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Unity cuts 1.8k jobs in biggest layoff yet

Unity cuts 1.8k jobs in biggest layoff yet

Engine giant Unity is cutting around 1,800 jobs in its largest round of redundancies to date.

The news was unveiled in an SEC filing – spotted by Reuters – in which the company said that it planned to cut 25 per cent of its workforce. For context, this is the fourth round of layoffs the company has made since summer 2022; a huge number of jobs have already been cut and the firm terminated its deal with Weta FX.

This latest round of cuts is part of the "company reset" which was announced by interim CEO Jim Waterhouse in November 2023. In its SEC filing, Unity wrote that this would help it 'restructure' and 'refocus' its core business "to position itself for long-term and profitable growth".

To put it bluntly, Unity is not doing well of late. The company announced a controversial 'runtime fee' in September 2023, which would have charged developers for consumers downloading games made with Unity. This was an astoundingly stupid and tone deaf move that saw a massive backlash against the company.

It also resulted in then-CEO John Riccitiello leaving the company.


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.