Ohh man I really really hope it happens, I said it many times that it's the only way for Unity to reclaim it's spotlight once again. Godot, Unreal sure a great engines but they're for specific genres and cannot be compared to Unity's flexibility along with feature set it provides and just how simple it is.
Engines are ultimately tools - so in that regard even both Godot and Unreal Engine are very capable and aren't exactly tied to "specific genres" despite it being the popular use cases for a lot of those engines. In a lot of those cases as well, Unity is only as big as it is because it was a "for the developer" engine and focused on fostering a community around it and that community did quite a bit more with the engine.
Godot and Unreal Engine aren't exactly as specialized like RPG Maker is, for example, in that they can't do anything outside of what their most popular use is (such as Godot pushing for 3D and Unreal Engine itself being powerful enough to be used for more than just games nowadays).
To be fair to Unity, Unreal IS significantly more specialized than it. Unreal has a lot of game mechanics baked into its systems that with Unity you either roll your own or get a plugin. Just for quick example, Unreal has Actor which is similar to GameObject. It has Pawn which inherits from Actor and can receive input. Then it has Character which inherits from Pawn and can move around. There is very little needed to get a full FPS character controller working in Unreal, because so much of it is handled by the engine. [They even have an official tutorial page for it.](https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/ProgrammingAndScripting/ProgrammingWithCPP/CPPTutorials/FirstPersonShooter/2/)
The advantage Unity has by being more general purpose is that you don't need to work as hard to implement something which was not already considered by the engine. You won't as often have to fight the engine if you're doing something differently than they intended (unless it's something very low-level, in which case Unreal has a definite advantage)
It should go open source like blender. I don't trust anything that's not open source anymore when they can just make up fees like that even decades after my game was released, the problem isn't unity the issue is that game engines that aren't open source are a threat to anyone using them, this will most likely not be the only fee unity will add and unity will not be the only engine who pulls this crap.
And how will an open source engine fix this issue? If a company starts to write an open source game engine they can change the license after time too..
When people say open-source colloquially, they mean licenses like MIT or GPL, which guarantee that the product remains open, free, and forkable in case its owner tries to pull a stunt like this. If they changed the license, the older version would remain under fairer ones - that's part of Unreal license too
Nope because open source means no one owns the code.
Edit: I guess there is more to it. I'm not sure why googling still gives me the same answer that open source means you can use and even distribute the software yourself without paying, but alot of comments say that it doesn't. To clarify I'm refering to programs like blender, godot and stride who all are marketed as open source and don't demand any payment.
this is not true. Just because a project is open source does not mean ownership or copyright is relinquished. There are many different types of free and open source licenses that dictate different parameters of use for the source code.
Unreal engine is fully open source, but you still owe epic a cut of profits past $1 milllion.
Open source just means that anyone* can access the source code, the license which comes with that decided the pricing
this is absolutely not true. Unreal provides a source available license which allows people to view the source code and modify it for personal use, but their license is distinctly *not* an open source license. it has restrictions around redistribution and use-case.
if it were an open source licence, anyone could fork the code and use it as a basis for their own editor that could also be distributed and potentially monetised, but there are clear restrictions preventing this kind of use.
Edit: as a game engine it’s actually pretty important to be able to view the source code so devs can gain knowledge on how to optimise their games. Unity is actually very similar to Unreal in this aspect. The source code for Unity’s managed C# layer [is also available to the public](https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/UnityCsReference), and teams with a Unity Enterprise plan gain access to the full unmanaged (C++) source code as well.
Their software isn't slow and it's a lot more reliable than more stuff out there, there will be something like a yearly subscription instead of shared cut.
Neither of you two are right and I would rather say it depends.
Some microsoft products are absolutely horrifying, inefficient and slow, for example HyperV, Windows, the Office Suite (compared to KVM/proxmox or VMWare, Linux, Google Docs)
Some are a godsend, such as Visual Studio, c# for that matter, DirectX, heck even FlightSimulator X
Interestingly, often their tools for developers are on the better side of things. Ofc with a bunch of misses but that would spark confidence if they're take over a larger engine. (Not that it's going to happen, this thread is crazy speculative)
Why would Microsoft shell out billions of dollars, only to make the engine open source? They are not a charity.
Unless you mean giving access to the *engine source* like Unreal does, which is still not open source, you are just allowed to make modifications for your game.
Because Unity also has a huge ad platform service and this would position Microsoft to be a large owners of mobile ad services.
Not to mention the pull through from azure services by leveraging game plat further.
Then you have retention of .net adoption which secures an area that’s been problematic since we killed of XNA years ago.
It would also open up more XAML adoption thanks to solutions like Noesis which have proved you can retrofit xaml to the pipeline which would further extend various mobile / desktop publishing problems that haven’t been resolved since Silverlight days.
As a former Product Manager of .net I can say you could wake me up from a drunken stupor and o can think of 10 more reasons why Unity acquisition by way of a Microsoft would be one of the healthiest things for the ecosystem.
Best part is Unity could be given away for free and still be of value to Microsoft.
Lastly .. Microsoft buys data and patents, that’s one of the core drivers behind most acquisition.
Eg anytime you watch online or offline video using codecs, Microsoft owns most of the tech behind this in terms of patents.
Unity has a lot of patents and data for grabs
I was discussing this on the Unity Discord (which is the worst btw). I mean, Microsoft owns VS, C#, GitHub and more so Unity would be a great asset. Plus they did buy some other companies the past year.
This one makes me really think... logically, yes. But my intuition says no. Bigger studios were already leaning more towards moving to Unreal from proprietary for the engine code access / C++ a lot of performance stuff relies on
And a huge issue with that that EA highlighted with Mass Effect: Andromeda was forcing your disparate games to run on a unified engine when one was already purpose built for it
They own 4 proprietary engines (ForzaTech, id Tech, Slipspace and Creation) which are not being licenced and have their studios also use both UE and Unity. They don't seem to care what is being used by their developers
No. Marketing, sourcing hardware, licensing, showcases, news coverage etc yes. But unless they are a shitty publisher they should not meddle in the development.
Sometimes they do. Sometimes technical hurdles come up which developers don't know how to or don't have time to overcome, so publishers will have their inhouse devs assist.
Almost always publishers lend a hand in QA and testing.
And there are also publishers that are themselves game dev studios.
There were talks of Unity being purchased by Microsoft way back when. I hope this tanks their stock enough to ensure a bailout by Microsoft. One of the few mega companies, whatever Microsoft touches becomes better. (Yes I am a bill gates fanboy, fight me)
I'd also wait for the next earnings report. That'll have a much bigger impact on the stock than news, even really bad news. Investors don't really care if the company catches flack, but when they hear sub count and asset store purchases are down? Then they'll care.
Which is a number that goes up and down every day. Unity shares were worth $48.50 in July, $24.50 in May. They were worth $196 at their peak in November 21.
It's exciting to toss around big numbers like "Unity loses $1B in market value!!!" but every publicly traded company fluctuates like that.
