For some of our readers, the name Unity might sound very familiar. The company released the graphic engine of the same name and games such as Pokemon Go!, Beat Saber or Cuphead were developed based on it. Now it enjoys great popularity, but that did not prevent 600 employees from being laid off after the company decided to close almost half of its offices.
With a total of about 7,000 employees, Unity has now laid off about 8% of its workforce. This move will encourage the remote work schedule, and with the closing of the offices I think we are talking about laying off the people who were in charge of building maintenance, cleaning, logistics, etc. And this is just the beginning, as the company wants to reduce its carbon footprint as much as possible.
“Everything we do helps us prepare for greater growth in the future” – these are the words of John Riccitiello, the company’s CEO. He claims that the restructuring also aims to reduce the number of management layers within the company. If you ask me, that could lead to better communication between teammates, so a job well done. And even if the offices close and remote work prevails, those at Unity are preparing to call part of their employees to work at least three days a week.
This wave of layoffs comes after a successful period within the company. Unity turned black for the first time since its inception (in 2004) until today. If things continue on an upward slope and the graphics engine continues to develop at the same rate as it has been, I don’t think we are many years away from seeing a serious competitor for Unreal Engine on the market.