Shitty Executive: “Oh shit, our terrible idea turned out to be wildly unpopular and we’re getting massive negative feedback! Quick, play the death threats card to make us look like the victim!”
Perhaps they could pay a small fee to not receive them.
Or purchase the Happy Customer Times Season Pass, where for 12 months they only receive feedback telling them how awesome they’re doing. Only $39.99 per employee!
*fees are liable to change at any time without notice, new prices may be applied retroactively
20 cents for every death threat not sent? Sure! Whos counting? Dont worry, our propiertary system counts every unsent message, you only need to pay up ^(works every previously unsent message, but only if you got more than 200 000 the past year, we got you)
Bit seriously, why do some people always so eager to send death threats? It almost never achieves anything, gets you on the moral low ground and doesn’t even get to the right persons the first place.
I’m sure there’s a PR playbook somewhere with a flowchart that says, did you screw up really badly and you look like the villain? - yes - There’s public outrage? - yes - say there’s death threats
No need for death threats. Unity already committed suicide.
Ouch.
I imagine this policy will quietly be pulled with a statement about how due to “not expecting how unpopular the decision was”
As soon as they get a subpoena from… every AAA developer.
This would include Warner bros, as they own a video game Studio, in fact I believe Mortal Kombat 1 uses unity, and it’s supposed to be what gets their Christmas bonus this year. They would be fools to not already have their people on the case.
I hope so, but frankly we’ll just have to see. The people with the money and power usually win.
What a grade A burn.
Unsurprisingly, it’s likely that this “death threats” situation was made up by the ceo: https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/16j21jg/the_truth_behind_the_unity_death_threats/
It’s a reddit link, ik… here’s a copy of the post:
The truth behind the Unity “Death Threats”
Unity has temporarily closed its offices in San Francisco and Austin, Texas and canceled a town hall meeting after receiving death threats, according to Bloomberg.
Multiple news outlets are reporting on this story, yet Polygon seems to be the only one that actually bothered to investigate the claims.
Checking with both Police and FBI, they have only acknowledged 1 single threat, from a Unity employee, to their boss over social media. Despite this their CEO decided to use it as an excuse to close edit:
all2 of their offices and cancel planned town hall meetings. Here is the article update from Polygon:Update: San Francisco police told Polygon that officers responded to Unity’s San Francisco office “regarding a threats incident.” A “reporting party” told police that “an employee made a threat towards his employer using social media.” The employee that made the threat works in an office outside of California, according to the police statement.
https://www.polygon.com/23873727/unity-credible-death-threat-offices-closed-pricing-change
Polygon also contacted Police in the other cities and also the FBI, this was the only reported death threat against Unity that anyone knew of.
This is increasingly looking like the CEO is throwing a pity party and he’s trying to trick us all into coming.
Everyone blaming “people” in the comments and they just fell to the CEO charade to get sympathy points.
Yeah if I were the CEO I would be avoiding a town hall like the plague.
He essentially just called a bomb threat on his highschool before a final he was going to fail. Then came home to his family crying about how scary it all was.
Yep, a lot of companies will make shit up to make people feel bad for them, and to try to make themselves seem like the victims in all of this while hiding the real victims when they are the abusers.
It’s honestly fucking disgusting behaviour, it makes me sick.
Yep it doesn’t surprise me, I’ve seen many people claim “death threats” to get out of responsibility for doing or saying something that was not respectable, or that was flat out evil.
They do this because it works very well, death threats are so serious and so scary that if somebody said they got them you would immediately give that person a pass (unless they’re a Nazi then they deserve it, you don’t give Nazis a pass for anything) no proof required, though it also would be incredibly easy to forge proof of such an event for anyone skeptical and it would be enough for 99% of people, the remaining 1% of dissent would then be written off as crazy people.
I’m willing to bet that this will continue to happen and people will continue to go along with it because there are enough cases of people making real death threats to innocence cover up the false ones and make them seem more real than they actually are.
That just redirects to thread
16j21jg. They’re generating opaque unique IDs so they can track permalinks now?Damn, that’s scummy as fuck. I’ll try to get the proper permalink.
This shouldn’t be a distraction from the core issue, but obviously people should cut this shit out.
You can’t sneeze online without some sociopathic child threatening to slit your throat.
Edit: Annnd it was an employee of Unity that made the threats…
THAT IS NOT TRUE AT ALL!
