Unity fire 265 people and end agreement with VFX studio Wētā FX in company "reset"
Unity are chopping 265 jobs - around 3.8% of their global workforce - and ending an agreement with digital effects company Wētā FX as part of a company "reset", following an awful year for the game engine provider. Unity also plan to close offices in 14 locations, including Singapore and Berlin, and cut costs at offices in San Francisco and Bellevue, Washington.
First reported by Reuters, the termination of the Wētā FX agreement will take effect on 10th December, and "comes as Unity refocus their efforts on their core business", according to a Wētā FX statement picked up by FXGuide.
Unity acquired part of Wētā Digital, the New Zealand-based digital visual effects and animation co-founded by Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson, in December 2021 for $1.625 billion. The deal included tools such as Manuka, Lumberjack and Loki, "a foundational data platform for interoperable 3D art creation", and thousands of VFX assets.
At the time, Unity described the move as a bid "to empower the growing number of game developers, artists, and potentially millions of consumer creators with highly sophisticated content creation tools". As part of the acquisition, the company also took on 275 Wētā Digital engineers.
The remainder of Wētā Digital formed a standalone entity, Wētā FX. Unity subsequently struck a professional services agreement with Wētā FX - the same agreement that will come to an end this December.
Unity have not had a great year, to put it mildly. The company introduced a new pricing structure in September that would see them charging Unity developers per game install given certain conditions, based on install number estimates provided by Unity themselves. Developers were not very keen on this, leading Unity to
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