Unity plans to cut 265 jobs, or 3.8% of its workforce, and end its services deal with VFX company Wētā FX to focus on its core business in a “company reset”
UPDATE: Scroll down for a statement from WētāFX: — Reuters is reporting that Unity Software …
fxguideMike Seymour
Context & Ripple Effects
Unity’s reset follows earlier workforce reductions, including a roughly 600-job cut in 2023, indicating that cost control had become a recurring response rather than a one-off adjustment.
265 Unity employees are directly affected, while ending the Wētā FX services deal removes a non-core operating commitment from the company’s reset plan.
Unity’s VFX-facing collaboration is scaled back even as some associated tools had been brought into public beta, separating product availability from the services relationship.
Second-order effects
Teams and customers relying on Unity’s Wētā-linked services may face a change in support or delivery arrangements as Unity concentrates resources on its stated core business.
The move pressures Unity to show that a narrower product and operating scope can support its developer and production-tool ambitions without the same services overhead.
Third-order effects
If repeated across software vendors, resets like this favor product businesses with clearer recurring economics over adjacent services experiments that add cost and operational complexity.
Unity’s sequence of cuts and retrenchment suggests a broader industry test: whether platform companies can sustain specialized creative-tool ecosystems while tightening organizational and financial discipline.
The trend: Game-engine and creative-software platforms are reassessing service-heavy expansions as they prioritize leaner core-product operations.
“Oof” is what it sounds like wrt the whole Unity x Wētā thing. https://www.fxguide.com/... So basically, the end result is that 265 people are abruptly laid off right before holidays (I hope Wētā FX can take most of them back?), and Unity essentially pissed away $1.6B. Cool, co…
Sounds like Weta FX will be hiring back most of the laid off Unity x Weta staff and will continue to develop the tech IP. I'm glad that Weta Digital folks will get to keep doing what they're doing; they have a ton of really smart people and cool tech. — https://www.fxguide.com…
Unity is closing VFX company Weta Digital, which it purchased from Peter Jackon for $1.6 billion just 2 years ago. 265 people will be laid off, with Weta FX hoping to re-hire as many people as possible. Unity will keep Weta's tools it acquired: https://www.gamespot.com/... [image…
Just when you think Unity couldn't be any worse. What an underhanded way to treat one of the most talented and hardworking VFX studios to ever exist. Thankfully it sounds like most staff will still exist within Weta in other departments, but this is absolutely disgusting
Unity have just announced layoffs of 3.8% of their staff, almost 100% at Weta Digital, as they focus on core products ( #gamedev ). Thus ends Unity's 1.6 Billion dollar mistake. https://gamefromscratch.com/ ... #unity3d #indiedev
I hate to say I told ya so but I know this Unity deal with Weta was not going to end well. This sucks for the talented teams at Weta & Unity - https://www.fxguide.com/... - Unity has constantly shown missteps in starting divisions and tools and never delivering on them. #unity
We @W4Games look forward to welcoming Peter Jackson's @WetaFXofficial to the @godotengine community. Sad, tho, to see the continued implosion of Unity under horrifically incompetent leadership. https://www.reuters.com/... [image]
The unravelling of Unity is quite something. Unable to succeed with real-time rendering software in a sector like film & VFX - which needs that pipeline more than ever... Is this a core business failing, or is that opportunity just sewn up by Unreal? https://www.reuters.com/...
me, in 2021, when Unity bought Wētā FX's engineers, tools and pipeline: I don't get it me, in 2023, when Unity walked away from the deal and layed off a bunch of people but still owns the tools and pipeline: I don't get it https://www.fxguide.com/...
Man, fuck Unity, especially for costing 300 people their jobs less than a month before Christmas just because its corporate overlords *had* to burn the company down while trying to shakedown the entire game industry.
Did some napkin maths and the total of annual salaries of Unity's former Internal Game Production team (RIP) was roughly 0.18% of the Weta Digital deal. 🫠
in nov 2021, Unity under then CEO John Riccitiello bought the tech division of Peter Jackson's VFX studio, Weta, for 1.6 billion dollars two years and one new CEO later, and they're laying off the 265 employees they bought and killing Weta's VFX contract https://www.reuters.com/.…
Sounds like Weta FX will be hiring back most of the laid off Unity x Weta staff and will continue to develop the tech IP. I'm glad that Weta Digital folks will get to keep doing what they're doing; they have a ton of really smart people and cool tech. https://www.fxguide.com/...
Update: 265 world-class employees fired. Service agreement terminated with Weta FX, who is recovering the “Weta Digital” name. $1.6B for this complete waste of talent? Riccitiello's reign was such an amateurish mess. https://www.fxguide.com/...
Unity Software with a ‘company reset’ walks away from film VFX and the Weta Deal. So sad to hear this news. From talking to friends who are directly impacted - it was a shock all round. https://www.fxguide.com/... via @fxguidenews
Massive news if true but I don't think this is what the linked Reuters report actually says? It says “ends an agreement” with Weta, not shutting it down. https://www.reuters.com/...
My heart goes out to Unity's amazing Wētā Tools team that was just impacted by layoffs. This after layoffs in Virtual Production and Live Entertainment earlier this year marks a very low point for once-hopeful Unity filmmakers. https://www.reuters.com/...