Larry Major Nelson Hryb laid off by Unity — 18 month stint ends as Unity still finds itself in trouble

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Larry Hryb, widely known as Major Nelson, is a familiar face to longtime Xbox enthusiasts. After more than two decades at Microsoft, he left the company in 2023 to explore new ventures.

In 2024, Hryb started working at Unity as the Director of Community and Advocacy. He recently announced that he has been let go after serving in that position for a year and a half.

In a statement on X and BlueSky, Hryb stated:

For those who’ve followed my career, I wanted to share an update. Like a lot of people in the gaming industry lately, I’ve been laid off from Unity. I joined them in 2024 after my time at Microsoft, and I’m really proud of what my team and I achieved in just 18 months – especially the creators and teams we were able to help. Now, I’m looking forward to what comes next. I’ve been having some great talks with companies – both in and outside of tech – about potential opportunities. I truly enjoy my work, but I also think it’s good to embrace change. I’ll be sure to share where I end up when I have news.

Larry Hryb

We hope he quickly finds a new job. However, Unity has laid off employees before, and the company’s reputation has been damaged by recent changes. It doesn’t look like things are improving for them.

Unity’s ongoing layoffs and the company’s reputation

Unity has faced several challenges in recent years. The company started laying off employees in 2022, with over 150 people losing their jobs as part of cost-saving efforts. These cuts continued into 2023, resulting in the loss of more than 280 positions.

The issues continued, but the biggest controversy arose in September 2023 when Unity announced a significant change to how developers would be charged. They planned to implement a fee based on each time a game made with Unity was installed, after a certain number of installs.

The announcement caused a strong negative reaction throughout the game development world. Numerous developers stated they planned to switch from Unity to alternative engines such as Godot or Unreal. Although Unity reversed the controversial fee change in September 2024, the company’s reputation had already suffered significantly.

Unity might still have a chance to improve its situation, thanks to a recent partnership with Fortnite that will allow games made in Unity to be played on the Fortnite platform.

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2026-01-14 00:39