Unity is Laying Off 25% of its Workforce

Unity announced yesterday that it was laying off 1,800 employees, which represents approximately 25% of the company’s staff. The company had already announced some cuts in May and November last year, but this third round of layoffs in less than a year is quite brutal for a company that plays such an important role in the video games industry.

Indeed, the popular game engine has been in trouble since last fall when it tried to charge developers a controversial runtime fee based on game installs. After facing a massive backlash, the company backtracked and saw its CEO John Riccitiello leave in October. Riccitiello has since been replaced by Jim Whitehurst, a former President at IBM and Red Hat.

In an email statement shared with Bloomberg, the company explained that this latest round of job cuts is the result of a “company reset” that the company announced in November. The company also said that “this decision was not taken lightly.”

In a filing published on Monday, Unity explained that it’s currently unable to estimate the impact of these layoffs on the company’s profitability. Many other companies in the video games industry laid off employees last year, including Epic Games, which makes the Unreal Engine.