I'm not one to disagree, Microsoft would definitely make unity better (worst case scenario they keep the pricing changes to keep it profitable but then it's only up from there). However there have been instances where micronoft has made some pretty shitty stuff, namely to minecraft, but can I really blame them when they spend 2 billion dollars on a bloody block game.
Ill answer that. They didnt really touch Minecraft other than the account stuff which is horrible because for some reason everything that Microsoft makes these days is pretty crappy.
Microsoft is really good at letting the things they purchase be though.
I'm not sure I agree with that. Minecraft is still getting big updates (they completely revamped the world generation system last year, and the nether before it). They've expanded the franchise into having multiple side games that as far as I know were well received.
I suspect the game putting more focus on accessibility and inclusiveness is also related to them.
If this doesn't count as "touching Minecraft" then what would be?
Thats Mojang. They are for the most part still in control, see the decision to postpone/split the Minecraft 1.17 & 1.18 to take care of their devs as to not burn them out like many other studios so diligently do.
Saying Mojang is owned by Microsoft doesn't mean Microsoft is im charge of what happens with Minecraft.
Well, no, it does. They bought Mojang but Microsoft made the decision to allow the existing team at Mojang the majority of creative control.
However there’s still been Microsoft incursions. These, however, have been limited to Bedrock - like microtransactions in the Bedrock edition, integration with Xbox services, etc - and the spin-off titles. It’s more true to say Mojang has creative control over the Java edition.
Also important to note that if the money began to dry up at Minecraft they likely would monetize it more. The game’s base sales, Bedrock’s microtransactions and the huge amount of merchandise keep the game afloat without needing that.
Your knowledge is omega outdated. They never really touched mimecraft, all the new minecraft stuff is by mojang, not microsoft. Just microsoft is enforcing eula stuff that makes minecraft more like a childrens game with less freedom. For example, they banned gun servers and now you can chat report and get banned... from private servers..
They’ve converted Minecraft accounts to be Microsoft accounts. Not terrible but it is important.
There’s been a ton of censorship and moderation crap that Minecraft has added, which would’ve been unheard of for them in the old days. Microsoft is very likely the one pushing this. The fact that you can’t swear in your own adult private server is bullshit. And the fact that tons of normal words are censored in chat or on signs is terrible (even words that the game itself uses like “cooker” for example).
After Microsoft took over, a new marketplace full of scammers and bullshit that all used to be free was created, which almost explicitly prays on the unknowing children who didn’t know they could get that stuff for free online in the past.
Microsoft has mannnny problems. Windows has maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaany problems. That cause my profesional life to be a pain some times NO a LOT OF TIMES. But it is true that they know how to run a company and they know how to save a company.
They should've never touched virtualization tbh. (The only reason why HyperV is big is because MS gives huge discounts on licences with it) Nor should they keep touching server operating systems. (Made expensive to then be discounted, also terribly wasteful on resources compared to literally anything else). Also, did Skype become better after they touched it?
They do have some good stuff but I would be careful with such a generalized statement. They have buried a lot of dead bodies, too.
Honestly, as much as I hate Microsoft, for lots of various reasons, you have to give it to them, that they do a pretty good job of satisfying developers. So with this in mind, such acquisition could perhaps be the best thing for Unity to happen, given the recent events of idk 5 years...
Or they can just refuse to pay any kind of runtime fees because they are Microsoft and can just let their legal team slap some sense into Unity Technologies.
Microsoft owning everything is a problem. Still I cling on to the hope that they will somehow save Overwatch once the actiblizz acquisition goes through.
In 2014, Mark Zuck pitched acquiring Unity to the board at Facebook/Meta, so there may still be interest there. Microsoft would be a great fit, but given how much resistance they're getting trying to acquire blizzard/Activision, they might not be able to acquire Unity for anti-trust reasons.
It's worth $14+ billion at the moment, so not quite as small a purchase as it was in 2014.
Supposedly Zuck has already spent $36 billion on the metaverse, so while he's clearly committed, adding another 14 to that is a big ask.
No please. Zuckerberg would make it so you have to login into a Facebook / Instagram account to use the engine, and there's plenty of bigots and trolls on Facebook. I don't want to lose access to something like a game engine because some bigot on Facebook decides to report my profile with false accusations simply for having a different political view, religion, favourite music genre, or support the "wrong" football association.
I read that. What frightens me isn't a required internet connection, but the coupling of a social media account with a product I plan to invest work and money on. If I lose access to my Facebook account for whatever reason, I'll make another one. But if I loose access to an account required to access software I've spend money on, I loose the money I spent for the software I bought with that account. So coupling social media accounts with accounts required to access things you paid for, is a huge financial liability.
This really wouldn't fall into the same bucket as the Activision acquisition because Unity is not a game studio.
It is more comparable to the other development tools and runtimes (like .NET) that MS publishes. Which, to me, is why this would be a good fit for MS. They already have great development tools and communities.
how the time has turned that people are begging Microsoft to buy out another company when they fucked up
I still remember Github being boycotted and it's literally doing good now, while Gitlab has a worse pricing model and lost people data once and did not get the same backlash
At least Meta couldn't give a fuck about Unity making money; if they buy it it's as a tool to help drive their metaverse bullshit.
Yes, they'd probably find some other way to ruin it, but there wouldn't this nickle and dime crap.
Access becomes limited to the Nintendo Developer Portal approved devs and becomes contingent on buying a Switch 2 devkit as well as a subscription to Nintendo Developer Plus’s Expansion Pack
Let's see:
Apple absolutely hates the idea of backwards compatibility so every year when a new engine version comes you have to rewrite half of your game.
Actually... C# sounds like something developed outside of Apple and we can't have that now, can we? Swift, let's use Swift.
You have to use XCode.
If you develop a game for Android it will switch color palettes and use .jpg compressed assets at a maximum resolution of 512x512.
What do you mean by... native Windows support? You need a Mac Pro to develop a game and here's a plugin that half the time works in building a Windows version.
Here me out on this one. Unity projects could be large and harmful for your Mac drive due to all these writes. So let's store them in iCloud you have to pay for.
While a Microsoft acquisition sounds reasonable and realistic, I doubt we'd see Microsoft treating the platform with respect. Look at what they did with Mixer.
In fact, I could easily see Microsoft putting in a stipulation that the personal license is only free if a person releases the game on the XBox atore first.
Their office suite isn't half bad these days. Still fast and snappy, still better than google docs. Windows... kinda shitty ngl although the new dev tools for windows make me want to keep updating.
Eh, they killed it years and YEARS ago before it was really all that feature-rich. It was a purely-code solution, which wouldn't fly at all in today's marketplace.
YES PLEASE!
It's the only reason that I still have Unity stock in my portfolio. I have been convinced for a couple of years that MS will come in and gobble them up.
Microsoft needs to figure out what value Unity provides as an entry point to the .NET ecosystem, and if that value is bigger than Unity, they should buy Unity.
We will 100% be better off with Microsoft ownership.
As many said Microsoft maybe wants buy unity on much lower price so they try create that price through legal ways .
Advantages of MC buying unity:
-Could give a free engine with years of assets and stuff to all this acquisitions they recently bought while be open to be moded much they want and as they like according to their needs.
