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I'm actually surprised it still had any expectations with which to disappoint anyone.
I assume it's because MBA folk think layoffs and gouging existing customers with price surges (at least those who "can't easily leave") is a great way to create profits, and MBA folk are the ones the determine stock prices
What other options they had when they massively overhired during 2020 and 21? At this point 25% is probably not even remotely enough
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There is zero chance Apple would buy Unity. One programs and scripts in C# and an outdated version of .NET via Mono.
Dunno, maybe you're right. I agree the technology choice is very bizarre, but have you noticed the emphasis on Unity in the last two WWDCs? It's clearly the game engine currently "blessed" by Apple. I think there's a confluence of factors driving this. Foremost, they need a way for developers to make games, especially in the AR/VR space. SpriteKit and SceneKit have floundered, and RealityKit is not a complete solutio…
I had to check whether they mean the same Unity I know. I could've sworn they're in the game engine business. But maybe this confusion is why the downward trend started in the first place ;)
I expect Unity's stock price will continue to drop for a while. It's my opinion that the adjustments that Unity made (layoffs and the engine license changed) were not just about "pumping the share price". Unity's financials were simply mid to long-term unsustainable - they were spending much more than they were making. Unity is probably overvalued, and if its plans to reshape itself into a viable long-term business,…
Cutting expenditures means falling ever further behind Unreal Engine in the long term. Fundamentally I don't think it's a viable business as such, there are too many competitors who don't need to turn a profit solely on their game engine product. I really hope they get acquired sooner rather than later, before they pivot to a stripped-down mobile-only engine or something.
And TBH, the 'chasing AAA' strategy was one of those things. IMHO Unity would actually be better off if it did focus on mobile. That's where the money is, where they are established, and where they don't have much competition.
Is there any possible redemption for a publicly traded company that is on their back foot like this? Seems like this would have been a stellar business without the hassle of going public. How did they fuck this up? All they had to do was keep customers happy and collect money.
I’m not sure going public was the main issue. The barely thought out acquisitions and massive over hiring after 2020 were. If they were more conservative they’d probably already be profitable
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I’m not sure going public was the main issue. The barely thought out acquisitions and massive over hiring after 2020 were. If they were more conservative they’d probably already be profitable
I was just reading about the Weta digital acquisition for something like $1.6B. A year later they decided to give up on most of that and laid off most of the technical talent. After which Peter Jackson hired them back for his new digital effects company. So he basically got a billion dollars to take a break for a year.
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Cutting expenditures means falling ever further behind Unreal Engine in the long term. Fundamentally I don't think it's a viable business as such, there are too many competitors who don't need to turn a profit solely on their game engine product. I really hope they get acquired sooner rather than later, before they pivot to a stripped-down mobile-only engine or something.
From the outside it looks like Unity lacks focus and stamina more than anything else, lots of (what could be groundbreaking) projects started, but then semi-abandondend half way through with the key people behind those projects leaving the company. And TBH, the 'chasing AAA' strategy was one of those things. IMHO Unity would actually be better off if it did focus on mobile. That's where the money is, where they are e…
Is there any possible redemption for a publicly traded company that is on their back foot like this? Seems like this would have been a stellar business without the hassle of going public. How did they fuck this up? All they had to do was keep customers happy and collect money.
Imagine a bank suddenly told all customers 30% of their saving will be taken, then backtrack. Only an insane/ignorant person will stay with them.
Only thing that I can think of is public ousting and crucifixion of leadership, followed by some strong legal protection of current engine's fees for X years into the future. To build the trust back.
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It's slightly better than operating cashflow neutral. It's growing at a very healthy rate. It's definitely sustainable. The debate is around is it worth $5 billion or $50 billion. It's not as easy as one might think to figure which.
> slightly better than operating cashflow neutral Only because they are issuing massive amounts of stock (IIRC ~15% per year) to pay their employees and not doing any buybacks. How sustainable is that? > It's growing at a very healthy rate The problem is that it’s not. YoY growth they reported yesterday was -2% and they are also guiding for negative growth next year.
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Cutting expenditures means falling ever further behind Unreal Engine in the long term. Fundamentally I don't think it's a viable business as such, there are too many competitors who don't need to turn a profit solely on their game engine product. I really hope they get acquired sooner rather than later, before they pivot to a stripped-down mobile-only engine or something.
That's based on the assumption that every employee contributed to improving the game engine. They went from 2700 to 7700 employees during the pandemic. They could fire the bottom half of those people and still be way ahead where they were a few years ago. As a hobby game dev using Unity, there are plenty of issues with it. But I doubt hiring more people and throwing more money on it will solve them at this stage.