Unity CEO John Riccitiello to ‘retire’, effective immediately

Unity has announced that John Riccitiello will “retire as President, Chief Executive Officer, Chairman and a member of the Company’s Board of Directors, effective immediately”.

The leadership change follows the controversial recent pricing changes announced for the Unity game engine, and the backlash it provoked in the game development community.

The sudden end of Riccitiello’s nine-year term at Unity
Former EA CEO Riccitiello joined Unity’s board of directors in 2013, taking over as CEO from company founder David Helgason the following year.

In his nine years at the helm, he oversaw the expansion of Unity, with a string of high-profile acquisitions, including legendary VFX facility Weta Digital, but also job layoffs, and more recently, controversial pricing and licensing changes.

You can read more about the changes – now partly reversed – and the backlash they attracted from game developers in our online FAQs.

Former IBM president James M. Whitehurst has now been appointed Interim CEO, President and a member of the board of Unity, and Roelof Botha, Lead Independent Director of the Unity Board, has been appointed Chairman.

The board will now initiate a “comprehensive search process” to identify a permanent CEO.

Read Unity’s official announcement the John Riccitiello is to retire as CEO

Read a more detailed analysis of the changes on The Verge

Read our online FAQs about the recent Unity pricing and licensing changes