It's very interesting that Apple has been increasingly emphasizing high-end games, starting with the Apple Silicon Macs, and just recently with the iPhone 15 Pro. Apple buying Unity is not out of the question. They don't have a lot of other attractive options.
We've been living in the global internet age for the past ~25 years, this shouldn't be a shock to anyone.
> Update: San Francisco police told Polygon that officers responded to Unity’s San Francisco office “regarding a threats incident.” A “reporting party” told police that “an employee made a threat towards his employer using social media.” The employee that made the threat works in an office outside of California, according to the police statement.
They have all the interest in the world in playing this aspect down and playing up the inevitable reaction to backing human beings into an existential corner: fight, flee, or freeze. In shock, someone says “you come after me, I can come after you, too.” Blaming them is beside the point: you don’t want death threats made to you? Don’t make them to others. It’s pretty simple.
If this is “a surefire way to lose my sympathy,” you never had any sympathy in the first place.
You’re alleging Unity fabricated these death threats?
Sure? It’s still a death threat.
Sending employees home has a real cost. The existence of death threats, moreover, is unlikely to change developers’ hearts and minds. The nuttier ones will write it off as a conspiracy theory. Most will see it as irrelevant to their interests.
People who make death threats don’t need to underwrite their insanity. Their incoherence doesn’t make them less dangerous.
If, hypothetically, a company just managed to piss off, I don't know...everyone, one strategy to garner some cheap sympathy and have an excuse to cancel public gatherings might be to highlight some of those they were getting all the time anyway.
Citation needed. I’ve never worked at a firm that received a death threat. If we did, I would expect it to be taken very seriously by senior management and law enforcement.
You expect it would be? IOW, you wouldn't automatically be told about a death threat, so you wouldn't know if the company received a death threat.
I've worked for at least two companies that received "death threats"; I've also worked with folks who were individually stalked, unrelated to their job.
Most "death threats" are vague and unsubstantiated: some (pseudo) anonymous e-mail threatening general violence. They're so common that most companies (and the police) ignore them.
A _specific_ threat will usually get reported to and acted upon by the police, but that often requires naming an individual person and something else, like a specific place or a weapon or such.
As a general statement, I would agree with the person who wrote above, "that every company over a certain size gets a certain number of death threats."
I would, in the last ten years.
> Most "death threats" are vague and unsubstantiated: some (pseudo) anonymous e-mail threatening general violence
These (e.g. “I hope you all die*) aren’t typically referred to as death threats. Any one of naming a target, specifying a method or stating personal intent (versus generally hoping harm befalls one) qualifies as a death threat.
"I hope" is not a threat. I specifically said "threatening general violence".
Someone (pseudo) anonymously e-mailing "I'm going to kill you all," is generally considered a threat in the US, though it's usually ignored because it's vague and unsubstantiated.
Without knowing what "threat" Unity received, it could have been anything.
In the past ten years, has your company (companies?) received general threats of violence? Not "I hope", but "I will"?
Sure. Add any one of a weapon, day or time, location or person and it becomes a specified threat.
> Without knowing what "threat" Unity received, it could have been anything
I agree. But again, it’s a video game company. The cost of deferral is low. Even if it were an “I’m going to kill you all” threat, deferring until investigated is prudent. And if a company takes a threat seriously, law enforcement will, too.
> In the past ten years, has your company (companies?) received general threats of violence? Not "I hope", but "I will"?
No.
That never happens. Self interest trumps notions of decency. (Particularly in the context of just a threat, regardless of how credible.)
Is the timing convenient for management? Sure. Never let a crisis go to waste. Does that make their actions imprudent? Of course not. They’re a video game company. These aren’t stakes worth gambling against lives.
I can sympathise with someone while acknowledging they should go to jail, and also sympathising with the people they’re attacking for taking prudent safety measures.