UIBuzz - Software and game development

Welcome to another episode of the UiBuzz podcast, where we talk about app and game development.

In this one, the subject comes around again: Unity. This week, the CEO was, well, it says in the official report, retired. We can all agree that's probably not the case, right? I think it's safe to say that he was perhaps pushed, and quite rightly so.

In fact, like so many, I question why you even hired this guy to begin with, given his track record. But anyway, the point here is that I've been following this because I have a vested interest in it. Let's start by recognizing that nobody says, "Oh, that's a shame." There seem to be two camps. One that says, great, he's gone, life will be good again.

The second camp is, he's gone, but it's too late. And I'm in that camp still. Now, here's why I think this. Let's get real here for a second. Firstly, I'm not mentioning him by name because I don't think he's worth the recognition. You all know his name. He can't do anything without the board's and shareholder's approval, right? So all of these decisions, whether he came up with them or not, don't go through without consent. It's as simple as that. So, let's stop and think about that for a second.

Okay, the guy who made the wrong decisions has gone, but the people who approved them and thought they were good ideas are still there folks? So I agree with these people who say they may do this again because they approved it last time, right? And that's what I'm thinking. I get this in some ways.

Let's flip it on its head here. I'm on the board or a shareholder in a company. So what do I expect from that? Well, I hope for a return on my investment. What does that mean? It means I wish to make money on the money I have provided or helped guide the company to make me money. That's what it means.

And rightly or wrongly, folks at the top of companies, that's their job, right? We all like to believe that they're out there doing good for the users and whoever that may be, right? But at the end of the day, they're there to satisfy the folks who want a return on their investments. I'm not cutting this guy any slack. That's tough.

After all, that means sometimes you'll do things people will hate because that's what the board wants you to do. And that's what the investors tell you to do because they want to see a return on their investment. Let's not forget that.

I'm not picking on him here. It's entirely reasonable. If you're investing in something, you expect to see a return on it. And that means sometimes you're not thinking about the best interest of the users. I wish that were not the case, but that's the reality. And those folks are still in place. You still have the same problem. That's what it comes down to. And let's not forget that.

So if you are saying, okay, I'm going to go back and use Unity again, that's perfectly fine. I'm not going to talk you into it. I'm not going to talk you out of it. But understand the problem has not gone away. It's still there. And it could happen again.

I would love to believe they will learn from their mistakes and embrace the Unity development community again. I don't think that's going to happen.

It might be made to look like it on the surface. But all that will do is try and recover so much of that lost stock value. And that's the reality of it. And I wish them the best of luck with it.

I want Unity to succeed. I like Unity. I think the folks in the trenches, as it were, who work on the Unity tools and the platforms are good people with excellent intentions. And they're surrounded by these other folks who are just in it for the money. And that's, unfortunately, a pervasive problem. And we'll have to see where that goes.

For me, if you've been following the live streams on twitch.tv/compileswift. I'm sticking to Godot because I could do that. I am just thrilled with what I've been learning. I've spoken about that in other episodes and on blog posts. That's where I'm sitting at the moment.

But that doesn't mean I wouldn't go back to Unity if either A, I needed to for some reason, or B, there were another reason to do so. I would never say I would never go back to any tool, not that I can think of in recent history. So the door is always open.

But in the meantime, I would suspect other folks like myself have already made the shift in commitment and maybe resources to say, hey, I'm early enough in this project, or my new project has started with some other tool. I'm not about to switch back to Unity now.

Now, in many places, they won't have that choice. They were already in it because they started work, were fully committed to the development process within Unity, couldn't switch away, and were prepared to live through these problems that have now gone away. And thank goodness for them that that's the case.

But I think they're probably still thinking, are we at least okay now in the short term? And who knows the answer?

I want to put this out there as just a short little thing to bring everybody up to speed on this and to say, hey, you know, really think about this and think about what it means.

Also, the games industry, in general at the moment, is having a terrible time of it. Every day, it seems like I read some studio has new layoffs or is being closed down by some bigger studio that owns them.

That's the other problem, too, with all these buyouts. You know, sometimes the smaller studios with more passion and commitment suffer from these things. And it breaks my heart to see all these good people suffering through this.

So, if you're one of those folks out there, hang in there, right? Hang in there. You'll get through it. I hope it works out.

I don't know why the sudden rash of these, but I suspect it is related to the economic situation around the world. And at the end of the day, gaming and game creation are a luxury and not a necessity. Right. It's one of those things that suffers early on when recessions and stuff like that come around.

Anyway, that's just how I see it. That's what I got in this one.

I'd love to hear your thoughts. Reach out to me. You can go to PeterWitham.com/contact or @UIBuzz on Twitter/X. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this because it's a really important conversation right now for anybody who makes any gaming, regardless of size, whether one person or hundreds of people on the team. So I welcome your thoughts, and we'll see where this goes, folks. I'll speak to you in the next one.