“I’ve always been transparent with this community, so I wanted to share that – like a lot of people in tech and gaming right now – I was laid off from Unity,” wrote Hryb, who went on to discuss some of his accomplishments like making Unity more visible at industry and consumer events like PAX.

“After nearly three decades of making an impact at Microsoft, I joined Unity in 2024. During my time there, I rebuilt their Community and Advocacy Team with a deliberate strategy that created a clearer, more connected experience for creators, developers, and gamers. We brought energy back to channels that had gone quiet, restored trust, and showed up consistently where it mattered. I elevated Unity’s visibility at PAX and key industry events, strengthened relationships, and ensured Unity had a clear voice in the broader conversation.”

Hryb had left his stint at Microsoft after having spent 22 years at the company, essentially becoming one of the major spokespersons for Xbox. Before his departure, he worked at the company as its director of programming. Throughout his time there, he had spoken about keeping a clear and transparent line of communications open with fans of the product. Similarly, he now also wrote about how important communication has been for Unity throughout his time at the company.

“Good communication was critical to that work,” he wrote about raising the visibility of Unity. “We told better stories, rebuilt confidence in the brand, and experimented with emerging platforms to meet audiences where they already were. We aligned community engagement directly with product strategy, so creators and players experienced a more cohesive Unity. Making that connection tangible again was meaningful, and I’m proud of what the team accomplished.”

As for what lies in the future for him, Hryb noted that he is looking for new opportunities that could leverage his experience in having worked on building strong communities and platform strategies.

“Change makes you stronger. I’m exploring opportunities where my experience in community leadership, platform strategy, and communications can drive growth at the intersection of hardware, software, and services. I’m drawn to ecosystems where those pieces work together to create integrated experiences for creators and players,” he wrote.

Hryb first came to prominence during his stint as senior project manager at Xbox thanks to the launch of the Major Nelson Radio podcast, which would eventually get renamed to the Official Xbox Podcast. Thanks to his major role in the company, Hryb would also end up becoming the main source of Xbox-related news for many gamers, be it the release of new games and DLCs, to details about upcoming hardware. In his final years at Microsoft, Hryb would be involved in developing communications plans for the global launches of various games, hardware and other services.

Helldivers 2 PSN account backtrack

Sony came within a hair’s breadth of tanking their runaway success of the year with the perplexing requirement for PC users to link a PSN account to Steam to play Helldivers 2. If you didn’t already own a PSN account it’d be mandatory to make one to carry on playing. Sony’s act of self-sabotage caused widespread discontent, of course, but was also set to lock players from the 177 countries without PSN access out of the game. Fortunately, Sony put their collective heads together and reversed the decision, review bombing was ceased with sales – now eclipsing 12 million – continuing. 

]]> 606227 https://gamingbolt.com/10-unwanted-moves-by-game-companies-only-for-them-to-change-their-minds Wed, 12 Jun 2024 13:19:53 +0000 https://gamingbolt.com/?p=589125 Developers are people, and people – at the end of the day – make mistakes. Inspired by Helldivers 2 and it’s recent Sony-led controversy to attach a PSN account to PC players, we’re looking at 10 instances when developers simply got it wrong.

Helldivers 2 PSN account backtrack

Sony came within a hair’s breadth of tanking their runaway success of the year with the perplexing requirement for PC users to link a PSN account to Steam to play Helldivers 2. If you didn’t already own a PSN account it’d be mandatory to make one to carry on playing. Sony’s act of self-sabotage caused widespread discontent, of course, but was also set to lock players from the 177 countries without PSN access out of the game. Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead fronted by CEO Jordan Leithart have shown transparency on the situation, admitting to knowledge of the requirement 6 months prior to its announcement. Their honesty has quietened cynicism and, together with the policy’s reversal, review bombing has ceased with sales – now eclipsing 12 million – continuing.

As reported by Reuters, the company has announced that that between now and the end of March, it will be laying off roughly 25% of its total workforce, which accounts to approximately 1,800 jobs. This is Unity’s fourth round of layoffs in the space of about half a year, and by far the largest it has ever conducted. According to the company, it will “affect all teams, regions, and areas of the business.”

In November, the company said it would be “reducing the number of things we are doing in order to focus on our core business and drive our long-term success and profitability.”

It’s been a tumultuous few months for Unity, even beyond the layoffs. In September, the company announced a new monetization policy for games developed using is engine, which would require payments from developers per install rather than per purchase. The change was proven to be widely unpopular, leading to widespread criticism from the industry, as well as significant decreases in Unity’s share prices.

The company issued an apology not long afterward, and confirmed that it was walking back on a number of the controversial changes it had announced. Soon after that announcement, Unity CEO John Riccitiello stepped down, with Jim Whitehurst stepping in as interim CEO.

With Riccitiello stepping down from his roles today, James M. Whitehurst is set to take over as the interim CEO, president and member of the board, while Unity board independent director Roelof Botha is being appointed as the new chairman.

The company, known for its popular game engine, announced its new runtime fees monetisation plan back in September. As part of the plan, developers and publishers would be charged by the engine maker any time a game made using Unity engine was downloaded. After seeing quite a bit of backlash from several indie studios, the company has since backpedalled.

Unity has since announced a new pricing structure, which was revealed alongside a letter of apology.

