is a huge concern.

If they launched with this, I think the community would've been fine with it. But IMO the damage has been done, and a lot of indies are going to look elsewhere.

Oh, don't worry, it's already 30%.

or the calculated amount based on the number of new people engaging with your game each month. Both of these numbers are self-reported from data you already have available. You will always be billed the lesser amount.

But yeah. It does add up.