Unity confirms 265 job cuts as part of ‘reset’ for the company
Unity has confirmed it is laying off 265 employees in what is being described as a ‘reset’ of the business.
Indicated by ReutersUnity is terminating the “professional services” portion of an agreement with visual effects company Wētā FX, which was co-founded by Peter Jackson and previously produced the visual effects for films such as Avatar and its sequel, as well The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Unity bought its engineering and technology division in 2021 for $1.6 billion (£1.2 billion). BBC reported this at the time. Now, the employees whose roles are related to this agreement will lose their jobs, reducing Unity’s workforce by 3.8% (from approximately 7,000 employees).
Unfortunately, Unity is experiencing job losses has been on the menu for a few weeks now. In the company’s third-quarter shareholder letter, published Nov. 9, Whitehurst said Unity is “not executing to our full potential.” He said: “We aim to leverage these opportunities to become a leaner, more agile and faster growing company.”
The same letter revealed that the company had begun a “comprehensive review” of its product portfolio, which would also include “evaluating the appropriate cost structure to align with the more focused portfolio.” It said it plans to “complete all interventions” by the end of the first quarter of 2024, which “will likely include discontinuing certain product offerings, reducing our workforce and reducing our office footprint.”
Related to this, the latest announcement also confirmed that Unity is closing offices in 14 locations. In addition, employees no longer have to work in the office three days a week.
Unity’s interim CEO Jim Whitehurst also told Reuters that more changes are coming to “refocus” Unity’s operations. He added: “While no additions have been completed yet, it is clear that we will reduce the number of things we do overall.”
This year, Unity also announced its controversial runtime fee, which would initially see developers receive an additional per-install fee for all games made in Unity once they passed certain revenue and download thresholds. Unity received significant backlash for this, and later announced some changes that now mean the fee only affects games made using the 2024 Long Term Support, and only developers using Unity Pro and Enterprise.
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