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Unity CEO John Riccitiello leaves the company after "runtime fee" scandal

10/10/2023

Translation: machine translated

John Riccitiello is leaving Unity after around ten years. The reasons for the CEO's departure are likely to be related to the "runtime fee" scandal.

Following the attempted introduction of a bizarre payment model for the Unity Engine, the company's CEO, John Riccitiello, is stepping down with immediate effect. The company announced this in a press release. James Whitehurst, an external consultant at the private equity firm Silver Lake, will take over on an interim basis.

We remember: A month ago, the game engine Unity announced far-reaching changes to its payment model /page/game-engine-unity-veraergert-indie-studios-mit-bizarre-bezahlstruktur-29598. In addition to the existing licence fees, a new "runtime fee" was to be introduced. The more downloads a game has, the more a studio has to pay to Unity. Many indie studios saw their existence threatened by the unexpected additional costs. You can read the full story in this article:

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A huge shitstorm followed on social media. Shortly afterwards, the company apologised and backtracked on the bizarre payment structure for the most part.

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A controversial businessman

Riccitiello had been CEO of Unity since 2014. Under his leadership, the company has already made a change to its payment model - from a perpetual licence to a subscription plan. He has also successfully taken the company public and made Unity one of the most widely used engines in the world. According to Unity, more than 70 per cent of all top sellers for PC, consoles and mobile were produced with the engine in 2022. However, the company was not profitable under its leadership. The unsuccessful introduction of the "runtime fee" was an attempt to secure additional income for the company.

Riccitiello was a controversial figure in the developer community, mainly due to his focus on the excessive monetisation of games. Last year, he labelled developers who do not include microtransactions in their games as the "biggest fucking idiots" https://www.ign.com/articles/unity-ceo-john-riccitiello-apologizes-for-calling-devs-not-focusing-on-monetization-the-biggest-f-idiots.

Even before his time at Unity, Riccitiello made himself unpopular in the gaming scene as CEO of Electronic Arts. Under his leadership, EA introduced loot boxes for the first time with "FIFA 09". Also unforgettable: At an EA stakeholder meeting, Riccitiello put forward the idea of charging a dollar for reloading weapons in "Battlefield 3". A suggestion that was fortunately never implemented in reality.

Cover image: Keystone

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