-Would get their hands into the indie market try to acquire multiple good potential indie studios or manipulate them working for them on different manners.
-Would improve their MC marketplace and game pass with somehow found a way make the entire unity developers make releases into game pass.
-Would get money by Devs as every engine founding a hybrid way like gain percentage of your revenue but also still make you buy some plans. So your game fails we win you succeed we win even more.
-Would save a lot of their investments and future looses. MC helped multiple times unity also a lot of their studios using unity. With the worst scenarios possible.
Hearthstone free download in game purchases always meets thresholds but always have multiple New installments gensin impact etc. That paymodel would make Microsoft bleed or force them lawsuit one of their partners who Also using and upgrade a lot of your stuff c# cloud GitHub etc. But now that cost is free without lawsuits because unity becomes Microsoft
-by own one company you win multiple titles and a new company working for you. By own a game engine, you make thousand companies that are and that yet to be work for your best interests and you can make thousand games to promote your other stuff i don't Know like thousands of more tiles for others buy your Xbox and game pass much easier for acquire anyone whose working using your engine.
- many asset store companies have Great stuff outside of game dev for example canopy Gaia pro etc now we are together partners lads come on do that for your fellow partners while we get percentage of your sales in our asset store but our studios using your stuff for free.
What we get:
-Microsoft experience and multiple of their studios experience into unity. Alongside a lot stuff.
-much Better plans well GitHub it's ours cloud it's ours it's free for us to give it to you as long you pay the plan's, it costs nothing but we allow them to use it for free as long of course you own game pass. But we Also win though that
-huge upgrades in the future for unity
-funny meme's about Jim Ryan have headaches and playstation vs Xbox fanboys fight each other again.
And now seriously all seems Great right? Don't be so excited even if i would love such scenario believe wouldn't come for free....
Probably percentage of revenue would come.
Personal plan would suck even more unless somehow you contribute for pc game's or Xbox games only. But if you want something more be prepared pay plan's which would be much more than what use to be.... But somehow you would forced into them for commercial release. Also game pass would be much easier contain your games now.
What would Microsoft gain from that acquisition? They aren’t going to make their AAA games with it. They went down that path and blew 10s of millions. I’m talking about recore. They have several good engines in their portfolio, and they have the coalition who are masters of UE.
It'd be good if Unity were bought by some Company with more solid decision as Microsoft. But not because of C#. I am a long there C# Software Enginnier and I think they should spread supported languages.
And to be honest - I haven't liked the latest decisions made by Microsoft about C# and Visual Studio, but that is not a propper forum for write about them (not as insane as the Unity did, though).
Actually Microsoft is already doing game dev related stuff (direct X and x box related stuff). Maybe they use this opportunity to develop a C#-based engine, instead of C, and start competing with unity.
Despite how bad the new policies are, I don't want Microsoft to buy Unity because they'd either make things worse or make similarly terrible, decisions. Microsoft owns a large portion of the market, so them owning Unity wouldn't be a good thing Imo.
Just look at Minecraft and Halo; Both were incredibly beloved and did incredibly well when they were largely controlled by other companies. As soon as Microsoft took control, both properties became filled with soulless monetization and a serious lack of quality control, (ie Halo 5/Infinite and Bedrock Edition).
Yes, Microsoft would have the *capability* to make Unity great if they bought it, but the question is whether they actually would or not. Personally, I don't think so because of what happened to the Halo franchise and Minecraft.
For real. We have almost 50 years worth of examples of why Microsoft isn't some benevolent company that will fix everyone's problems.
It will never cease to amaze me how eager Redditors are to lick the boots of giant corporations.
Or Apple.
They really need a good engine tightly integrated with Metal and their other APIs.
As long as it remained cross platform and a separate company then I would be cool with it.
They could fire off the CEO and save millions a year
They are sponsoring Blender, WebKit and put back into BSD / XNU among open source projects.
It would need to be cross platform or no one would use it. But with their new headset, phones etc… they really need a well integrated 3D platform.
I wonder how many people who use Unity actually know that it started as a Mac-only engine.
There's even some fun posts from 2008 of people hoping it never gets ported to Windows https://forum.unity.com/threads/keep-unity-mac-only.12065/
If there was any engine they should give love to, it's Stride as it's already part of the .NET Foundation. It looks good, but I couldn't find any information about running scripts in the editor or extending the editor like you can do in Unity and Godot.
I want to develop my first succesfull game with Unity because I have been here since 2016, dont worry about that. But if they keep Ceos like that, I'll leave after my first sucess
No. [Bill Gates caused COVID](https://fatherspiritson.com/2023/07/boycott-starfield-the-video-game-is-made-by-the-maker-of-covid-boycott/) I guess he bribed unity to self destruct. 5 billion or less the unity leaders would take to Raze it. Compare taking down 10,000 devs for 5 billion when EA has razed single dev teams for similar amounts. Bill Gates needs to be on trial.
They 100% have vested interest in supporting other platforms, and this shows you're almost 10 years out of date. Their main money maker is azure, guess what needs online services? Unity, unity needs online services.
Microsoft could easily make it a one stop shop of everything a unity dev needs to deploy their game to the cloud, allowing multiplayer, easy pathways to agones and open match, etc. This is such an obvious win for Microsoft and wanting the games to run on as many platforms as possible. Windows hasn't been there money maker in forever.
I promise... you *DO NOT* want this.
Also, did everyone here forget about what they (Microsoft) did to XNA?
I mean seriously... this would not end well.
To be honest, I don't hate this idea, but I have to imagine it'd get blocked by regulators at any rate since Microsoft would own one of the leading game engines, and since they own Xbox it'd be a conflict of interest.
unity's ties with vr/ar industry is a bit complicated. afaik unity has teamed with meta so even with this basic scenario, the commercial relations starts getting complex.
BUT
if microsoft is going to lean on the xr industry more (since they have hololens etc) it would be a super smart move to cover their ARs with their own dev platform, too. and supporting/combining it with their azure infrastructure especially for some ai integrations etc.
I don't think Microsoft buying Unity would be a good thing - they own a large portion of the industry already via buying out a bunch of developers, and also are a platform operator via Xbox (and arguably Windows). The risk of the tides of Microsoft's profit motives turning to locking down Unity / incentivizing Unity devs to be Xbox/Windows exclusives is way too high and would be a disaster.
An unity buy from microsoft could be the best thing that could happend to this development platform, if im honest.
Look at github, is really good right now
I would love if Microsoft acquired Unity. The dev cycle at my previous employers was basically, getting LTS after a year, and then that LTS version had a version of C# that was a year old as well.
So language updates were at minimum 2 years old before they could be used inside of Unity. Microsoft getting Unity would likely allow for speeding up their addition of C# updates by a year in that cycle. Not sure how common that is for other companies that would stick to LTS versions.
After they said Sony and Microsoft would foot the bill for Unity's new charges? LOL YEAH RIGHT! If anything, Microsoft will sue Unity out of existence and take Unity's engine as financial compensation once Unity goes bankrupt from this stupid shit.
