2023-05-07 15:00:02
News business The boss of Xbox takes stock, Unity lays off en masse and Bungie continues to hunt down cheaters… The business news of the week
This week’s business news includes Unity laying off a large chunk of its workforce, Phil Spencer’s overall mea culpa on recent Xbox events, and the outcome of a new lawsuit by Bungie. against vendors of cheat tools. Desire for growth, market reality and millions of dollars are therefore on the menu of this weekly review!
Summary
- Unity: A 3rd wave of layoffs in less than a year
- Xbox: For Phil Spencer, Microsoft has lost the generation not to lose
- Destiny 2: Bungie wins its lawsuit and recovers a nice loot
- Briefly in the business news of the week
Unity: A 3rd wave of layoffs in less than a year
This week, the company Unity has announced that it will part ways with 600 people additional, after two previous waves during which 200 and 300 people were asked to find new jobs. The technology group, which provides services and tools including the famous rendering engine, will lose 8% of its current workforce, which will still remain above 7,000 people due to massive recruitments during the pandemic. Unity is far from being the only company in this situation since many of the tech giants have done the same in recent months.
Be that as it may, this new wave of layoffs will cause the closure of around thirty studios over the next few years. But despite the losses experienced in recent years, the layoffs would first vocation to promote the growth of the company according to John Riccitiello, Group CEO. Still, the constant investments and buyouts have cost Unity dearly. Take a closer look: in 2022, the firm displayed a net loss of $920 million and this despite revenues approaching one and a half billion.
However, the management of the group announces with ambitions that Unity will announce operating profitability for the current yearwhich would quite simply be a first since the creation of the company in 2004. To achieve this, Unity intends to rely on Grow Solutions ( and services), as well as Create Solutions (engine).
Xbox: For Phil Spencer, Microsoft has lost the generation not to lose
The launch of Redfall has largely revived the debate on Microsoft’s ability to impose its games on the landscape. Between games announced long ago but still mysterious, the refusal of the takeover of Activision Blizzard by the CMAand the failed release of Arkane Austin’s game, we can’t say that the atmosphere is particularly festive in the Xbox division.
After a few days of silence, the firm came out of the woods through Phil Spencer, who appeared on the Kinda Funny Games channel’s Xbox show. We could have expected a form of wooden language sprinkled with elements of classic languages of the industry, but the boss of the Xbox division let go and showed a quite unexpected transparency. So he started by talking about the drop in sales of the Xbox Series, which fail to compete with the PS5:
We are not intended to sell more consoles than Sony or Nintendo. There really is no miracle solution for us. I know this is going to upset a lot of people, but the truth is when you’re third in the console market and the two major players are as strong as they are and in some cases very quietly focus on partnerships and other things that complicate things for the team, it’s our fault, and no one else’s.
And I see comments that you just have to make great games and it all works out. It’s not fair to say that all we have to do is make great games and suddenly console market shares change dramatically. With the Xbox One we have lost the generation that should not be lost, the one where everyone has built up their digital library of games. We want our Xbox community to feel good, but this idea that releasing more great games would be enough to win the console race doesn’t match the reality for most people.
For Phil Spencer, what’s happening today is one of the consequences of the progressive dematerialization of game saleswhich kept machine owners in the ecosystem for the next generation, Microsoft having “lost” the PS4/One battle. It would also be this observation that surely motivated the company to put the package on the development of a complete ecosystem revolving around the Game Pass. The idea is no longer to sell machines by pallets, but to get the players who use a mobile device, an Xbox console or a PC.
90% of people who go to a store every year to buy a console are already members of one of the three ecosystems and their digital library is there. This is the first generation where the most important games are games from the previous generation, like Fortnite, Roblox and Minecraft. The continuity from generation to generation is really strong. (…) There is no world in which Starfield is an 11 out of 10 and people start selling their PS5. It will not happen.
Destiny 2: Bungie wins its lawsuit and recovers a nice loot
When Destiny 2 launched a few years ago, Bungie warned: life for cheaters will be ‘unpleasant, brutal and short’. We can say that the studio, which is now owned by Sony, has kept its promise. Cheaters were therefore hunted down in several ways. Classic anti-cheat systems have been implemented, but Bungie has also tried to circumvent the undetectability of certain methods through surveys intended to target certain players or groups.
Last February, we learned that Phoenix Digital, offering cheat solutions using AimJunkies software, was ordered to pay a total of 4.3 million dollars to Bungie. In total, more than 1463 violations were held against AimJunkies, each associated with a fine of 2500 dollars, to which must be added several other fines. But Phoenix Digital is far from offering cheat tools and, in any case, the fight against malicious players is endless. Still, one more company has been condemned! Mihai Claudiu-Florentin, owner of a company selling cheating tools, must now pay 12 million dollars in damages to Bungie.
The hearing of April 26 corresponds to a complaint filed in 2021and saw Mihai Claudiu-Florentin found guilty of copyright infringement, the Digital Millenium Act, and “unfairly interfering in the contractual relationship between Bungie and other Destiny 2 users. Other lawsuits are pendingand in particular against LaviCheats, to which Bungie claims 6.7 million dollars.
Briefly in the business news of the week
- Tchia, the open world of Awaceb, is a success! The title has been played by a million players, and this success will be concretized by a physical version which will be released on July 18 on PS4 and PS5.
- Haruhiro Tsujimoto, COO of the prolific publisher Capcom, hopes Street Fighter 6 will succeed in reaching and surpassing the 10 million copies mark. A wish motivated by the sales of Resident Evil and Monster Hunter, which are a hit.
- Dead Island 2 (PS5) dominates the physical market in France for week 16, followed by Advance Wars 1+2 Re-Boot Camp, Minecraft Legends (Switch), Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and… Its Xbox One / Series version.
- Plaion (formerly Koch Media) will merge with Deep Silver, Prime Matter and Ravenscourt. The layoffs should only affect 5 to 6 people according to Games Industry
- Marvel’s Midnight Suns will ultimately not be released on Switch. The announcement was made in a more general press release on upcoming PS4/One versions.
- Square Enix has sold over two million copies of the games included in the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster line.
- Ryo Nagamatsu, one of Nintendo’s leading composers who worked on Super Mario Galaxy Splatoon, Mario Kart,
The Legend of Zelda or Wii Sports Resort, announced his resignation after 15 years of work at the Japanese publisher. He wants to broaden his horizons and work for the industry as a whole.
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