Unity CEO John Riccitiello resigns, effective immediately

CTOnews.com, October 10 (Xinhua)-- Unity, a video game software maker, announced on Monday that its president, CEO and chairman John Riccitiello "will retire", effective immediately.

CTOnews.com noted that the company said in a statement that it had appointed James Whitehurst as interim chief executive and Roelof Botha as chairman.

Whitehurst, who previously served as a senior adviser and president of IBM, joined IBM through IBM's acquisition of software company Red Hat, and served as Red Hat President and CEO from 2008 to 2020.

Riccitiello will continue to advise Unity to ensure a smooth transition and the board will begin the process of appointing a permanent chief executive.

Unity Engine has previously introduced a new pricing model, which has caused a great deal of controversy because Unity plans to charge a fee for each game installation, and after the policy sparked strong opposition from game developers, Unity changed its pricing plan, allowing developers to pay them 2.5 per cent of game revenue. Given that John Riccitiello has made controversial decisions about commercialization in the past, many blame him personally for this change in pricing strategy.

However, Riccitiello has also made some contributions to the development of Unity. He has run the company for nine years, almost half the company's history, and half of the world's top games are currently developed using its engine. But the company never made a profit, losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year.