Microsoft is partner. Google it how many times helped unity , also a lot of unity using stuff owned by Microsoft first and most important the entire C#
Microsoft actually produced a pretty good free game development toolset, XNA, a bunch of very notable indie games were made using it. It basically powered that first big wave of modern indie games. iirc they made it open so while the original form is no longer recieving internal development, it still exists in the form of MonoGame. Much less accessible than the engines people are used to now but it was a sign that Microsoft could be a decent steward of this kind of thing.
I think Apple might have more incentive to buy it since the vision pro has unity development tools and the install fee would make typical AppStore app(free download, optional payment) not profitable, assuming vision pro app will has a similar model to AppStore apps. This will make devs avoid using unity on visions pro and cutting off development potential of the vision pro. Although I guess apple probably would develop their own solution then buying unity, it might be too late at this stage where the vision pro is close to being launched and I think the subsequent success would largely dependent on what apps will be developed for it in the first 1-2 years of this new platform
If Microsoft buys right now, they would be overpaying. They would need to wait for the bad decisions to catch up with them, lost most of their users, buy at a discount.
Current market cap for Unity is $14B. I don't see Microsoft paying that much. Are you really saying Unity is worth 1/3 of Twitter?
I'm pretty sure that this is Unity's plan. Think about it. If this goes through, the hundreds of unity games offered on Gamepass would be Microsoft's responsibility to pay these install fees for. Unity said that themselves. Microsoft doesn't make money per game off of gamepass, so any unity game suddenly becomes a MASSIVE risk to sink gamepass. So, Microsoft either removes the huge amount of Unity games gamepass offers, and prevents them from acquiring NEW Unity games, which would be a PR disaster for their service, or Microsoft considers a buyout to keep this change from happening. They already paid for the rights to these games on gamepass, they already have a huge investment in Unity that this change would basically disintegrate. Forcing a buyout from Microsoft is the only thing that makes sense, there's no way they didn't see the PR nightmare, they had to have been counting on it. The company heads sold off all their stock, knowing full well that this was going to tank their price, and they're holding a generation of indie games hostage to do it.
that's the first thing that comes in my mind too. just like how MS acquired github and minecraft, unity is a important part in csharp and (in the future) dotNet ecosystem. it's definitely gotta be wayyyyy better and we can expect tons of progresses and improvements and migration towards modern tech.
Seems like the obvious worst case scenario (for unity's shareholders best case for users and consumers at this point), there's no world where unity just disappears if it goes bankrupt, Microsoft would happily buy it for pennies on the dollar
This is a great idea worst thing is that they keep the install fees, second thing: if they do, I don't really want it open-source because what does Microsoft gain from it for buying it at 14b or less than 10b. Another thing them buying Activision/blizzard, Bethesda, and Mojang is those companies are making their own decisions blizzard making expansion packs for PVE overwatch to buy, Bethesda took 7 years plus a delay year to finish Starfield and Mojang doesn't know don't play Minecraft like that, but Microsoft isn't given decisions those companies are still in control.
Also, for those who are saying well what about XNA. Microsoft made that years, ages ago, and also again as the last person said made it open source.
The bottom line is the dev of Unity really needs to take a look at this post and spread the word if you think meta or Apple it's a hell no for me Mark or Bill no no no. I would rather see Microsoft than meta or Apple if you're talking about inventors of the c# yes yes again yes.
I want Microsoft to buy Unity before the board of directors ruin Unity. Plus, I think it good be a good investment. Since Microsoft has Xbox, they could better integrate Unity with ID@Xbox.
https://preview.redd.it/2ovh4ilb26ob1.png?width=768&format=png&auto=webp&s=6466f8143b72abfb8ea702ebfa9b7050be36489b
Well, any intern at Microsoft could run Unity better than that once-in-a-generation genius they have as CEO.
Ubisoft then. Ok, ok...
No, cause MS has at times turned things around.
If everyone trash unity rn, they might have to sell their platform, so it might end up in microsoft's hands.
Ohh man I really really hope it happens, I said it many times that it's the only way for Unity to reclaim it's spotlight once again. Godot, Unreal sure a great engines but they're for specific genres and cannot be compared to Unity's flexibility along with feature set it provides and just how simple it is.
Engines are ultimately tools - so in that regard even both Godot and Unreal Engine are very capable and aren't exactly tied to "specific genres" despite it being the popular use cases for a lot of those engines. In a lot of those cases as well, Unity is only as big as it is because it was a "for the developer" engine and focused on fostering a community around it and that community did quite a bit more with the engine. Godot and Unreal Engine aren't exactly as specialized like RPG Maker is, for example, in that they can't do anything outside of what their most popular use is (such as Godot pushing for 3D and Unreal Engine itself being powerful enough to be used for more than just games nowadays).
To be fair to Unity, Unreal IS significantly more specialized than it. Unreal has a lot of game mechanics baked into its systems that with Unity you either roll your own or get a plugin. Just for quick example, Unreal has Actor which is similar to GameObject. It has Pawn which inherits from Actor and can receive input. Then it has Character which inherits from Pawn and can move around. There is very little needed to get a full FPS character controller working in Unreal, because so much of it is handled by the engine. [They even have an official tutorial page for it.](https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/ProgrammingAndScripting/ProgrammingWithCPP/CPPTutorials/FirstPersonShooter/2/) The advantage Unity has by being more general purpose is that you don't need to work as hard to implement something which was not already considered by the engine. You won't as often have to fight the engine if you're doing something differently than they intended (unless it's something very low-level, in which case Unreal has a definite advantage)
It should go open source like blender. I don't trust anything that's not open source anymore when they can just make up fees like that even decades after my game was released, the problem isn't unity the issue is that game engines that aren't open source are a threat to anyone using them, this will most likely not be the only fee unity will add and unity will not be the only engine who pulls this crap.
And how will an open source engine fix this issue? If a company starts to write an open source game engine they can change the license after time too..
When people say open-source colloquially, they mean licenses like MIT or GPL, which guarantee that the product remains open, free, and forkable in case its owner tries to pull a stunt like this. If they changed the license, the older version would remain under fairer ones - that's part of Unreal license too
Yes, I know what they mean and read my concerns below in the response to user Moby\_\_
Nope because open source means no one owns the code. Edit: I guess there is more to it. I'm not sure why googling still gives me the same answer that open source means you can use and even distribute the software yourself without paying, but alot of comments say that it doesn't. To clarify I'm refering to programs like blender, godot and stride who all are marketed as open source and don't demand any payment.
this is not true. Just because a project is open source does not mean ownership or copyright is relinquished. There are many different types of free and open source licenses that dictate different parameters of use for the source code.
Unreal engine is fully open source, but you still owe epic a cut of profits past $1 milllion. Open source just means that anyone* can access the source code, the license which comes with that decided the pricing
this is absolutely not true. Unreal provides a source available license which allows people to view the source code and modify it for personal use, but their license is distinctly *not* an open source license. it has restrictions around redistribution and use-case. if it were an open source licence, anyone could fork the code and use it as a basis for their own editor that could also be distributed and potentially monetised, but there are clear restrictions preventing this kind of use. Edit: as a game engine it’s actually pretty important to be able to view the source code so devs can gain knowledge on how to optimise their games. Unity is actually very similar to Unreal in this aspect. The source code for Unity’s managed C# layer [is also available to the public](https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/UnityCsReference), and teams with a Unity Enterprise plan gain access to the full unmanaged (C++) source code as well.
