Unity's crisis is much bigger than John Riccitiello | Opinion

gamesindustry.biz:

Anyone who has doubted the depth of the crisis at Unity in recent months need only look at its consequences: it takes more than a storm in a teacup to capsize a CEO. John Riccitiello's retirement from the company – effective immediately, no less – is indeed a vanishingly rare thing in the games business, where blame for failure and poor judgement all too often trickles down the org chart and leaves top management unscathed.

Riccitiello's name and reputation, however, was impossible to disentangle from the unforced errors that have collapsed Unity's relationship with so many developers. From his tenure at EA being (rather unfairly) summarised as "he's the loot box guy" to his ill-judged but highly revealing description of developers who don't focus on monetisation as "fucking idiots," a significant portion of Unity's customer base had drawn a line through Riccitiello's career that connected directly to Unity's grasping and ultimately disastrous attempt to change its financial terms.

There simply wasn't any way for Unity to offer up a sacrificial scalp from further down the org chart; the buck, for once, had stopped at the top and had nowhere else to go.

Riccitiello's departure is clearly meant to draw a line underneath the crisis, giving his eventual replacement a chance to start rebuilding trust with Unity's customers. To some extent, it will at least show people that the company genuinely understands that it messed up – but it's an enormous stretch to think of this as drawing a line under anything.

Riccitiello was a figurehead for the unpopular changes Unity tried to push through, but nobody thinks he was a cackling villain who drove an otherwise healthy company to make disastrous choices.

Unity is a troubled