Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset'

Re:Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset' by pixelesque on Tuesday November 28, 2023 @06:07PM (#38452860)

Note: in particular, this is effectively "reversing" the aquisition of the Weta Digital people who were hired in Jan 2022 (Purchase of Weta Digital happened December 2021), as well as the Software IP that Weta Digital R&D had written over the years that they took over rights to at the time.

Disclaimer: I'm one of those affected.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset' by halfer53 on Tuesday November 28, 2023 @06:11PM (#38452904)

The contract has been signed already. How do they even end the software ip purchased from weta?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset' by slavik81 on Wednesday November 29, 2023 @03:07AM (#38456801)

They don't. As per Weta's statement [1]

> Unity will continue to own the technology it acquired and will evaluate the best way to enhance its offerings over time.

[1]: https://www.fxguide.com/quicktakes/unity-software-with-a-com...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset' by wdb on Tuesday November 28, 2023 @06:51PM (#38453380)

That's a shame. The Weta Digital tech looks great

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset' by FirmwareBurner on Tuesday November 28, 2023 @06:10PM (#38452891)

Are they firing all of Weta staff?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset' by pixelesque on Tuesday November 28, 2023 @06:20PM (#38453011)

I can't say anything that's not public information yet, but note that we were all still doing work WetaFX wanted (as we were before we joined Unity), it was just that via the services agreement we were then Unity employees and Unity were paying our salary.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset' by FirmwareBurner on Tuesday November 28, 2023 @06:23PM (#38453044)

Any news on VFX workers unionizing? I knew they were all underpaid but I'm not sure how it works with Weta as they're in NZ, right?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset' by pixelesque on Tuesday November 28, 2023 @10:30PM (#38455148)

I haven't really been following that closely... I think in the US some (a very limited number) of on-set VFX artists have unionised, but in practice those aren't the people doing the majority of the post-production VFX at ILM, DNeg, Framestore, MPC, Weta, etc...

One of the complications is many of the VFX facilities have offices in many different countries, and in the past have been chaising subsidies (Canada was a strong location 10 years ago or so), and different locations have different laws as to what's possible.

i.e. in London, overtime wasn't generally paid (but artists often still had to do it), although I believe DNeg London started paying it more recently (not in India though), and I seem to remember people saying Vancouver didn't generally pay overtime, but Montreal did but I don't know how accurate that is more recently...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset' by FirmwareBurner on Wednesday November 29, 2023 @03:49AM (#38457065)

Can't the former Weta employees (both laid off and otherwise) splinter off from Unity into their own VFX spin-off? Surely they have enough industry contacts and street cred so that getting projects wouldn't be a problem.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset' by johnnyanmac on Tuesday November 28, 2023 @09:51PM (#38454851)

My condolences. I thought me getting cut in the first round was to keep that whole deal afloat when the economy went south. But no one is safe, it seems.

[ Parent | on HN ]