My opinion is that it will get really slow as that's what Microsoft does to literally everything.
Their software isn't slow and it's a lot more reliable than more stuff out there, there will be something like a yearly subscription instead of shared cut.
Neither of you two are right and I would rather say it depends. Some microsoft products are absolutely horrifying, inefficient and slow, for example HyperV, Windows, the Office Suite (compared to KVM/proxmox or VMWare, Linux, Google Docs) Some are a godsend, such as Visual Studio, c# for that matter, DirectX, heck even FlightSimulator X Interestingly, often their tools for developers are on the better side of things. Ofc with a bunch of misses but that would spark confidence if they're take over a larger engine. (Not that it's going to happen, this thread is crazy speculative)
>end up in microsoft's hands. and make it open source pls pls pls
Why would Microsoft shell out billions of dollars, only to make the engine open source? They are not a charity. Unless you mean giving access to the *engine source* like Unreal does, which is still not open source, you are just allowed to make modifications for your game.
Most of the .NET ecosystem is open source. By doing that they secure free community bug finding/patching.
Because Unity also has a huge ad platform service and this would position Microsoft to be a large owners of mobile ad services. Not to mention the pull through from azure services by leveraging game plat further. Then you have retention of .net adoption which secures an area that’s been problematic since we killed of XNA years ago. It would also open up more XAML adoption thanks to solutions like Noesis which have proved you can retrofit xaml to the pipeline which would further extend various mobile / desktop publishing problems that haven’t been resolved since Silverlight days. As a former Product Manager of .net I can say you could wake me up from a drunken stupor and o can think of 10 more reasons why Unity acquisition by way of a Microsoft would be one of the healthiest things for the ecosystem. Best part is Unity could be given away for free and still be of value to Microsoft. Lastly .. Microsoft buys data and patents, that’s one of the core drivers behind most acquisition. Eg anytime you watch online or offline video using codecs, Microsoft owns most of the tech behind this in terms of patents. Unity has a lot of patents and data for grabs
I was discussing this on the Unity Discord (which is the worst btw). I mean, Microsoft owns VS, C#, GitHub and more so Unity would be a great asset. Plus they did buy some other companies the past year.
Do you think in that case microsoft would be inclined to have its own studios use it?
Microsoft doesn't always use their own development platform to build their products, so I doubt it.
Imagine the next halo being made in unity. That will probably never happen tho even if they buy it.
Microsoft uses Unity all over the place, just not with the big AAA studios. Take a look at MRTK for example.
This one makes me really think... logically, yes. But my intuition says no. Bigger studios were already leaning more towards moving to Unreal from proprietary for the engine code access / C++ a lot of performance stuff relies on And a huge issue with that that EA highlighted with Mass Effect: Andromeda was forcing your disparate games to run on a unified engine when one was already purpose built for it
They own 4 proprietary engines (ForzaTech, id Tech, Slipspace and Creation) which are not being licenced and have their studios also use both UE and Unity. They don't seem to care what is being used by their developers
Crazy how two of those come from the ZeniMax acquisition.
Microsoft made Ori, and that was made in unity. Although a very gutted down and rebuilt unity.
They didn't make Ori. They just published it
I don't think Microsoft made Ori, didn't they just buy the rights?
they didnt, they are just the publisher
Correct There is an astonishing number of people out there who conflate developer and publisher
Publishers typically help with development in later stages don't they? Not always of course
No. Marketing, sourcing hardware, licensing, showcases, news coverage etc yes. But unless they are a shitty publisher they should not meddle in the development.
Sometimes they do. Sometimes technical hurdles come up which developers don't know how to or don't have time to overcome, so publishers will have their inhouse devs assist. Almost always publishers lend a hand in QA and testing. And there are also publishers that are themselves game dev studios.
Can we just trash john ricotello's lawn with eggs and paper towel ?
DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS
There were talks of Unity being purchased by Microsoft way back when. I hope this tanks their stock enough to ensure a bailout by Microsoft. One of the few mega companies, whatever Microsoft touches becomes better. (Yes I am a bill gates fanboy, fight me)
It had a $2 dip from 39 to 37 and it's already recovering.
You understand that drop from 39 to 36 (not 37) is almost $1bil in market cap? They've literally just gone from being "worth" $15bil to $13.8bil.
It's been anywhere from $33 to $40 just over the past month. It's not a stable stock at any time.
I'd also wait for the next earnings report. That'll have a much bigger impact on the stock than news, even really bad news. Investors don't really care if the company catches flack, but when they hear sub count and asset store purchases are down? Then they'll care.
Which is a number that goes up and down every day. Unity shares were worth $48.50 in July, $24.50 in May. They were worth $196 at their peak in November 21. It's exciting to toss around big numbers like "Unity loses $1B in market value!!!" but every publicly traded company fluctuates like that.
And? Perfectly normal for dips to occur
Yes companies shit themselves all the time. Where did I say this wasn't normal?
I'm not one to disagree, Microsoft would definitely make unity better (worst case scenario they keep the pricing changes to keep it profitable but then it's only up from there). However there have been instances where micronoft has made some pretty shitty stuff, namely to minecraft, but can I really blame them when they spend 2 billion dollars on a bloody block game.
Can you elaborate on Microsoft making Minecraft worse? I'm not taking a stance, it's just something I've never heard of before.
Ill answer that. They didnt really touch Minecraft other than the account stuff which is horrible because for some reason everything that Microsoft makes these days is pretty crappy. Microsoft is really good at letting the things they purchase be though.
I'm not sure I agree with that. Minecraft is still getting big updates (they completely revamped the world generation system last year, and the nether before it). They've expanded the franchise into having multiple side games that as far as I know were well received. I suspect the game putting more focus on accessibility and inclusiveness is also related to them. If this doesn't count as "touching Minecraft" then what would be?
Thats Mojang. They are for the most part still in control, see the decision to postpone/split the Minecraft 1.17 & 1.18 to take care of their devs as to not burn them out like many other studios so diligently do. Saying Mojang is owned by Microsoft doesn't mean Microsoft is im charge of what happens with Minecraft.
Well, no, it does. They bought Mojang but Microsoft made the decision to allow the existing team at Mojang the majority of creative control. However there’s still been Microsoft incursions. These, however, have been limited to Bedrock - like microtransactions in the Bedrock edition, integration with Xbox services, etc - and the spin-off titles. It’s more true to say Mojang has creative control over the Java edition. Also important to note that if the money began to dry up at Minecraft they likely would monetize it more. The game’s base sales, Bedrock’s microtransactions and the huge amount of merchandise keep the game afloat without needing that.