I SHOULD SLIT YOUR THROAT FOR SAYING SUCH OBVIOUS WRONG STATEMENTS!
/s
One day you’re going to sneeze, and then you’ll get yours.
I was gonna point out, that they would have to sneeze online
I sometimes forget, we’re not in 2000, where else would they sneeze? Irl?
Ewww… what kind of luddite would ever sneeze analogue.
I take it you don’t use the engine
Whatcha wanna bet there aren’t any death threats? Seems to be a go to for “we’re assholes, but look at these imaginary assholes instead!”
Don’t underestimate that shit. I’ve personally got death threats before. People are dumb as fuck. I’ve seen people actually follow through. Life is fucked up. Everyone’s batshit these days.
I don’t say that in Support of unity though.
Yeah, not only will people send death threats, but they’ll send them to random people they see on LinkedIn who happen to have the company in their bio.
Instead of, like, to the CEO’s house.
Because too many people are both angry reactionaries, and also cowards.
You’ve seen people follow through on death threats?
I was thinking this. A way to demonize the counter movement
Hmm seems like we called it:
I will absolutely take that bet. Given both how unpopular the decision is combined with it being even tangentially related to the gaming community I would be astonished if they didn’t receive death threats.
Knowing how despicable the worst of the gaming community can be, I have no doubts that death threats were real.
I also have no doubts that the despicable CEO, like others of his ilk who receive entirely justified negativity for their stupidity, will milk it as an excuse to dilute the negative feedback and shift to victimization.
I don’t doubt for a second they are real. There are some really scary sycophantic gamers out there.
This guy fucks
Talk about blowing shit out of proportion. People need to realize that making death threats is a good way to make the bad guys look like the good guys.
Which is probably why the CEO made it up using the single death threat from an employee as an excuse to close the company for the day and probably also get pity from people for it (see here for more details).
I bet it probably won’t stay that way though, he’ll probably realize people are onto his lies and make some death threats from sock-puppet accounts and claim “No 4 reAl pEopLe arE sENdiNg m3 deAth tHreAts” I wouldn’t put it past him if people don’t keep falling for the current one, and if people keep the heat on him for his current bad decisions.
So, the leadership of Unity is a complete piece of shit, but death threats (or really, any other threat of violence) are just straight up idiotic. It’s a game engine company. There are much more fun and interesting (and, you know, legal) ways to kill the company in a commercial sense.
I feel bad for the regular workers there who can’t choose the direction of the company and need that job to live.
But frankly if they were all directed just to the CEO, I couldn’t be less bothered. Wealthy assholes don’t have empathy, don’t listen to reasons, aren’t bound by rules. Even lawsuits today are decided more by who has the most money than who is in the right. Maybe it’s not so bad if folks put some fear in him, specifically.
Sure, there are more worthy causes to direct that sort of outrage to. Then again there’s the livelihood of a large number of smaller creators to consider. This isn’t just about a fictional thing not being the way someone wanted.
Well, they are idiotic, yes. In the sense that if you mean to kill someone, telling them beforehand is wildly counter-productive.
Wild. Murica lol.
The one guy working on a PS2 emulator also quit because death threats.
Why not make sustainable laws to prevent shitty companies from doing things like this instead of “social justice”
Because the most successful senior citizen daycare facility is the US Senate. A lot of these people still think of computers as being Commodore 64s.
Companies are allowed to make bad decisions bro.
The overreaction to online death threats is so stupid. An anonymous 0 follower Twitter account allows organizations and people to instantly turn the PR situation around and become the victims and act like they are personally being hunted down by Mossad.
Death threats are the background noise of the internet, always have been. It’s just part of the PR manual now.
I remember someone telling me they were going to hunt me down and kill me on StarCraft back in like 2001. Shit hasn’t changed
I’ve almost found you, I’ve narrowed your location down to earth. Maybe in another 20 years, I’ll get a hemisphere.
To be fair, you zerg rushed me in the first five minutes despite our prior agreement.
gl hf nr20
To be faaiirrrrrrr
To be fair, you are a ghost haunting a computer and have been since the year 2001
Hey! Don’t threaten people! Don’t hurt anyone! Just move to Godot. That’s it. Abandon ship, peacefully. These people care more about money than employee lives anyway.
I find this and other comments like this hilarious because you’re 100% correct and yet at the same time lemmy is a cesspool of people on every post about an owner, or landlord, or millionaire/billionaire about killing them, or beating them, or bringing out the guillotine, or eating them, etc etc.
