Unity is on the mend. That’s the view of Matthew Bromberg, who was appointed as CEO of the game engine maker just seven months ago after the previous CEO flubbed a price increase.
We heard from Unity on October 28 at our GamesBeat Next 2024 event in San Francisco, where I did a live fireside chat with him through the metaverse miracle of Zoom while he was in New York. Mercifully, it worked and we had a good talk about the landscape of gaming and Unity’s future. (You can use this $100 off discount code, HG24DEAN100, to register for GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games on December 12 in Los Angeles on the same day as The Game Awards).
Since that time, Bromberg has filled out the company’s roster of new executives with a new CFO, CTO, CPO for ads and other importance positions. Unity also issued its third quarter earnings report on November 7. The company met its financial targets for the quarter with revenues of $429 million, down 2% from a year earlier. And the October 17 launch of the Unity 6 game engine has gone off without too many problems.
Under Bromberg’s leadership, Unity canceled the Runtime Fee that was announced in 2023; back then, the firestorm of vitriol from developers cost then-CEO John Riccitiello his job. Bromberg still has challenges, as the stock price is still down more than 40% from the start of the year. Rivals are on both sides. On the high end, Epic Games’ Unreal Engine (CEO Tim Sweeney also spoke at our event) is supported by the juggernaut of Fortnite, allowing Epic Games to choose developer-friendly business models and pursue an open metaverse strategy. And the open source Godot engine has also been gaining steam.
Unity has to make the right decisions to navigate its course, and that’s what Bromberg is prioritizing, tapping feedback from users — understanding their pain points — to make decisions like rolling back the Runtime Fee. I asked him about Unity 7 and Unit …