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Replace Now-Resigned Unity CEO John Riccitiello With a Technologist Not an Advertiser, Says Veteran 3D Developer Adam Frisby

Unity developer fee Riccitiello

I wrote this last month after taking the temperature of various Unity insiders:

I would not even be surprised if Unity CEO John Riccitiello, who pushed for the price increase – after basically promising not to do it a few years ago – is forced to step down.

If anything, the surprise is today's news did not come sooner:

John Riccitiello, CEO of Unity, has resigned from the company in the wake of a pricing controversy that left developers in open revolt… Riccitiello will continue to advise Unity to ensure a smooth transition, the company said. The news isn’t a surprise as Unity angered a lot of its loyal game developers a few weeks ago after pushing through a price increase based on numbers of downloads — and then retracted it after an uproar.

Adam Frisby, CEO of metaverse platform developer Sine Wave Entertainment, who's been working with Unity pretty much since the engine existed, suggests it will take more than this resignation and price increase walk-back to restore trust among fellow developers. Telling me what kind of person they should hire as Riccitello's replacement:

"Someone technical, ideally familiar with the struggles Unity's customers are facing. Someone who understands the product and what makes it valuable.
 
"Ideally it would be their CTO — many CTOs are good business leaders, but someone from product would be fine too." (He means current Unity CTO Joachim Ante, or someone else with a CTO background.)
 
"In my experience, the business folks at tech companies destroy long term value and result in their long term demise by underinvesting in the product for the sake of a good quarter."
 
The fundamental goal, in other words, is bring in someone who's passionate about improving Unity as a product — as opposed to capitalizing on its market share to grow and focus on advertising revenue, as was the case during the Riccitello regime.
 
To bolster that point, Adam sent along this classic video interview of Steve Jobs (watch above), highlighting the problem with companies that are run by sales and marketing people, as opposed to product creators.
 
"Good products grow," as Adam puts it. "Bad products stagnate."
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2 responses to “Replace Now-Resigned Unity CEO John Riccitiello With a Technologist Not an Advertiser, Says Veteran 3D Developer Adam Frisby”

  1. Gwyneth Llewelyn Avatar
    Gwyneth Llewelyn

    Nothing like listening to advice from Master Jobs.

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  2. Lex4art Avatar
    Lex4art

    Heh, through this CEO step down Unity shows some flexibility and ability to change – good sign!

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