Again, you’re right. It’s amazing how tone deaf people are here though to not be aware their behavior reeks of the same extremism.
It’s why I’m very much on the fence about continuing here outside of the memes. The people here are disgustingly naive and not healthy quite frankly.
Rich choking and killing the planet knowingly with no regard for human or any other life = unity devs
500 IQ
join a community with your values, lemmy is federated, if you don’t like your community join another :)
Where do I find one of those? Most communities with any traffic feel like they’re full of the same people with the same axes to grind, just talking about slightly different subjects.
Idk why the downvotes. It’s seriously off putting to be surrounded by people that clearly have no idea how the world works. It was funny before Trump. Now I take these meme waves with a grain of salt. Idiots in large numbers are dangerous. At least reddit was easy enough to use that the cesspool was diluted with less intense morons.
Please teach us how the world works.
I’m a landlord. Never evicted anyone. It’s a super high risk position to be in. My mortgage isn’t free. The upkeep to my property isn’t free. Time spent vetting renters so my neighbors don’t have to live next to crackheads isn’t free. You pay rent so you don’t have to think about maintenence costs, mortgage, risking allowing others to live in property you spent money you worked for on. All of that and any other subtly is lost on here. Going to work and enjoying it is possible. The world isn’t black and white. Communism doesn’t work on a large scale. Etc.
Pretty amazing how a small group on Lemmy can make Reddit look almost sane.
That 4chan sure is a wild dude.
Who is this four chin hacker you speak of?
The elite hacker known as 4chan
Known for posting My Mys of Peep the Toad.
Well known symbol of the alt right, peep the toad.
I am usually against such and still am, you should never send anyone deaf that’s, that is a felonious offense.
That said I don’t feel sorry for the victim. You can’t blackmail every game developer in the world simultaneously and expect nothing to happen.
I hate humanity sometimes, why would they send death threats? Just don’t use their engine; this is the way you actually make a change – switch to something else, threatening people does not help you prove your point. I hate their new pricing changes too, but death threats are never warranted
Im some cases I could see how this could destroy someone’s livelihood and people have killed over that sort of thing before. But my guess is that the people sending the death threats probably aren’t even developers.
Looks like it’s bullshit. https://feddit.it/comment/2515772
While I’m not defending those who sent these death threats or justifying these actions, I’m sure a lot work and progress will be lost for many companies because of these outrageous changes. It should be no surprise that many if not all of their clients are gonna be angry. Switching to another engine isn’t like switching from reddit to the fediverse.
They’re changing pennies per install, and only after the publisher is receiving over $200,000 per year, and they don’t count the first 100,000 installs. The price goes down dramatically for customers at the higher subscription tiers. I don’t understand why people are so pissed about them wanting such a tiny cut for providing the software that does so much heavy lifting for game developers.
First of all if you’re a poor (and possibly solo) developer who could only spring for the lowest tier you’re being charged the highest rate per install. That rate is 20 cents… per install… not per purchase… per install. If I buy the game once and install it on my desktop machine, my laptop, and my steam deck, the developer has to pay 60 cents. one of those computers breaks down and I need to reinstall the game, that’s an additional 20 cents every time. I have a young nephew who thinks nothing of installing a game to play for a day or two then uninstalling it to make room for another only to reinstall that first game again later. He does this with a lot of games… almost all of which are Unity games (I know, because he wants me to play these games with him quite often, so I see that logo pop up). Come January 1st, every time he installs that game, BOOM, developer owes 20 cents. My nephew isn’t special and, if he’s uninstalling and reinstalling games like that you can bet there’s 1000s of other kids doing the same! Hell, you don’t even have to be a kid. I might play a game for a few months, uninstall it, then reinstall it years later. That’s another thing… this 20 cents is perpetual! As a developer, what happens when you’re done with your game? You do have the time or energy to maintain the game anymore? This pricing model doesn’t care. You abandoned your game 5 years ago? Don’t care, 100 people installed your game, you owe us $20!
I didn’t realize they never “per install” quite so literally. That does make a big difference and it’s a really weird way for them to charge.
Edit: Ok so according to another commenter your interpretation is common but wrong, and Unity clarified they mean the first install per customer only. So my position that this isn’t a big deal stands.
Sorry, no. This is not accurate either. According to Unity’s own FAQ regarding the subject… Which you can look at right here…
Do installs of the same game by the same user across multiple devices count as different installs? We treat different devices as different installs. We don’t want to track identity across different devices.