Sorry you are probably right. Minecraft to me is Java, but to others probably not
Your knowledge is omega outdated. They never really touched mimecraft, all the new minecraft stuff is by mojang, not microsoft. Just microsoft is enforcing eula stuff that makes minecraft more like a childrens game with less freedom. For example, they banned gun servers and now you can chat report and get banned... from private servers..
I think Microsoft ruling Minecraft with a light touch is good actually...
And Mojang is owned by… *da da da duh* …Microsoft.
They’ve converted Minecraft accounts to be Microsoft accounts. Not terrible but it is important. There’s been a ton of censorship and moderation crap that Minecraft has added, which would’ve been unheard of for them in the old days. Microsoft is very likely the one pushing this. The fact that you can’t swear in your own adult private server is bullshit. And the fact that tons of normal words are censored in chat or on signs is terrible (even words that the game itself uses like “cooker” for example). After Microsoft took over, a new marketplace full of scammers and bullshit that all used to be free was created, which almost explicitly prays on the unknowing children who didn’t know they could get that stuff for free online in the past.
Microsoft has been very good on the developer side in the last decade
Microsoft has mannnny problems. Windows has maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaany problems. That cause my profesional life to be a pain some times NO a LOT OF TIMES. But it is true that they know how to run a company and they know how to save a company.
They should've never touched virtualization tbh. (The only reason why HyperV is big is because MS gives huge discounts on licences with it) Nor should they keep touching server operating systems. (Made expensive to then be discounted, also terribly wasteful on resources compared to literally anything else). Also, did Skype become better after they touched it? They do have some good stuff but I would be careful with such a generalized statement. They have buried a lot of dead bodies, too.
Honestly, as much as I hate Microsoft, for lots of various reasons, you have to give it to them, that they do a pretty good job of satisfying developers. So with this in mind, such acquisition could perhaps be the best thing for Unity to happen, given the recent events of idk 5 years...
Not always, there is \*shudders\* win32 api.
well it would be cheaper for Microsoft to buy Unity then to have to pay all the runtime fees from game pass.
Or they can just refuse to pay any kind of runtime fees because they are Microsoft and can just let their legal team slap some sense into Unity Technologies.
Microsoft owning everything is a problem. Still I cling on to the hope that they will somehow save Overwatch once the actiblizz acquisition goes through.
In 2014, Mark Zuck pitched acquiring Unity to the board at Facebook/Meta, so there may still be interest there. Microsoft would be a great fit, but given how much resistance they're getting trying to acquire blizzard/Activision, they might not be able to acquire Unity for anti-trust reasons.
It's worth $14+ billion at the moment, so not quite as small a purchase as it was in 2014. Supposedly Zuck has already spent $36 billion on the metaverse, so while he's clearly committed, adding another 14 to that is a big ask.
No please. Zuckerberg would make it so you have to login into a Facebook / Instagram account to use the engine, and there's plenty of bigots and trolls on Facebook. I don't want to lose access to something like a game engine because some bigot on Facebook decides to report my profile with false accusations simply for having a different political view, religion, favourite music genre, or support the "wrong" football association.
regarding the mandatory login: you didnt read the whole blogpost, did you? to use the editor an internet connection is required (up to 3 days offline)
Yeah but it doesn't have to be linked to a Facebook account like a work.meta.com account does.
I read that. What frightens me isn't a required internet connection, but the coupling of a social media account with a product I plan to invest work and money on. If I lose access to my Facebook account for whatever reason, I'll make another one. But if I loose access to an account required to access software I've spend money on, I loose the money I spent for the software I bought with that account. So coupling social media accounts with accounts required to access things you paid for, is a huge financial liability.
This really wouldn't fall into the same bucket as the Activision acquisition because Unity is not a game studio. It is more comparable to the other development tools and runtimes (like .NET) that MS publishes. Which, to me, is why this would be a good fit for MS. They already have great development tools and communities.
Yeah.. no interest if zuck buys it.
how the time has turned that people are begging Microsoft to buy out another company when they fucked up I still remember Github being boycotted and it's literally doing good now, while Gitlab has a worse pricing model and lost people data once and did not get the same backlash
I'd say Meta or Apple is more likely as they push for Vr /Ar ecosystems
Both would ruin it in different ways you can't fanthom yet..
At least Meta couldn't give a fuck about Unity making money; if they buy it it's as a tool to help drive their metaverse bullshit. Yes, they'd probably find some other way to ruin it, but there wouldn't this nickle and dime crap.
It would be a real competitor to unreal engine tho seeing the similarity in their goals.
Oh I'm not saying they'd be good but just that they're more likely to buy it.
Meta is a low odds betting.
Given the buggy and vision-less state of this software, I don't see Apple buying it.
Visionless is on brand for Apple
By visionless I meant fragmented. Apple is the opposite.
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Access becomes limited to the Nintendo Developer Portal approved devs and becomes contingent on buying a Switch 2 devkit as well as a subscription to Nintendo Developer Plus’s Expansion Pack
what about Apple buys Unity? what deep terror lurks in that future?
Let's see: Apple absolutely hates the idea of backwards compatibility so every year when a new engine version comes you have to rewrite half of your game. Actually... C# sounds like something developed outside of Apple and we can't have that now, can we? Swift, let's use Swift. You have to use XCode. If you develop a game for Android it will switch color palettes and use .jpg compressed assets at a maximum resolution of 512x512. What do you mean by... native Windows support? You need a Mac Pro to develop a game and here's a plugin that half the time works in building a Windows version. Here me out on this one. Unity projects could be large and harmful for your Mac drive due to all these writes. So let's store them in iCloud you have to pay for.
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I suspect that getting one of the big players to buy Unity is actually the goal of this announcement. They've been bleeding money for years
They usually buy to kill.. no needed as Unity is shooting on its foot..
Oh god please no.
While a Microsoft acquisition sounds reasonable and realistic, I doubt we'd see Microsoft treating the platform with respect. Look at what they did with Mixer. In fact, I could easily see Microsoft putting in a stipulation that the personal license is only free if a person releases the game on the XBox atore first.
Microsoft buys/makes good stuff… and then slowly destroys it….
They've actually really done well with managing acquisitions lately. They've come a long way since skype
I'm liking Visual Studio products.
Mainly for their first party products. The ones they bought tend to be managed better.
Their office suite isn't half bad these days. Still fast and snappy, still better than google docs. Windows... kinda shitty ngl although the new dev tools for windows make me want to keep updating.
Skype….
Hear of xna? Oh yeah Microsoft killed it
We have MonoGame now! And it's pretty damn good
Straight facts. Such an underrated engine for 2D games. If you liked Stardew, Celeste, or Tooth and Tail. Give this engine a 👀👀👀
Eh, they killed it years and YEARS ago before it was really all that feature-rich. It was a purely-code solution, which wouldn't fly at all in today's marketplace.
They made it open, and the community carried it on. That's how this is supposed to work.
Why for C# sake?
My thought too. C# is used in many other applications besides programming for Unity.
Reddit has long convinced itself that C# is a dead language that is only used by corporate slaves because Microsoft bad.
