In yet another move that makes it a bad year for labor forces in the gaming space, Unity has cut 265 employees from the company. They also closed down Weta Digital after acquiring the company nearly two years ago. Why does this sound familiar?
If you recall, back in December 2021, Unity had purchased a piece of Peter Jackson’s Weta Digital. This included their “tools, pipeline, technology, and engineering talent”. The deal was worth $1.625 billion. The rest of the company stayed with Jackson and changed their name to Weta FX. Along with the deal, Weta FX was allowed to still use the tools and services Unity acquired.
Fast forward nearly two years and Unity has decided to terminate the services agreement. This is why there are layoffs. Luckily, WetaFX is stepping in and stated they will try and rehire as many people who were affected by the layoffs. While there aren’t any employees for it at Unity, it will still keep ownership of the tools, which will still be available to WetaFX.
Unity believes the Weta Digital team are remarkable, but Unity needs to become leaner as it focuses its expertise on its core business. It also believes it makes more sense for Weta FX to own full end-to-end production activities directly. Unity will be focusing its expertise and people on other matters, and Weta FX will be getting support for its use of the Weta Tools directly from its own crew–a shorter path which makes sense for both companies.”
Unity statement explaining the decision
It appears the strategy employed by Unity is being called a “company reset”. Unity is trying to focus on game development as its core business going forward. It is also trying to reduce its real estate portfolio by closing offices in 14 locations including Singapore and Berlin. The beautiful thing coming from this shake up is that they are encouraging more people to work from home.
While there is the silver lining of WetaFX and the new WFH policy, it still doesn’t change the crap Unity still finds itself in with regards to the runtime fee. That fiasco saw the resignation of their then CEO, John Riccitiello.
Source: GameSpot