So, again, if I install the game on 3 different devices, Unity considers that 3 installs. If I build a new computer later, then reinstall the game there, it’ll count as a new install. The scary thing is… what if someone hates you as a developer? They now only need to buy your game once, then setup a script to roll VMs and install your game on VMs (each VM counts as a seperate device), and you, as the developer, will be hit with the new install cost each time.
Additionally…
Does the Unity Runtime Fee apply to pirated copies of games? We are happy to work with any developer who has been the victim of piracy so that they are not unfairly hurt by unwanted installs.
The issue here is… the developer would already have been charged the fee for a “pirated” install, because, how is a developer supposed to even know their game was pirated in the first place. Here, the developer may already be financially hit for a pirated game and now has to spend time and resources with Unity to convince them that some percentage of installs are pirated installs. Earlier in their FAQ, Unity claims they do not have a “phone home” when a Unity game is run, so, how are they determining installs in the first place? “Aggregate data”… or, another words, “trust us”.
Their new pricing is not horrible, but it’s pretty wonky at best
After the first wave of outrage they had to clarify that it wouldn’t take reinstalls into account, which should have been clear from the beginning
Also the fact that they take money on a game install wether or not that install generated any money is just dumb, most people would rather pay more as long as they have the guarantee that they only pay AFTER having made some profits
Even with the qualifiers, it makes it super hard to make any financial projections as your profits are totally uncorrelated to the fees you’ll have to pay
What’s more curious to me is what kind of people are those that resort to such lows?
I mean they might have mental issues,yes,but it’s scary to see that people seemingly intelligent and able to create games (asset flipping not included) can have such low morals and problem solving capabilities.
I absolutely agree. I’d want to say those threats are people outside of the industry. People in the industry have received death threats themselves so they understand that it’s real shitty, right? I hope so.
This, like cancel culture, is a direct result of a justice system that pretty much never delivers justice to the victims of the rich and the powerful. Fixing that is the only thing that can stop this escalating cultural phenomenon.
Prosecute the shit out of the people making death threats because I don’t want to live in a society that’s cool with that either.
They already do that in most jurisdictions. Solve the root problem, and the surface problem will be fixed. Only fix the surface, and…well, it’s like weeding dandelions.
One of the issue here, and I am in absolutely no way defending Unity, is that legally an executive team works for the shareholders. They must ensure shareholder return no matter what as they are in the hook for it.
Unity’s biggest issue is that they like many successful companies stopped innovating and have moved from a company run by technical people to one run by sales and marketing. Sales and marketing only know how to extract more out of the product they already have and not how to improve the product to make more in honest ways. I would (have) gladly given Unity more money if they offered tools that truly helped me get to market faster as then my win would be their win. Instead their product has become stagnant, slower not faster since 2019 and more expensive. I am getting less for more and it is unacceptable. Unity is a horrible business partner. But I can see why as they are a sales and marketing company now. Steve Jobs says it best in this 2 minute video. He got it. Why are so many other not getting this?
is that legally an executive team works for the shareholders. They must ensure shareholder return no matter what as they are in the hook for it.
Not an excuse for just blatantly fucking over the customers. By implementing this hostile pricing model, company is alienating their customers. Big game studios may or may not cough up the money (or just delay that payments and take Unity to court if threatened). Small companies will just not pay up and either kill their projects or redesign from the ground up using a diff engine. Indie devs will likely just use another engine all together.
It’s a clear money grab that will backfire on them (losing trust of an already small community, and thus money will slowly stop rolling in). Fucked by the loss of sales. Fucking over the shareholders and creating new bag holders. Only winners here are the insiders that dumped their shares before announcement.
C-level execs at Unity smoking crack.
I agree. I think the issue is though that Unity (like many successful companies) have become their own worse enemies. Steve Jobs in this 2 mins video really explains it well. It will resonate what is going on at Unity and why they pulled such a stupid move. Wrong people are in charge and they have no means to make money honestly. Intellectually and creatively bankrupt. https://youtu.be/tGKsbt5wii0?si=v8_A2jW5uLewhbVS
That doesn’t mean making decisions that can ultimately hurt the business or their partners though. You can be greedy while not alienating the developers who drive the company’s profits. Decisions like these could make them lose millions or even go out of business.
