Is Unity Dying

Is Unity dying?

Unity Technologies, the renowned software company that revolutionised the gaming industry with its Unity engine, faced a tumultuous financial year in 2023. While the company had been riding a wave of success and growth in previous years, 2023 proved to be a challenging period marked by unforeseen hurdles and setbacks.

One of the primary challenges Unity Technologies encountered during this time was the evolving landscape of the gaming industry itself. With increasing competition from other game engines and emerging technologies, Unity faced pressure to innovate and adapt to stay ahead of the curve. However, this proved to be a daunting task as the company struggled to keep pace with rapidly changing market demands.

Another significant factor contributing to Unity's difficult financial year was the global economic downturn that occurred in 2023. The COVID-19 pandemic, which had already disrupted economies worldwide, continued to have lingering effects on various industries, including gaming. As consumer spending patterns shifted and businesses tightened their budgets, Unity Technologies experienced a decline in revenue from licensing fees and other sources.

Furthermore, internal issues within the company exacerbated its financial woes. Management faced criticism for its handling of resources and strategic decisions, leading to internal discord and a lack of cohesion within the organisation. These internal challenges hindered Unity's ability to effectively address external pressures and navigate the turbulent economic environment.

Amidst these difficulties, Unity Technologies also faced backlash from some developers within its community. Complaints about licensing fees, technical support, and platform limitations surfaced, leading to dissatisfaction among a segment of Unity's user base. While the company made efforts to address these concerns, the negative sentiment within the developer community added to the challenges Unity faced in maintaining its market position.

In response to these challenges, Unity Technologies implemented several initiatives aimed at stabilising its financial position and restoring investor confidence. The company embarked on cost-cutting measures, including restructuring initiatives and workforce reductions, to streamline operations and reduce expenses. Additionally, Unity invested in research and development to enhance its product offerings and address the evolving needs of its user base.

Despite these efforts, Unity's financial performance in 2023 fell short of expectations, prompting a decline in its stock price and investor sentiment. The company's quarterly earnings reports reflected lower-than-anticipated revenue and profit margins, further eroding investor confidence and triggering concerns about its long-term viability.

Looking ahead, Unity Technologies faces the daunting task of rebuilding trust and restoring its financial health in the wake of a challenging year. The company must focus on strengthening its core business operations, fostering innovation, and enhancing customer satisfaction to regain momentum and reposition itself for sustained growth.

In conclusion, Unity Technologies encountered numerous challenges during the financial year 2023, including intensifying competition, economic headwinds, internal discord, and community backlash. While the company faces an uphill battle in the short term, its long-term success will depend on its ability to adapt to changing market dynamics, address internal issues, and deliver value to its customers and shareholders alike.

[RedmotionGames]

Unity should never have gone public. I thought it was a crazy idea when it was suggested. They tried to keep shareholders happy by expanding into multiple sectors trying to fit a square into circular hole in multiple industries such as construction. IMO they should have started a game store that charged much less fees than Unreal or Steam. They could have recouped some of the money they missed out on making Unity free to indie devs. They had too many employees dotted around the world. Too many office buildings to pay rent on. I'm sorry for the employees who lost their jobs but Unity had to roll things back to their original mission statement.

The gaming industry is saturated with products at all levels and the potential scope of big games is narrowing signifcantly as they follow popular trends.

[DarthHawkGaming-dzdj]

The Flax Engine is a win. Being developed by one dev. You can script in C#, C++, or a fully functional visual scripting system that implements the entire engine API. It's very similar to Unity but has some differences. It's not public. It's privately owned and continually getting updates. Version 1.8 was released at the end of March 2024. The dev is focusing on the engine, not buying up other companies. It can compile to multiple platforms, consoles, and mobile devices just like Unity. I'm switching over to Flax. And there are no subscription fees. You get access to the entire source code. There is a royalty fee of 4% if you make over $250, 000 but the royalty fee only applies to the amount that is over $250, 000. If you make $300, 000 you pay (300K-250K) = 50K * 4% = $2, 000 in royalties :) If you make less than 250K you pay ZERO.

[ocram]

How bad things can be in a company for there to be death treats to the executive board 😬Im all for FOSS now, not coming back.

