In the competitive landscape of game development platforms, Unity has faced significant challenges over the past year. Following a controversial runtime fee announcement that sparked widespread developer backlash, the company has been working to rebuild trust under new leadership. Matt Bromberg, who took over as CEO less than a year ago, recently shared insights about the company's transformation and his approach to repairing relationships with the development community.
The Crisis That Greeted the New CEO
When Matt Bromberg stepped into the role of Unity CEO, he inherited what he describes as an organization at war with its customers. The previous leadership under John Riccitiello had implemented a highly controversial runtime fee pricing model that would have charged developers based on game installations rather than traditional licensing. This decision led to what Bromberg called an insane situation where developers were actively boycotting the platform that powers approximately 70% of mobile games worldwide.
Folks were boycotting us. They were really unhappy with how we were charging them and how we spoke, Bromberg explained in a recent interview with The Verge. The situation had deteriorated to the point where some developers were donating to competing open-source engines purely out of spite for Unity.
A Different Approach to Leadership
Bromberg's leadership philosophy marks a significant departure from his predecessor. Rather than focusing immediately on organizational structure, he emphasizes behavior and culture as the primary drivers of change. I'm much less interested in structure than I am in behavior, he stated, challenging the conventional wisdom that restructuring alone can fix a troubled company.
This perspective represents an interesting contrast to the typical corporate turnaround playbook. While Bromberg did make substantial changes to Unity's executive team—bringing in a new COO, CTO, and CFO—he maintains that these personnel changes were about ensuring alignment rather than simply rearranging the organizational chart.
Key Leadership Changes at Unity
- Matt Bromberg replaced John Riccitiello as CEO less than a year ago
- New executive team includes new COO, CTO, and CFO
- Company underwent significant layoffs (25% of workforce in January 2023)
Reversing the Runtime Fee Decision
Perhaps most significantly, Bromberg revealed that he had decided to roll back the controversial runtime fee before even accepting the CEO position. However, he recognized that the manner of this reversal was just as important as the decision itself.
I absolutely knew I was going to roll it back before I even took the job, Bromberg admitted. The important part was not that I was going to roll it back, and not even so much how we were going to roll it back, but in the way in which we were going to roll it back.
His approach involved personally meeting with customers, acknowledging their concerns, and soliciting their input on alternative pricing models. This consultative approach took several months but ultimately resulted in a pricing structure that, while still including pretty sharp increases, has been better received by the development community.
Creating Value vs. Business Model Hacks
Bromberg offered a candid assessment of what went wrong with the runtime fee, characterizing it as a business model trick rather than genuine value creation. I'm a big believer that the way we create value is by delivering product value, and then folks will pay us for the value that we create, he explained.
The runtime fee, in his view, was an attempt to force developers into certain behaviors through pricing mechanisms rather than earning their business through superior products. That has nothing to do with creating value. That's a trick... It's a hack, he stated bluntly.
Unity's Position in the Gaming Ecosystem
Despite recent industry challenges, including widespread layoffs and uncertainty about future growth areas, Bromberg remains optimistic about gaming's trajectory. He views the current industry contraction as creative destruction that will ultimately lead to innovation.
Unity continues to maintain a dominant position in mobile game development, powering approximately 70% of mobile games worldwide and about 30% of the top 1,000 PC games. The company is also expanding into other verticals, with Bromberg noting that Unity powers most in-dash experiences in cars and has applications in virtual retail and manufacturing.
Unity's Market Position
- Powers approximately 70% of mobile games worldwide
- Powers about 30% of the top 1,000 PC games
- Powers 7 out of 10 best AR games
- 8 out of 10 top independent games that won awards at GDC were built on Unity
Looking Forward: AI and the Future of Game Development
When asked about artificial intelligence's impact on game development, Bromberg took a measured approach. He doesn't believe current industry layoffs are driven by AI adoption and instead sees AI as a tool that will augment human creators rather than replace them.
What we sort of believe will happen... is that there'll be human creators sitting in the middle of the process of creation of these games, using a platform to create them. And they will have vertically oriented agents that are helping them do so, he explained.
As Unity works to rebuild trust with its developer community, Bromberg's leadership approach emphasizes partnership, communication, and value creation. Time will tell whether these efforts will be sufficient to restore the company's standing in an increasingly competitive game engine market.