Unity to lay off another 1,800 employees, representing 25% of its workforce

techcrunch.com:

Just a few weeks after its most recent round of layoffs, Unity is once again reducing its workforce. This time, around 1,800 employees will lose their job in the coming weeks as the company is trying to improve its financial performance after a difficult year.

Unity is the maker of a video game engine that is widely used in the video game industry. Some popular games that have been developed using Unity’s engine include Cuphead, Ori and the Blind Forest (and its sequel), Hearthstone, Cities: Skylines (and its sequel), Hollow Knight and Beat Saber. Unity’s main competitor is Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite and the Unreal Engine.

In an SEC filing, Unity says that it is conducting this new round of layoffs as it “restructures and refocuses on its core business, and to position itself for long-term and profitable growth.”

Even though this move will reduce the company’s costs, shares haven’t moved significantly as Unity stock is currently down 0.62% in pre-market trading compared to yesterday’s closing price. At $38.74 a share, the company’s stock is still down significantly compared to its all-time high of $201.12 in November 2021.

Last year, after conducting three rounds of layoffs, the company tried to improve its financials by changing the fee structure for the engine. Under the old pricing scheme, indie developers who earn less than $100,000 per year would be able to use Unity for free.

Once you cross that threshold and generate between $100,000 and $200,000 in revenue, you would have to pay $399 per user per year. Bigger video game studios would have to pay $1,900 per user per year.

With the pricing change, the company said that developers would have to pay $.15 to $.20 for every game install after 200,000 installs.