A new tweet from Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier has claimed that Unity CEO, John Riccitiello is stepping down from the company.
UPDATE – Unity has announced the changes in a new press release. James M. Whitehurst has been appointed Interim Chief Executive Officer, President and a member of the Board. Roelof Botha, Lead Independent Director of the Unity Board, has been appointed Chairman. Mr. Riccitiello will continue to advise Unity to ensure a smooth transition.
The report comes after the company announced in September that it would be making huge changes to its monetization and royalties policies. In short, the changes meant that developers would need to pay royalties every time the game was installed by a player. Depending on the subscription the developer is subscribed to and the number of installs, this fee can range from $0.005 all the way to $0.20 per install.
The announcement was heavily criticised online and even resulted in the company closing its offices due to “credible” death threats.
Several days after the announcement, Unity apologized for the ‘confusion and angst’ and announced changes to its plan.
“I want to start with this: I am sorry,” Unity Create lead Marc Whitten said. “We should have spoken with more of you and we should have incorporated more of your feedback before announcing our new Runtime Fee policy.”
As far as the new policy changes, Unity is keeping the Unity Personal plan free and won’t include a runtime fee for games built on the plan. The revenue cap will be increased from $100,000 to $200,000 with the plan and the “Made with Unity” splash screen requirement will be removed.
“No game with less than $1 million in trailing 12-month revenue will be subject to the fee,” he said.
Whatever the case may be though, it seems like the change and announcement were too much for Unity and its investors, with the CEO, John Riccitiello reportedly stepping down.
Riccitiello became the CEO of Unity Technologies in late 2014, having previously consulted for and joined the technology company’s board in November 2013.
For more from Insider Gaming, check out the news that XDefiant has been delayed again, with no new release date.
