According to Bloombergtoday companies Unity had to cancel a scheduled meeting and temporarily close two offices. This decision was made for security reasons after the creators of the popular engine began receiving death threats. According to CEO John Riccitiello, employees were in real danger.
Death threats have become a new part of the confrontation between Unity management and independent developers. There was a wave of outrage after the company announced that it would charge for its engine based on the number of game downloads.
Unity management tried to clarify their position and assure that most users will not be affected by the changes. But no one began to listen to them: for example, the creators Rust stated that no one discussed the new rules with them, so Rust 2 they definitely won’t do it in Unity.
The company apparently made an attempt to receive additional payments due to a difficult financial situation. In January, the company laid off almost 300 employees, and in May it became known that about 8% of the staff had lost their jobs. It was also planned to close almost half of the offices around the world.
Paradoxically, raising rates made the situation even worse. The decision to increase payments caused Unity shares to fall more than 5% and continue to fall. According to Yahoo Financeshortly before the announcement of the new policy, Unity executives began dumping their shares in the company.