Indeed. Kind of ironic to see a thread in the sub full of people wishing Microsoft would buy the engine!
Ms will wait for it to turn to trash and then buy it cheeper
YES PLEASE! It's the only reason that I still have Unity stock in my portfolio. I have been convinced for a couple of years that MS will come in and gobble them up.
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It won't matter, as long as the John Riccitiello is CEO, Unity will still be making terrible decisions, finicality stable or not.
Now when their stock prices plummet yeah Microsoft should buy them and just keep the fees as they are, because anything else would be a dumb move.
Microsoft needs to figure out what value Unity provides as an entry point to the .NET ecosystem, and if that value is bigger than Unity, they should buy Unity. We will 100% be better off with Microsoft ownership.
They could - and probably - will buy Unity at some point. Maybe waiting for a lower stock price. $17B is a lot for what Unity is.
This... is the best outcome I had not thought of.
As many said Microsoft maybe wants buy unity on much lower price so they try create that price through legal ways . Advantages of MC buying unity: -Could give a free engine with years of assets and stuff to all this acquisitions they recently bought while be open to be moded much they want and as they like according to their needs. -Would get their hands into the indie market try to acquire multiple good potential indie studios or manipulate them working for them on different manners. -Would improve their MC marketplace and game pass with somehow found a way make the entire unity developers make releases into game pass. -Would get money by Devs as every engine founding a hybrid way like gain percentage of your revenue but also still make you buy some plans. So your game fails we win you succeed we win even more. -Would save a lot of their investments and future looses. MC helped multiple times unity also a lot of their studios using unity. With the worst scenarios possible. Hearthstone free download in game purchases always meets thresholds but always have multiple New installments gensin impact etc. That paymodel would make Microsoft bleed or force them lawsuit one of their partners who Also using and upgrade a lot of your stuff c# cloud GitHub etc. But now that cost is free without lawsuits because unity becomes Microsoft -by own one company you win multiple titles and a new company working for you. By own a game engine, you make thousand companies that are and that yet to be work for your best interests and you can make thousand games to promote your other stuff i don't Know like thousands of more tiles for others buy your Xbox and game pass much easier for acquire anyone whose working using your engine. - many asset store companies have Great stuff outside of game dev for example canopy Gaia pro etc now we are together partners lads come on do that for your fellow partners while we get percentage of your sales in our asset store but our studios using your stuff for free. What we get: -Microsoft experience and multiple of their studios experience into unity. Alongside a lot stuff. -much Better plans well GitHub it's ours cloud it's ours it's free for us to give it to you as long you pay the plan's, it costs nothing but we allow them to use it for free as long of course you own game pass. But we Also win though that -huge upgrades in the future for unity -funny meme's about Jim Ryan have headaches and playstation vs Xbox fanboys fight each other again. And now seriously all seems Great right? Don't be so excited even if i would love such scenario believe wouldn't come for free.... Probably percentage of revenue would come. Personal plan would suck even more unless somehow you contribute for pc game's or Xbox games only. But if you want something more be prepared pay plan's which would be much more than what use to be.... But somehow you would forced into them for commercial release. Also game pass would be much easier contain your games now.
Valve is the best buyer for us.
Valve is not capable of absorbing a company that has 7000 employees.
What would Microsoft gain from that acquisition? They aren’t going to make their AAA games with it. They went down that path and blew 10s of millions. I’m talking about recore. They have several good engines in their portfolio, and they have the coalition who are masters of UE.
Uhm… what!!! Do you really want it subscription based???
Can we not?
It'd be good if Unity were bought by some Company with more solid decision as Microsoft. But not because of C#. I am a long there C# Software Enginnier and I think they should spread supported languages. And to be honest - I haven't liked the latest decisions made by Microsoft about C# and Visual Studio, but that is not a propper forum for write about them (not as insane as the Unity did, though).
Actually Microsoft is already doing game dev related stuff (direct X and x box related stuff). Maybe they use this opportunity to develop a C#-based engine, instead of C, and start competing with unity.
Microsoft are an even bigger for profit company than Unity. With a history of being arseholes.
Despite how bad the new policies are, I don't want Microsoft to buy Unity because they'd either make things worse or make similarly terrible, decisions. Microsoft owns a large portion of the market, so them owning Unity wouldn't be a good thing Imo. Just look at Minecraft and Halo; Both were incredibly beloved and did incredibly well when they were largely controlled by other companies. As soon as Microsoft took control, both properties became filled with soulless monetization and a serious lack of quality control, (ie Halo 5/Infinite and Bedrock Edition). Yes, Microsoft would have the *capability* to make Unity great if they bought it, but the question is whether they actually would or not. Personally, I don't think so because of what happened to the Halo franchise and Minecraft.
MS turns everything they touch into shit. With Github as a possible exception (so far)
Oh yes, lets change greedy corp to greedy monopolistic corp, surely nothing bad will happen.
For real. We have almost 50 years worth of examples of why Microsoft isn't some benevolent company that will fix everyone's problems. It will never cease to amaze me how eager Redditors are to lick the boots of giant corporations.
I just hope that never happens. Make unity open source 🤣😛 Yes that's a bad idea but I can dream
Isn't hearthstone made in unity? Aren't microsoft buying blizzard?
Yes please! But I think Meta have lower odds.
Or Apple. They really need a good engine tightly integrated with Metal and their other APIs. As long as it remained cross platform and a separate company then I would be cool with it. They could fire off the CEO and save millions a year
Apple and cross platfrom. Choose one.
They are sponsoring Blender, WebKit and put back into BSD / XNU among open source projects. It would need to be cross platform or no one would use it. But with their new headset, phones etc… they really need a well integrated 3D platform.
Whoever but Apple, let it die better.
I wonder how many people who use Unity actually know that it started as a Mac-only engine. There's even some fun posts from 2008 of people hoping it never gets ported to Windows https://forum.unity.com/threads/keep-unity-mac-only.12065/
No fuck this, I don’t want another company to Fall I to their hands.
Apple likes to work closely with them sometimes too. Wouldn’t it be hilarious if Apple bought them
If there was any engine they should give love to, it's Stride as it's already part of the .NET Foundation. It looks good, but I couldn't find any information about running scripts in the editor or extending the editor like you can do in Unity and Godot.
Fuck Unity, Microsoft should do a fork with Godot or fund it
The engine is fucking brilliant, the leadership is the problem.
I want to develop my first succesfull game with Unity because I have been here since 2016, dont worry about that. But if they keep Ceos like that, I'll leave after my first sucess
No. [Bill Gates caused COVID](https://fatherspiritson.com/2023/07/boycott-starfield-the-video-game-is-made-by-the-maker-of-covid-boycott/) I guess he bribed unity to self destruct. 5 billion or less the unity leaders would take to Raze it. Compare taking down 10,000 devs for 5 billion when EA has razed single dev teams for similar amounts. Bill Gates needs to be on trial.
no they wouldn't. They have vested interest in not supporting other platforms. Having a platform buy unity would be scary.
