Unity Forced to Temporarily Shut Down its Offices Due to 'Credible' Death Threat

In the wake of the announcement of its controversial Runtime Fee, Unity Technologies has had to close down two of it offices and cancel a town meeting, due to a “credible” death threat.

CEO John Riccitiello moved to close the offices after Unity received the death threat (as reported by Bloomberg), before cancelling a scheduled meeting. Both offices in San Francisco, California, and Austin, Texas have been temporarily closed, and will be for the rest of today.

Beyond the death threat issued to Unity, developers are reportedly making plans to hit the company with a class-action lawsuit ahead of the proposed Unity Runtime fee, which would charge studios per installation of its games. Meanwhile, former Vlambeer dev Rami Ismael has noted that more than 50 studios are looking to switch engines.

“As of right now I have over 50 studios that have reached out to ask for advice on how to switch away from Unity, and I am not counting one-person teams or student projects,” he said. “Absolutely staggering scale. Never seen anything like it.”

At time of writing, the Unity Runtime Fee is still due to be actioned from 1st January 2024.

As of right now I have over 50 studios that have reached out to ask for advice on how to switch away from Unity, and I am not counting one-person teams or student projects. Absolutely staggering scale. Never seen anything like it.

— Rami Ismail (رامي) (@tha_rami) September 14, 2023