Following a massive controversy regarding new installation fees (that have luckily been taken back a bit) Unity CEO John Riccitiello is stepping down as President and CEO of Unity. While Unity and Riccitiello haven't gone into explicit detail as to why the departure is happening, it's quite clear.

Unity started problems about a month ago when they announced a runtime fee. The new model would charge developers a small fee when someone downloads a game made on their engine. After a game passes a set revenue and installation count, the fee is charged. Game developers and the gaming community did not take this lightly. Many developers have considered, or already have de-listed their games because of the fee.

A fair question to be asked could simply be, what happened? Unity used to be very well-trusted until it became public in 2020. Public corporations often become more corrupt when investors' interests become more important than those of the customer. Of the 13 board heads, 11 of them are investment managers. There is still a good chance that not all of the “rot” has been washed away within Unity. While John Riccitiello certainly isn’t innocent, his retirement from Unity could solve little to no problems within the company. 

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What’s even more upsetting is that John Riccitiello and many other executives sold their stock in Unity right before the installation fee announcement was made. It's almost as if everyone in charge at Unity knew the installment fee would not be taken well, so they all figured to save themselves rather than value developers. 

The Game Development world is one that is built heavily upon trust. Now, anyone looking to develop a game will seemingly head in a direction that’s far away from Unity. John Riccitiello’s departure should not be taken as a sign to trust Unity again. Unity did however announce that they will walk back several key aspects of their former policy. Unfortunately, it may just be too late for Unity to regain developers' trust. Problems with Unity and its small game developers have been around for a long time. 

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