this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2023
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Unity Backpedals on Its Horrible Plan for Game Install Fees Amid Developer Backlash::Unity CEO John Riccitiello reportedly sold thousands of shares of stock in the weeks ahead of the fee announcement.

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[–] nul9o9@lemmy.world 109 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Step 1: Propose an incredibly stupid, greedy, unpopular move that gets everyone pissed off.

Step 2: Announce a change of plans due to the feedback, and implement your original less stupid, greedy, unpopular move.

[–] xkforce@lemmy.world 29 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Step 2 is sell/short stock not revert idiotic changes

[–] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 20 points 1 year ago

That's step 0. They've already done it.

[–] orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts 11 points 1 year ago
[–] Doomsider@lemmy.world 65 points 1 year ago (2 children)

CEO should not be compensated in shares because they have insider information and can benefit from manipulation. It has always been a recipe for disaster.

[–] Puzzle_Sluts_4Ever@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Equity is good. It encourages people to give a shit as to whether a product is launched or not and so forth.

The issue is more that we have this convoluted scheme to let people cash out their shares throughout their time with the company because it makes 'total compensation" higher

Personally? I would have almost no issues if it were just put into an escrow account and treated more like a retirement/severance package. Working at InterTrode? Those shares are untouchable. Leave InterTrode? YOLO.

[–] Jamie@jamie.moe 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I always thought there should be a minimum hold time. Somewhere between 1-5 years after they leave their position.

It encourages them to think long term instead of just the next quarter, and they really have to leave the company in a better place than they found it.

[–] applebusch@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

I fully agree with you and that sounds like a great idea. It sent me down a chain of thought that I find interesting. Say we implement this, CEO A does their job, but shortly before their time is up, they discover something awful. They are about to leave, so they want the next 1-5 years to be rosy, so they do some extremely unethical bullshit to ensure that and hide the problem just long enough for the next guy to take the fall. CEO B, who took over when A left, figures out the awful thing, but it's been long enough that they kind of have no choice but to continue the unethical bullshit, to ensure their compensation when they leave. And so on with CEO C and D. That's a feasible possibility to me and I also just realized they probably do that now, just on a shorter timescale. All in all I'd say the long term shit is probably better on the whole. Ooooor we could do something besides give one schmuck executive feudal authority over a bunch of people's livelihoods. Maybe like some kind of democratic system.

[–] Romanmir@lemmy.today 5 points 1 year ago

I feel like no executive should be able to exercise their stock options while they still work at the company.

[–] samus12345@lemmy.world 55 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If I were a developer, the fact that Unity seriously considered doing this means I would stop using it as soon as possible. Even if they reverted it now, they can't be trusted to not try something similarly shitty later.

[–] serratur@lemmy.wtf 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Godot is open source, hope this news boost its development

[–] ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

Their development fund apparently doubled and every developer realizes the value of open source tooling now. I’d think it’s going to get plenty of attention, both in terms of development and contributions to the wider ecosystem.

[–] sebinspace@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago

Even if they actually backpedaled, I don’t care! They’ve already shown what they’re willing to try to get away with. Even if they didn’t succeed, it says a lot about where their head is, and I can’t trust a company like that.

[–] foggy@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

Good to see businesses still backpedaling.

It's getting frightening that companies are basically at the point of "We plan to take all your money and there's nothing you can do about it, bitch."

Fuck you unity. I wanna see this kill your whole platform.

[–] MrBananaMan@lemm.ee 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I keep seeing this thing about the CEO selling shares. It was an automatic sell that was preplanned way in advance. That's what the rule 10b-5 trading plan means in the disclosures.

[–] Ottomateeverything@lemmy.world 28 points 1 year ago

I don't see how this is a defense. If it's scheduled, he knows it's happening. He could have just delayed the announcement until the day after his shares were scheduled to sell, and the intention is the same. Having a schedule doesn't exempt you from insider trading, it's a procedure that needs to be followed.

On the other hand, the better defense here is that he's a multi millionaire or billionaire, and he sold like $80k worth of shares. If he was really intending to dump, he'd be selling like 100x this amount.

[–] Puzzle_Sluts_4Ever@lemmy.world 24 points 1 year ago

Ethics are not the law

They know what was likely to happen and they knew when the sell was scheduled for. Tinfoil, but I assume the plan was for people to be disgruntled and devalue it enough for a buyout rather than result in half of game dev going scorched earth and significant parts of the company quitting.

[–] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 21 points 1 year ago

It was a cancellable automatic sell. Which means it's just a way to make insider trading legal. Everything is legal if you're rich.

[–] Gsus4@feddit.nl 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Too late, on my way to Godot, lesson 3, bye-bye suckas.