[StockCryptoCarpenter]

I enjoy the way you get the information out . A little trippy at times love it

[HE]

I don't use Unity anyway. Unity has been doing shady stuff all along and I'm not surprised at their turmoil now. Thus, it's why I chose not to use it. I've been unaffected. In a way, they screwed THEMSELVES!! We didn't!! Thus, back to the question, what should we do about Unity with their financial troubles and ALL of the problems happening with them? Well, sleep GOOD at night. I like to sleep with the fan turned on! 🤣

[ypfybuq]

Why they had so many employers and offices in the first place? It's crazy. Covid time brought so much money to game industry (all online industries) and now everyone has a recession of course.

[thatguystar]

thankfully there are so many more game engines and game frameworks that are honestly kind of better, you can use unreal or godot, gamemaker studio 2, gdevelop, construct and so many more.

(Also Unity is still good as a game engine, just saying that there are others you can use if you want to, it all depends on what you wanna use)

[TanukiDigital]

They didn't scrap the runtime fee. They just "clarified" their customer's "ignorance".

[Bullet-ShawnSak]

Awesome David!! Your video is so creative! I love it!! I'll study and do more and more projects to be a better programmer🤓🐨👍

[davestomper]

I think as a dev it is a huge mistake to not spend time wisely a learning a second engine it may seem unessarry but if you find yourself a year later working a project and you have no choice but change then those who did not spend the effort and time when they had time would be set back with a huge disadvantage to the project or even take the steam out of them completely I think as a dev we are not a game engine we are an accumulation of our knowledge and betting everything on one tool a stupid idea

[GameDevBattle]

Lol "Unity is trippin' bad." The layoffs were so wild. It's been a strange time. I think RedmotionGames gets it right.

[NorthstriderGaming]

Unity is not dying and is not going anywhere. I'm currently diving into the Unity 6 changes and additions and from what I see in terms of improvements, they are making pretty big steps forward, especially with their approach on moving many things over to the GPU, which makes large scale games easier to realize. With all the recent layoffs and changes inside of the company, unity is actually going back to the roots which made them big in the first place. They performed best when they were not as bloated as they were since you also had fewer management layers. And given how the entire tech industry is now purging the covid-hires which are now obsolete, I expect things to return back to normal pretty soon.

[ZeeWolfed]

Hi I'm starting my journey in a game industry so I think godot is a good start nothing is certain but Unity is not on good heat xD
Thank for your video

[vast]

Looks like Unity Technologies just had an unhealthy growth and was a bloated corp. The engine itself can probably be maintained with a staff of 500 employees for several years into the future. Contracting out modules if necessary.

[LedoCool]

I disagree on the fact that the workers are paying the price because of somebody. Those workers decided to lock on one technology and make themselves less desirable in favor of gaming the system for bigger salary. Their gamble didn't play out.

[holleey]

the office rage videos are amazing lol

[kenz]

you don’t have to insert a distracting video every time you talked one or two sentences

[eye]

Unity is far too valuable, and Unity is not Flash Player.
It's the #1 game engine out there.
Worst comes to worst, another corporation will buy it.
GameMaker managed to be bought twice, once by YoYo, a second time by Opera.
And in the unlikely case it does completely go away, there are 10 other engines waiting in the wings to prove themselves.

[solofps]

Yall are not practical... unity messed up i know but there is literally 0% chance they would pull of another move like the runtime fee because they know that it is literally digging their own grave and godot still lacks a lot of resources and it is no where close to the capabilities and convenience of unity with its many tools, plugins and biggest asset store ever. Unreal engine is a great tool but it specifically caters towards triple A game studios and film makers... and over indie game developers it is not the ideal engine because you cannot create a triple A game all by yourself and you will never utilize the maximum potential of the engine without having quality assets, animators and game designers... not to mention unreak uses c++ which is somewhat similar to c# with some garbage collection features built into the engine but it has longer compile times, hard to read output logs and less resources and visual studio integration with unreal still sucks tbh... if you are an indie game developer, sticking with unity is the best decision. Its annoying to see all these ppl worrying about the runtime fee when their game is prolly never gonna make over a million dollars lol, be realistic...

[fire_aspect_]

mfw i finally find a leftist game dev on yt :)