The Unity pricing debacle has taken an unfortunate, dangerous turn. In a new report from Bloomberg, the company has reportedly canceled a town hall meeting due to what the publication called credible death threats. According to Bloomberg, Unity CEO John Riccitiello was set to address employees Thursday morning, but the companywide meeting was canceled and two of Unity’s offices were closed because of the alleged threats.
He was the CEO of Electronic Arts when the controversial loot box monetization was added to FIFA 09. He made news when he called developers “fucking idiots” over some developers’ reluctance to introduce monetization schemes earlier in the development process. There’s also the infamous clip of Riccitiello talking during a shareholder call about charging Battlefield players a dollar to reload their guns.
Look at this guy…I couldn’t read all of the Bloomberg article due to paywall, so I don’t know if this jackass actually provided proof of these “death threats.”
While I don’t condone them, it seems awfully convenient that an executive who’s known to stir controversy with his monetization strategies received “alleged” death threats. I have a hard time believing it without proof because this guy is a sleaze ball greedy mofo.
In any group of people there will always be a tiny subset of the population who will pull this unhinged bullshit. It’s unfortunate, but now the CEO gets to play the victim, and anyone who’s against his bullshit gets to be painted with the same brush as the unhinged guy.
I never understand freaking out about death threats. If someone actually wanted to murder you, they’d be quiet and methodical about it, not grandiose. To be fair, I’ve never received a death threat so perhaps I’m not theeeeeeeeeeeee
I mean you are assuming the person who is trying to murder you is a rational actor but you can’t really be a rational actor if you are threatening death to someone because of their shit monetization policies on your entertainment. Hell some people throw “Death threats” at people because they decide to change a reload speed by a fraction of a second. So yeah “gamers” can be quite unhinged. Hell you had idiots in Jan 6 who loudly stated their intention and beat a cop to death. Hell we have seen situations of weirdos getting close to celebrities (in their heads) then trying to kill them, and I imagine cases like that will only get worse with parasocial relationships getting a bit out of hand with modern influences and streamers.
There might be a reason people freak out about death threats…
Not trying to justify threats, but freaking out over one 40-year old event seems like overreaction, may not be the best argument.
How 'bout last year?
I can’t reply, sorry. I’m dead.
RIP gullible
Particularly in the US, where having a gun is relatively easy… to the point that even school kids can end up getting hold of them. I’d be scared.
That’s the fallacy of trying to understand criminal acts. For the most part, if someone were as smart, logical, and thoughtful as you are when you imagine the best way to commit murder, the kind of person to actually try and commit the murder would not be as smart, logical, or thoughtful to have gotten into that situation in the first place.
There are exceptions, of course, but it’s enough of a possibility that it’s probably better to take them seriously than not.
Edit: typed all that, scrolled down, some other dude already said it
John Riccitiello
Dude is fucking cancer in the gaming industry. Completely unwanted and unhealthy for the gaming community but too insidious to fucking stomp out.
Everything this guy touches becomes shit nobody wanted.
He is a reverse midas. Turns gold into shit
Unity is done for. Nobody is going to start a new project with their product. Devs are risk adverse. Making a game that is original is already a big enough risk for any studio. Why add an infinite amount of risk but building your game on an engine with unstable management. It is even worth retraining people to use a different engine.
so like, do it online, smart guy.
also WTF?
Some have threatened to never use Unity again and are encouraging players to pay for but not download their games to avoid incurring the new fees.
Only scenario I could imagine where a developer may want you to both buy and pirate their game.
Unfortunately, Unity has no way to tell legitimate installs from pirated installs, as far as I have read. This means someone with a massively pirated game who has just broken the $200,000 revenue barrier could potentially be on the hook to pay Unity more money per install than they’ve even made.
Where do they get install stats on pirated games? Some call home?
Sounds like something that could easily be blocked or gamed if it’s not mandatory and if it doesn’t require a unique login.
The average pirated install is blocked by the pirate from network access so there’s no way for it to dial home to be approved or denied, or for them to know it was installed to begin with.
edit: The main exception would be GOG pirated installs since they’re usually the original installer with no DRM to be bypassed, but they can still be blocked from contacting home if you don’t care about cloud saves or online features.
There’s always a way to screw over company plans like this.
edit2: actually GOG cloud saves aren’t even possible with offline GOG installs, legal or not, you have to install them through the GOG store and launcher for it to be an option.
It was a joke. The dev said if you buy their game, don’t install it. Come over to their house and play it on their computer, they’ll make you some food while you’re at it. Sounds like it’s been decontextualised beyond understanding
lol owned
