Unity Backpedals on Its Horrible Plan for Game Install Fees Amid Developer Backlash::Unity CEO John Riccitiello reportedly sold thousands of shares of stock in the weeks ahead of the fee announcement.
Yeah lol “Publicy traded company releases vague PR message to appease investors” is the headline
I don’t think investors are idiots. They will look at whether the development community will accept whatever those changes end up being, or see whether Unity will just quietly let this thing die and pretend it never happened.
It’s harder to be stupid when it’s your money on the line.
They aren’t, this PR message will do very little, but it’s still better than “going dark” after their announcements for now
The absolutely are, because it’s not a binary “try it and see if it works” change. This is a one-time, irreversible loss of brand trust from game developers who have a lot at stake, and a TON of options. There are no take backsies on stuff like this. Choosing a game engine for your game is a big decision, often researched and backed by some form of business team who are never gonna swing for a company with a track record of pulling out the financial rug from their customers. They will loose billions, if not outright kill their company by even suggesting this sort of thing with a straight face.
Step 1: Propose an incredibly stupid, greedy, unpopular move that gets everyone pissed off.
Step 2: Announce a change of plans due to the feedback, and implement your original less stupid, greedy, unpopular move.
I don’t know whether you care about the specifics, but just in case you do…
Selling stock you own before a price drop isn’t selling short. Insider trading yes, but not selling short.
Selling short requires you borrow stock you don’t own and then sell it, with a promise to purchase it later. If you know a price drop is coming, then you make money on the fact that you’ve sold it at a higher price than you need to pay to purchase it.
CEO should not be compensated in shares because they have insider information and can benefit from manipulation. It has always been a recipe for disaster.
I always thought there should be a minimum hold time. Somewhere between 1-5 years after they leave their position.
It encourages them to think long term instead of just the next quarter, and they really have to leave the company in a better place than they found it.
I fully agree with you and that sounds like a great idea. It sent me down a chain of thought that I find interesting. Say we implement this, CEO A does their job, but shortly before their time is up, they discover something awful. They are about to leave, so they want the next 1-5 years to be rosy, so they do some extremely unethical bullshit to ensure that and hide the problem just long enough for the next guy to take the fall. CEO B, who took over when A left, figures out the awful thing, but it’s been long enough that they kind of have no choice but to continue the unethical bullshit, to ensure their compensation when they leave. And so on with CEO C and D. That’s a feasible possibility to me and I also just realized they probably do that now, just on a shorter timescale. All in all I’d say the long term shit is probably better on the whole. Ooooor we could do something besides give one schmuck executive feudal authority over a bunch of people’s livelihoods. Maybe like some kind of democratic system.
If I were a developer, the fact that Unity seriously considered doing this means I would stop using it as soon as possible. Even if they reverted it now, they can’t be trusted to not try something similarly shitty later.
Even if they actually backpedaled, I don’t care! They’ve already shown what they’re willing to try to get away with. Even if they didn’t succeed, it says a lot about where their head is, and I can’t trust a company like that.
