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"Oof" is what it sounds like wrt the whole Unity x Wētā thing. https://www.fxguide.com/quicktakes/unity-software-with-a-company-reset-walks-away-from-film-vfx-and-the-weta-deal/
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, cool. (not cool at all)
@aras I can only assume they still see value in the IP/assets they bought, but not the people who went with it. Dicks.
@tim …and the codebase of two dozen in-house tools without any people who understand any of it is useful about as much as… <checks notes> a bupkis?
@aras Corporations are seldom the smartest concept in the room.
@aras Ouch, not nice at all :/
Any ideas what parts of unity this affects (other than the obvious people working specifically on the weta vfx tools)?
@aras The employees who made Weta Digital profitable & leader in field suffered the most.
@aras @psychicparrot42 wowow. I suppose it’s not fully pissed away cause both parties have access to the IP worked on and both can continue to work independently though right? It is massively disappointing to see them lose Wētā as a partner for the time being and I hope that Unity can continue to do something in the film space without them but I have a sneaky suspicion that it’ll be cut next.
@aras fuck me. What a complete and utter clusterfucking clown show 
@neilhenning now, now. please stop insulting actual clowns.
@aras @neilhenning and this is why the c-suite people are paid the big bucks </sarcasm>
@neilhenning @aras what makes this worse is that VFX might just be an even more difficult and more cutthroat industry than ours
these people didn't deserve this :-(
but was probably easier for management to just close a division than to deal with all kinds of laws when firing individuals
@aras A friend is affected. They'll bounce back but I hope Unity never does - what a total shitshow.
@gob for the good people still at Unity, I hope it bounces back. But yeah, a bunch of people at the top however...
@aras at this point I'm thinking unity is doomed and I just wish they have the decency to not take any more victims on their way down ... that ship is going to break some necks when it slams into the seabed
@aras it's actually remarkable that Unity retains the technology. That's equivalent to locking them up indefinitely to rot while realistically nobody can work on them. Nobody wins anything but an entire range of tools are eliminated.
@sschoener no, Weta FX can also use the technology. So it will not entirely rot, but yeah will definitely rot away on unity's side.
@aras I hope so, but the WetaFX statement is a bit ambiguous, I think? I.e. Unity owns the tools but WetaFX has "the right to build and extend the IP, and develop its own tools and techniques." Not sure if "the IP" is the same as "the tech". Not a lawyer but my first reading essentially was "WetaFX can reuse the product name."
@aras though yes you are right, they explicitly allow continued use. Just not sure about further development.
@sschoener @aras I expect they had that carve-out because many of the tools would have been critical to the VFX business and needed to be evolved independently anyway.
@agrant let's hope so. Would be a shame otherwise! I always particularly enjoyed that grooming tool they made.
@aras RTO also cancelled so all the hurt caused by that too has amounted to nothing. I'm just imagining where Unity could have been by now if not for the last few years...
@aras There's an interesting tail on that article:
"In addition, Unity will shut down offices in 14 locations such as Berlin and Singapore, pending employee consultation in some countries, and significantly reduce its office footprint for the remaining offices, including in San Francisco and Bellevue, Washington."
@AngryAnt @aras Sorry to hear that for everyone involved. It's a mess. For Berlin:
September: Everyone has to RTO!
December: Ok, we're closing shop, everyone has to WFH!
Pre-Covid, we had no rule in Berlin, people who liked to would come in, others would not. And that was fine.
At least they are giving people the option to take remote contracts (for now). But for me, if I hadn't quit already, this would have been the last straw (I really liked the office, and am less productive at home).
@jonas @AngryAnt @aras I feel this:
"Pre-Covid, we had no rule in Berlin, people who liked to would come in, others would not. And that was fine."
Is the biggest sticky point for me. In Brighton it was the same.
Maybe people tasted the sweetness and flexibility of working from home during the pandemic? But... they were already doing it before?! 
@ciro @AngryAnt @aras I think it used to depend on location. Older and smaller offices preserved the "no rules" culture from the early days of the company. Some of the later and bigger offices might have already established more corporate rules pre-covid. But office attendance rules was never a global, company-wide topic before.
@AngryAnt you know, that gave me a tiny feeling of hope that I really needed, thank you <3
@aras the people losing jobs is bad, but what’s wrong with a company with bad management wasting money?
@jason well, for one, it could have been used to do something useful
@aras looks like they should all(?) get rehired by Wētā FX. On the upside is they no longer work for the massive cluster fuck that is Unity 3D.