Unity is removing its new Runtime Fee policy altogether for games built on Unity Personal, with the cap going from $100,000 to $200,000, as well as the removal of the requirement to use the Made with Unity splash screen when the game starts up.

Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise will still be seeing the new Runtime Fee policy come into affect, but the major change this time around is that the policy won’t apply retroactively to games released in the past. Only games developed using the next LTS version of the engine, slated for release in 2024, will have to pay the Runtime Fee.

“I want to start with this: I am sorry,” says Unity engine and editor team lead Marc Whitten in the open letter. “We should have spoken with more of you and we should have incorporated more of your feedback before announcing our new Runtime Fee policy. Our goal with this policy is to ensure we can continue to support you today and tomorrow, and keep deeply investing in our game engine.

“You are what makes Unity great, and we know we need to listen, and work hard to earn your trust. We have heard your concerns, and we are making changes in the policy we announced to address them.”

The announcement comes on the heels of several indie developers criticising Unity for its Runtime Fee policy, which essentially meant that developers would have had to pay Unity any time a game made with Unity was downloaded. When originally announced, this policy included reinstalled games, and would apply to games using an older version of Unity engine.

“We have heard you,” reads the post by Unity. “We apologize for the confusion and angst the runtime fee policy we announced on Tuesday caused.”

The company recently came under fire for its new monetisation policy, which revolved around charging developers any time a game made in Unity was installed on a player’s system. When originally announced, this included players reinstalling games. The new policy was also set to be retroactive, applying to older Unity-based games as well.

“We are listening, talking to our team members, community, customers, and partners, and will be making changes to the policy,” the statement continues. “We will share an update in a couple of days. Thank you for your honest and critical feedback.”

Quite a few indie developers have spoken out against Unity’s new policy, including the studio behind Among Us, as well as the developer behind indie roguelike title Caves of Qud.

Indie developer Rami Ismail has criticised Unity’s new statement, stating that the company taking so long to clarify its new policy and the statement is “terrifying”. Ismail goes on to call the issue between developers and the engine maker an issue of trust.

We have heard you. We apologize for the confusion and angst the runtime fee policy we announced on Tuesday caused. We are listening, talking to our team members, community, customers, and partners, and will be making changes to the policy. We will share an update in a couple of…

— Unity (@unity) September 17, 2023

It's terrifying to think Unity leadership dragged this over the weekend leaving every studio out there with genuine existential concerns, and even now cannot simply go "our intent is to drop the per-install fee". We have to be worried longer & we have to keep talking about this. https://t.co/p9JKgaxNGI

— Rami Ismail / رامي (@tha_rami) September 18, 2023

Gallat wished “good luck” to Unity and said that he hopes “they can benefit from improved leadership at some point in the future!” This may seem like a response in the wake of CEO John Riccitiello’s comments on developers who don’t focus on monetization early on in the creative process (which he has since apologized for). But the decision was made several months ago, which indicates that the development team had faced issues much earlier.

Whatever the case may be, Ghost of a Tale is getting a follow-up, which is good news. A release window wasn’t mentioned, but the use of Unreal Engine 5 could indicate a release on Xbox Series X/S and PS5 along with PC. Stay tuned for more details in the coming months.

Might as well go public about this: Several months ago we made the tough decision to ditch #Unity3d and move on to #UE5 for our follow-up game to #GhostOfATale. It set us back significantly in terms of schedule (lots of work to recreate) but we know it was the right decision. pic.twitter.com/SGnLkivb8f

— Seith (@SeithCG) July 15, 2022

(The picture above is a 2D illustration by @sinto_j for the PS4 limited edition of GoaT)

We wish good luck to @unitygames and hope they can benefit from improved leadership at some point in the future!

— Seith (@SeithCG) July 15, 2022

The panel, which is currently “Unlisted” on YouTube, was spotted by a Reddit user, and features a number of Unity employees talking about developing games for the PSVR2, while also highlighting some of its key features. Heightened immersion and technological improvements seem to be the theme here, with improvements such as foveated rendering, higher resolution, haptic feedback in the headset, an expanded field of view, the new Sense controllers, and more getting highlighted.

As mentioned, the video, though uploaded by Unity’s official YouTube page, is currently unlisted, so it’s unknown if it was meant to be released publicly. Either way, you can watch it in full below.

Recent reports have claimed the PSVR2 will launch sometime in Q1 of 2023- read more on that through here.

Revealed via an official blog post on Unity’s website, the company recently announced that they have acquired tech company Ziva Dynamics, a company responsible for creating complex simulations and deformations, while also dabbling in machine learning and real-time character creation.

This acquisition comes in line with Unity’s other acquisition of companies such as Weta Digital, SpeedTree, SyncSketch, Pixyz, and RestAR, and the company explains that the purchase will help them make tools accessible and available to creators, while at the same time making realistic character creation accessible to creators of all scales and sizes.

The acquisition was announced by a digital human created by Ziva Dynamics, Emma, which was running in real-time in the Unity engine, and gives everyone a glimpse of what the tech enables. The blog post has more details about Ziva Dynamics, so make sure to have a look at it. Ziva has worked on games like the upcoming Ninja Theory game, Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2.

Hopefully, we can see more visually stunning and creative creations by various creators of all scales, as Unity keeps on making the necessary tools available.