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Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset'

reuters.com

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Re: Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset'

#151

Post by OnionBlender »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #150
vishwajeetv wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did they use Unity for Cities Skylines 2? Unity is widely known for performance issues in game dev community right? (I am not a game developer). Why not unreal engine etc?

Wouldn't say its known for performance issues but it certainly is known for scale issues in open world games (Things like moving too far from 0,0,0 causes polygons to flail and physics to break, so you need to do tricks to work around that) which feel like the sort of thing you're going to encounter on a game world that exists from person scale up to plane scale.

In Outer Wilds, the player stays at 0,0,0 while everything else moves around them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbY0mBXKKT0&t=1907s

Re: Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset'

#152

Post by whywhywhywhy »

qwebfdzsh wrote: post #142
bluescrn wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the 4th round of layoffs in under 2 years

They are still massively over-bloated. Realistically they should cut at least another 30% or so (for some reason they still have about 50% more people than they did at the beginning on 2022). Of course that would turn into a disaster due to obvious reasons (good luck firing the "right" people). So they are kind of screwed, no way can the generate enough income to support 7000 people without massive growth. It's a bit…

Epic did exist and make money shipping Unreal Engine before Fortnite, although Fortnite became a huge success I'd say that having people in the same building having to actually build a real product with the tools you make in that building is also the right attitude to being able to make tools that are profitable and work for real people.

Heard from a comment on here that all Unity tech demos use extreme custom tweaks on the base engine and then when that demo ships it all gets thrown out because it doesn't really function beyond what was demoed in a modular way an end user could benefit from it.

Re: Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset'

#153

Post by whywhywhywhy »

DeathArrow wrote: post #83

Unity promised much but never delivered. DOTS is a mess. For AAA you are better with Unreal and for small games Godot might be enough. Unity's only advantage is the huge community and the tons of stuff in their store and the huge number of tutorials. Anyway, I am glad I exited game de few years ago and I am much happier doing web development and microservices.

Starting to seem like modern Unreal works well for small games too.

Re: Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset'

#154

Post by whywhywhywhy »

yorf89 wrote: post #16
jibe wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This started with the CEO being removed, so I think, Yes!

Except he's still getting paid until April. I doubt the employees getting the sack because of this will be extended the same sweet deal. Pretty messed up that you can fuck up and make hundreds lose their jobs, and get paid for several months afterwards to do literally nothing.

It's almost as if it's a way harder job or something, I mean look at your own post you have animosity towards them despite knowing nothing about them just from them taking on that job.

Re: Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset'

#155

Post by thfuran »

vasco wrote: post #114
rightbyte wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Same with unions, instead of starting one to fix a dystopian company There is immense value in the company structures themself. You can't just bail and take them with you. The inertia of the customer base for example. It has to be really bad to not be worth fixing if the alternative is redo from the ground up. Some fields have less moat though.

> The inertia of the customer base for example. It has to be really bad to not be worth fixing if the alternative is redo from the ground up. This only matters from the pov of the company. From the pov of society those customers will move faster or slower to better competitors, which is what you want. Though you don't even need to have them have to figure it out from one day to the next, you could for example go to y…

>This only matters from the pov of the company. From the pov of society those customers will move faster or slower to better competitors

It absolutely matters to customers. Depending on the type of business, it could be extremely inconvenient to have to change to a different one when they close.

Re: Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset'

#156

Post by immibis »

bluescrn wrote: post #100
initplus wrote: post #31

Unity are spending too much money to develop far too little. New engine features are almost universally half baked (DOTS, UI mess). They acquire in demand features from the community just to let them wither (pro builder). The only thing that's consistent between different Unity features is how unpolished they seem. Notably the mess they have made of DOTS seems to have been partially responsible for sinking Cities Sky…

They pivoted from developing an engine to developing an IPO. It's looking like there was no plan beyond that, once Riccitiello sailed off into the sunset with his loot.

There never is. This is how capitalism works. Cory called it enshittification.

Re: Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset'

#157

Post by immibis »

dagmx wrote: post #3

Most notably, this is laying off their entire acquisition of Weta Digital which was an audacious $1.6B purchase. After which Unity did nothing to take the proposed products into the marketplace.

Wait, Unity owned WETA FREAKING DIGITAL? My goodness!

Re: Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset'

#158

Post by immibis »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #126
stillwithit wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re one of billions of meaningless meat suits is all

He has a point though. Workplace is for work, not politics, religion, activism, romance, etc. that are not related to work. Bringing religios, political or social issues at work could create unnecessary friction or even spark feuds. Better keep those separate, or at least very low-key, not public.

Everything is political, especially the system of wealth creation and distribution.

Re: Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset'

#159

Post by immibis »

WitCanStain wrote: post #131
monero-xmr wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Businesses do not exist for making jobs. If we wanted jobs simply for jobs’ sake, then we would pay people to dig holes and fill them in (a lot of government jobs are glorified versions of this). Businesses exist to fulfill a market need, and every business fulfilling that market need competes in some axis of cost vs. quality. We are all human. I feel for people laid off. I have been laid off before, and businesses I…

Businesses exist to make money for their owners, full stop. Any needs they fulfill are largely incidental.

That's how we end up with businesses like landlords, which fulfil negative needs and extract value without creating anything at all.

Re: Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset'

#160

Post by immibis »

starcraft2wol wrote: post #109
vore wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is your job to anticipate the market – you are responsible for all the business decisions! If you're allowed to shrug it off and say "we didn't see this coming, we did the best we can, by the way 3.8% of you are getting laid off because of this but not me, even though I made the calls", well, it sounds like you're just milking the business for yourself until it well and truly goes kaput.

What’s with the sense of entitlement towards jobs in HN? Businesses will continue to employee you as long as they think it’s a net benefit to them. Their outlook can change at anytime and for nonsensical reasons. I would suggest accepting this state of affairs. That might mean making sure you have savings, or up to date job skills. Refusing to believe this can happen to you because you have worked so hard or been so…

We've built a world where you either get a job, or you are culled from the population. Culling is inhumane, so the only way to resolve that moral quandary is to guarantee jobs.
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