this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2023
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/5340114

ghostarchive
Original Discussion^[https://lemmy.world/post/5057297]

San Francisco police told Polygon that officers responded to Unity’s San Francisco office “regarding a threats incident.” A “reporting party” told police that “an employee made a threat towards his employer using social media.” The employee that made the threat works in an office outside of California, according to the police statement.

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[–] MossBear 160 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Three years ago after trying Unity for a month I chose to learn Godot instead. I see now how right that decision was. Well done past self. Have a future cookie.

[–] Zeth0s 85 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (20 children)

For me the rule that has always worked is "bet everything on open-source". It has always paid off.

When people at uni used Matlab, I learned R (before R-studio even existed) and python. I moved to linux as soon as I could. I never wanted to learn anything MS or Apple specific, or proprietary technologies such as visual studio, excel, vba, c#, SAS. I went on docker ASAP...

Now the world in my field runs on open source tecnologies, and I am the leaders of the "new stuff" wherever company I go.

On the long term learning open source solutions is always a win. Best case scenario it becomes the industry standard, worst case scenario it gives you the know how to master proprietary tools

[–] Serinus 17 points 1 year ago (3 children)

C# and Visual Studio are pretty great now, and they don't lock you into Windows at all. Most of C# is open source.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I wish I could bribe past me with future cookies...

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[–] [email protected] 132 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Soooooooo it wasn't "the gamers" making the credible threats after all, even if I wouldn't put it past the gaming community to make threats of this nature.

[–] [email protected] 67 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What even is "the gaming community" anymore? Basically everyone except boomers play games.

[–] FinalBoy1975 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What is a community? Recommended reading: Imagined Communities by Benedict Anderson.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm not sure if anyone at Unity ever accused the gamers, we all just jumped to the conclusion because that's exactly the kind of thing the scene would do.

I'm pretty sure back when I made games, it wasn't Unity employees sending me unhinged tantrums because a number was changed from an 11 to a 12.

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[–] [email protected] 98 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"an employee made a threat towards his employer using social media"

Wow. That's... probably against their internal social media policy.

[–] FlyingSquid 47 points 1 year ago (4 children)

HR won't take kindly to that on their annual performance review.

[–] [email protected] 54 points 1 year ago

"The customers love you, your colleagues respect and trust you... but upper management have expressed concerns about your comments around flaying them and their families alive."

[–] DontTreadOnBigfoot 15 points 1 year ago

"let's see...areas for improvement. 'Fewer death threats towards co-workers"."

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[–] [email protected] 94 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

A nice company has a great product and is well liked by its customers.

New executive manager comes in and thinks "how can I quickly get a huge bonus"? The answer always is implement new changes that will tuin the company in a year and a half, but that manager will have received his bonuses and is gone, leaving the company in ruins.

I can't say 100% for sure that this is what happened, but whenever something like this happens, it's just somebody deciding they want a quick buck

[–] pleasemakesense 25 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I dont understand how the board allows this behaviour, how do they not interween when an executive clearly is abusing the terms of the contract at the expense of the conpany

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (4 children)

They know exactly what they're doing.

They've been collecting metrics for months and plugging them into spreadsheets to figure out exactly how profitable this will be, just waiting for the right moment to pull the trigger.

They knew it would be incredibly unpopular. They knew it would likely kill the company one day.

But the spreadsheet doesn't care about any of that so neither do they. They sold off stocks then made the announcement.

When the changes go live, they'll squeeze everything they can out of successful projects, who will be left in a position of "losing 50% to Unity is better than losing 100% from pulling the game".

They'll stuff their pockets with us much of that money as they can and when the spreadsheet tells them to, they'll pull the plug and strip the company for parts.

It was the best thing for them and that was all that mattered.

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[–] Saneless 23 points 1 year ago

The executive was hired by the board or with the board support (CEO usually)

They did exactly what they wanted

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[–] AeonFelis 93 points 1 year ago (5 children)

They should not be getting death threat from employees. They should be getting legal threats from the SEC, and prosecuted for insider trading.

[–] cjsolx 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Should should should should should

Nothing works within our government anymore.

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[–] TwilightVulpine 86 points 1 year ago (18 children)

Honestly at this point I feel worse for the guy who made the threat than anyone else. Can you imagine what is like working with those sort of bosses with such exploitative tendencies and an utter disregard for an entire industry? They get to ruin countless lives but if anyone gets mad that's the unacceptable one who is punished.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Then why don't they look for work at another company?

Making death threats is still a major dick move regardless of the circumstances.

[–] xantoxis 27 points 1 year ago (4 children)

It is, but all we have right now is Unity's claim that this is what happened. We don't even know the content of the threat, who made it, why they made it. All of that context could cast this in a wildly different light. I am very suspicious of Unity the company's motives here in saying this when we haven't heard from anyone else.

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[–] TwilightVulpine 26 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It might have been wiser, but seems to me we got to a point we should be thinking of the circumstances.

Besides, that only would have solved their individual problem, IF they even managed it. The way the company is being run would remain the same. How it would impact all the people who rely on that engine would remain the same.

It's "never acceptable" to threaten someone, but intentionally ruining countless people's livelihoods is "nothing personal". Something is off about that.

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[–] SocialMediaRefugee 16 points 1 year ago

Or he is just fucked up in the head. That is a possibility too.

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[–] [email protected] 78 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I can just see their PR team last night planning to spin Unity as a victim after the death threat, in an effort to stop the bleeding, only to find out it was one of their own employees.

[–] lanolinoil 24 points 1 year ago

the call is coming from INSIDE the house?!?!

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Seriously, tf is going on over there at Unity?

[–] [email protected] 90 points 1 year ago (5 children)

People with passion wanted to work on a great project only to see how the vision was corrupted and turned into a monster.

Like, the regular employee isn't excited about shit changes either.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Either someone hates to see their company burn to the ground and responded in an extremely immature way, or a higher up went "let's get this public town hall canceled in a way that people feel sorry for us. SIMMONS! MAKE A DEATH THREAT NOW!"

The former seems the most likely, but I always hold out hope that it's middle management being a dumbass as corporate's gonna corporate

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago

Oh, I imagine working conditions there have gotten worse in recent times, too. The kind of leadership that fucks over their clients like this don't start with those clients. They treat everyone as a resource to be exploited, and employees are the ones they can abused most readily.

The public furor over the pricing model is the opportunity, not the motive.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (4 children)

The CEO and his cronies don't understand that people work for more than money. They think all people come into work just to do what is required to get money or, if there is ambition, to rise through the ranks and make more money or have ideas that make more money.

However, there are people, especially in projects like this, that are also there because they believe in something. Believe that they can help creating something special that helps people. Unity has it's dominance among other things because it's an easy to use and easy to learn tool that enables people to create games that would've otherwise had trouble getting into development.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago

As always is the case. It's a pr stunt

[–] dual_sport_dork 32 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Didn't we call this yesterday? I am certain I saw multiple posters on here predicting pretty much exactly this.

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[–] ShittyBeatlesFCPres 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

https://youtu.be/KTa6fWgl7us?si=gotlanLsDBHSrT0c Hank: Peggy, it’s for you. It’s Dale. Peggy: Hello Dale Dale: YOU DONT KNOW WHO I AM BUT I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE

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