What Never Was is a game about tidying up.
Never in my life did I imagine I would feel bad for John Riccitiello, but here I am. Yesterday I said he got booted out EA thanks to not making his sales nut, but that is only half true. Sales were just the tip over the edge. What really got him was the public. Thanks to fiasco after shenanigan after fiasco, the public outcry against the company during his time at the helm required a human sacrifice with bad sales being the cover story.
John did the honorable thing and walked to the gallows with his head held high. He is a product guy to the core, which I now believe is all product guys problems and solutions.
I'm sure during his fall from grace he, being the product guy he was pushing back against the sales team in favor of a better product. He fought city hall and lost, so it goes. But he bounced back at Unity and was doing exactly what I imagine he set out to do, which is take an amazing product that actually helps gamers and make it the best at what it does. And he was doing that, till the same old problems showed up.
And they showed up in the form of a company that Unity feels skipped the line, used Unity assets unlawfully, and that Unity reacted to in all reasonable business standards as the proper response for the thing done. What the company in question did was run to the public screaming that they had been hit, and what the competitors did was side with the victim company and scream end of the world over there, come over here, and what the media did was pump up a very nuanced conflict for clicks, fully understanding that the conflict is not a big deal but the brands are and the subject matter is relevant, and the fans ate that shit up.
Sounds like a very EA scenario.
I don't feel bad for John for the situation Unity is in. I feel bad for John because this situation makes it clear that he still does not understand that making a product as best you can and being as fair as you can to everyone will not stop the mob. Scandal is the product. John is never the asshole because the product is bad, John becomes the asshole only when he gets in a person's way of using it how they want to use it. He probably thinks he is protecting the product, but he does the opposite, and now he does not have EA or poor sales to blame. Mirrors suck.
Unity branded itself a free service, which it is certainly not, especially for B2B. Unity is going to have a hard time explaining that the other company stole something and pretended to be partners when they weren't because Unity is a free service and everyone is a partner. Arent they?
Anyway, they will be fine, everyone will be fine. Like I said, no one makes games with SpacialOS yet anyway so who fuckin' cares. Also What Never Was didn't make me cry, stop lyin' on my name I got allergies learn the difference. Also, rip TB rip TC rip Tall-T. Love is love and hate is hate get it straight, do great things we are all counting on you, also Jerbz.
The Protoculture Mixtape: Issue: Games: Graces