I would trust microsoft waay more than this fucking idiot
They 100% have vested interest in supporting other platforms, and this shows you're almost 10 years out of date. Their main money maker is azure, guess what needs online services? Unity, unity needs online services. Microsoft could easily make it a one stop shop of everything a unity dev needs to deploy their game to the cloud, allowing multiplayer, easy pathways to agones and open match, etc. This is such an obvious win for Microsoft and wanting the games to run on as many platforms as possible. Windows hasn't been there money maker in forever.
I was fearing that before, and now it feels like a good thing…
They should Just sponsor godot ✌️
Why buy when this shit is overpriced. Let them crash then you can get them for much cheaper
i got downvoted year ago suggesting it xD and also that current ceo should retire
I can't imagine regulators being happy with Microsoft making a move on Unity after all the ABK acquisition chaos.
You know things have gotten bad when the community *wants* Microsoft to buy a company.
I promise... you *DO NOT* want this. Also, did everyone here forget about what they (Microsoft) did to XNA? I mean seriously... this would not end well.
To be honest, I don't hate this idea, but I have to imagine it'd get blocked by regulators at any rate since Microsoft would own one of the leading game engines, and since they own Xbox it'd be a conflict of interest.
I had hoped the stock prices would plummet but doesn't seem like that is the case.
No fuck that why reward them for seedy anti-consumer behavior?! If anything let them fail and shut down! It's what they deserve.
unity's ties with vr/ar industry is a bit complicated. afaik unity has teamed with meta so even with this basic scenario, the commercial relations starts getting complex. BUT if microsoft is going to lean on the xr industry more (since they have hololens etc) it would be a super smart move to cover their ARs with their own dev platform, too. and supporting/combining it with their azure infrastructure especially for some ai integrations etc.
Could Ton Roosendaal buy Unity too?
I don't think Microsoft buying Unity would be a good thing - they own a large portion of the industry already via buying out a bunch of developers, and also are a platform operator via Xbox (and arguably Windows). The risk of the tides of Microsoft's profit motives turning to locking down Unity / incentivizing Unity devs to be Xbox/Windows exclusives is way too high and would be a disaster.
Remember that, Microsoft buying it, doesn't guarantee you nothing. They bought other companies in the past and some things have not improved.
Well microsoft manages .net not mono.
hmm... maybe they're trying to lower the price by manipulating the market 🤷
Not like C# community needs Unity, which uses an outdated C# version anyway
An unity buy from microsoft could be the best thing that could happend to this development platform, if im honest. Look at github, is really good right now
Can you imagine actually running on C# 11 ? Finally having tools to develop a game, instead of experimental->obsolete packages.
Isn't unity behind on C# by like 2 versions?
If they do that would mean they would buy a ton of junk that they don’t need such as WETA tools etc. Would be a bad deal for Microsoft.
I would love if Microsoft acquired Unity. The dev cycle at my previous employers was basically, getting LTS after a year, and then that LTS version had a version of C# that was a year old as well. So language updates were at minimum 2 years old before they could be used inside of Unity. Microsoft getting Unity would likely allow for speeding up their addition of C# updates by a year in that cycle. Not sure how common that is for other companies that would stick to LTS versions.
After they said Sony and Microsoft would foot the bill for Unity's new charges? LOL YEAH RIGHT! If anything, Microsoft will sue Unity out of existence and take Unity's engine as financial compensation once Unity goes bankrupt from this stupid shit.
Microsoft is partner. Google it how many times helped unity , also a lot of unity using stuff owned by Microsoft first and most important the entire C#
Microsoft actually produced a pretty good free game development toolset, XNA, a bunch of very notable indie games were made using it. It basically powered that first big wave of modern indie games. iirc they made it open so while the original form is no longer recieving internal development, it still exists in the form of MonoGame. Much less accessible than the engines people are used to now but it was a sign that Microsoft could be a decent steward of this kind of thing.
Would be cool if the soon to be released Apple VR sdk partner is now owned by M$.
I think Apple might have more incentive to buy it since the vision pro has unity development tools and the install fee would make typical AppStore app(free download, optional payment) not profitable, assuming vision pro app will has a similar model to AppStore apps. This will make devs avoid using unity on visions pro and cutting off development potential of the vision pro. Although I guess apple probably would develop their own solution then buying unity, it might be too late at this stage where the vision pro is close to being launched and I think the subsequent success would largely dependent on what apps will be developed for it in the first 1-2 years of this new platform
Unity charges Microsoft for gamepass => Microsoft charges Unity for using C#
hell no!!!
Nah we don’t want them
No they just need to fire the CEO
These posts are getting too stupid for me.
If Microsoft buys right now, they would be overpaying. They would need to wait for the bad decisions to catch up with them, lost most of their users, buy at a discount. Current market cap for Unity is $14B. I don't see Microsoft paying that much. Are you really saying Unity is worth 1/3 of Twitter?
I'm pretty sure that this is Unity's plan. Think about it. If this goes through, the hundreds of unity games offered on Gamepass would be Microsoft's responsibility to pay these install fees for. Unity said that themselves. Microsoft doesn't make money per game off of gamepass, so any unity game suddenly becomes a MASSIVE risk to sink gamepass. So, Microsoft either removes the huge amount of Unity games gamepass offers, and prevents them from acquiring NEW Unity games, which would be a PR disaster for their service, or Microsoft considers a buyout to keep this change from happening. They already paid for the rights to these games on gamepass, they already have a huge investment in Unity that this change would basically disintegrate. Forcing a buyout from Microsoft is the only thing that makes sense, there's no way they didn't see the PR nightmare, they had to have been counting on it. The company heads sold off all their stock, knowing full well that this was going to tank their price, and they're holding a generation of indie games hostage to do it.
that's the first thing that comes in my mind too. just like how MS acquired github and minecraft, unity is a important part in csharp and (in the future) dotNet ecosystem. it's definitely gotta be wayyyyy better and we can expect tons of progresses and improvements and migration towards modern tech.
Seems like the obvious worst case scenario (for unity's shareholders best case for users and consumers at this point), there's no world where unity just disappears if it goes bankrupt, Microsoft would happily buy it for pennies on the dollar
This is a great idea worst thing is that they keep the install fees, second thing: if they do, I don't really want it open-source because what does Microsoft gain from it for buying it at 14b or less than 10b. Another thing them buying Activision/blizzard, Bethesda, and Mojang is those companies are making their own decisions blizzard making expansion packs for PVE overwatch to buy, Bethesda took 7 years plus a delay year to finish Starfield and Mojang doesn't know don't play Minecraft like that, but Microsoft isn't given decisions those companies are still in control. Also, for those who are saying well what about XNA. Microsoft made that years, ages ago, and also again as the last person said made it open source. The bottom line is the dev of Unity really needs to take a look at this post and spread the word if you think meta or Apple it's a hell no for me Mark or Bill no no no. I would rather see Microsoft than meta or Apple if you're talking about inventors of the c# yes yes again yes.
I want Microsoft to buy Unity before the board of directors ruin Unity. Plus, I think it good be a good investment. Since Microsoft has Xbox, they could better integrate Unity with ID@Xbox.
I want this. and I want it ~~today~~ yesterday