2 ms·
How John Riccitiello kept the top job for so long is a mystery. This acquisition never made sense.
by rybosworld 3y ago
How John Riccitiello kept the top job for so long is a mystery. This acquisition never made sense.
- georgeecollins 3y agoIt makes a lot of sense to me, they just didn't execute. There is a huge blending of VFX technology and video games and always has been. Old person story: I remember interviewing an artist at Pandemic Studios (an old video game company in Los Angeles) and the artist's reel just had a shot from "Titanic" which was new then. "That's just a shot of a man walking across the deck of a ship, what did you do." "I animated the man." I was dumbfounded. At that point our 3d graphics looked worse than Minecraft and I had no idea what CG they were sticking into practical shots. (edited for spelling and I didn't catch all the errors I am sure)
- rybosworld 3y agoThe reason I don't think it made sense is because the value of the acquisition depended on integrating Weta into the Unity software. They marketed it as: "use all of Weta's tooling in Unity". 2 years later and that never happened. I would guess that's because it's quite difficult to jam a software platform into another software platform. Unity has a long history: > 1) acquire some software/tech > 2) attempt to integrate (force) it into Unity > 3) fail > 4) scrap the integration Based on what I've heard about how Unity operated under John R, this was likely a scenario where the head honchos recognized a business synergy and didn't consult the engineers on how feasible integration would be.