You could swap unity with any company really and it would be the same. once a business goes for an IPO, whatever mission/vision it had turns into making shareholders happy and fast. Profits go directly to shareholders by stock buybacks instead of R&D/salaries, so they have to squeeze consumers more and more with the same products to keep it up. it’s tragically comic that you mention Steve Jobs kinda talking about it when Apple turned into the GOAT of this stuff.
This is partially what “eat the rich” rhetoric meant when acted on.
There is seriously a mental health pandemic going on and it’s scary. Everyone here who has messages or upvotes messages about bringing out the guillotine or killing billionaires really needs to seek help.
And there is a fucking lot of you here on lemmy.
Well then, do what you tell people who condemn rapists and pedophiles to do: learn some empathy.
People who hold different opinions and worldviews than you aren’t fucking mentally ill. You are by insinuating such. You are not the center of the universe and your opinions are not automatically facts just because you hold them.
Americans actually do still have a constitutional right to advocate overthrowing their government if they want; the whole fucking point of the first and second amendments is to enable the people to do just that.
I’m tired of people like you and your vile bullshit. Don’t like it, get out of the thread. But don’t come in here with your holier-than-thou act thinking you’re going to bully or guilt trip or emotionally blackmail anybody into sitting down or submitting to your opinion like you’ve been doing to the American people for decades now.
Not everyone on the internet is American bozo
Most of us in the thread are. Sideshow Bob.
People who hold different opinions and worldviews than you
“Threatening to kill people and not wanting people to threaten to kill people are equal worldviews, actually.”
Strawmanning and attacking #EatTheRich memebros actually is equivalent to enabling actual violence by condemning anyone who opposes nonviolence, actually, and it’s why you all are finally, finally being downvoted and rejected by everyone else. Ackshually
No I’m being downvoted because gamers have really rustled jimmies, and this place has a lot of commie-leaning people.
Wanna know how I know? The actual rest of society thinks this is a terrible thing to do.
And it couldn’t possibly be that you’re just wrong.
Wanna know how I know? Because I actually think and don’t resort to blatant bandwagon fallacies like you do. Actually recent polls have even shown the number of Americans who agree with sentiments like #EatTheRich or who accept political violence is rising, and it’s more Democrats doing it than Republicans, so you’re doubly wrong.
Take your status-quo-or-die bullshit elsewhere. We’ve had enough of it. No one has to agree with you on the issue. No one has to agree with you on nonviolence or political violence or any sort of -ence. People have the right to feel the way they want to feel and as someone with a vested stake in a liberal democracy that pretends to care about such things, by extension you have to respect that.
Let it go.
Thanks for the link. Some of those results were interesting. Question. Your link says that 84% disagree with the statement that “political violence against those I disagree with is acceptable”. How have you concluded this is “rising”? What is your base of comparrison?
I don’t give a shit and didn’t read this, because I think you’re a bad person. Your parents failed you.
I’m sorry I don’t condone the killing of people simply because they make more than I do.
Seriously grow the fuck up.
I’m sorry I don’t condone the murder and enslavement of millions around the world by a small dominant group of people who have no one’s best interests at heart but their own.
I’m sorry I don’t condone the perpetuation of a broken system that purposefully subjugates billions of people.
I’m sorry you’re butthurt I and a bunch of other people on the internet won’t validate your massively unjustified sense of superiority and self-importance.
You grow the fuck up.
Grow. Up. And stop protecting and defending evil people. Stop hurting society and stop hurting us.
Seems to me like you’re far more butthurt judging by this comment thread lol.
You’ve put a lot of words in my mouth that I’ve never said.
I almost guarantee you and I have more in common than you may realize unfortunately you’re so blinded by hate you’re unable to think clearly.
Mark my words we are working towards WW3 and it scares the living hell out of me because people like you are so built up in your echo chambers and you’re frothing at the mouth. There’s no difference between your attitude and those of an average Trump supporter. It’s blind rage. Looking for simple solutions to a complex world.
I seriously worry for my children. The anger is so unfocused or focused on the wrong area.
We can change the system but we have to want to. The problem is people increasingly on the left and right just want to burn it down.
How equivalent is
“I don’t condone the killing of people simply because they make more than I do.”
to
“[condoning] the murder and enslavement of millions around the world by a small dominant group of people who have no one’s best interests at heart but their own.”?
Go read actual history and find out.
What I found out is the outcomes of events like the French Revolution and the rule of the Khmer Rouge i.e. vastly different dependent on the circumstances of the place and time.
Found the rich guy
