I’m not sure how I feel about this, but it looks like Samsung is looking to acquire a variety of interesting software and service companies, with Unity technologies on the target list…
“According to the paper, some of those possible targets have included Unity Technologies, a San Francisco-based gaming platform developer”
Since Unity’s based in Denmark that doesn’t bode well for the credibility of the article.
I think for legal reasons they have changed that awhile ago:
http://unity3d.com/company/contact
News could be good or bad. The good is certainly the influx of capital a company like Samsung could bring.
Says it’s HQ in San Francisco, according to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_Technologies
Most of those companies other than UT are in pretty rough shape or really new. Atari’s a shambling joke, Green Throttle Games has a single unreleased product to their name, I can’t even figure out WHAT the purpose of Glympse is, not sure what Rounds is, and I can’t tell if Everything.me is an OS or some sort of Android shell. UT being grouped with them seems a little off.
When I pay for Unity or an Asset the money goes to Denmark. Denmark is headquarters. Claims of San Francisco as headquarters is eyewash, like actors buying stylish homes in all the hip places.
@Jaimi - not always a bonus when a large corporation takes over a company like this. Murdoch’s company took over Garagegames and it was thought a big influx of capital would take GG to the next level. Instead, the company was virtually destroyed and the Torque engines are now used by very few and are not really fit to task for rapid development. The last 2 or 3 years they’ve gone through quite a rough period and are unlikley to recover, and Murdoch’s company did not invest in the game engines at all. Hopefully UT will say no.and that will be the end of that, unless UT is traded on the stock market, which I ahven’t bothered checking.
True, Unity’s so good because Unity’s trying to survive and obviously has smart and good owners/management. Samsung acquisition will likely cause an exodus of key management, ownership and other talent and then leave what’s left to neglect and attrition.
In one of the possible scenarios, Samsung could shut down Iphone as an Unity target, in the hopes of bringing more exclusives for Android and his Galaxy phones.
Which I’m pretty sure UT would never let happen, considering losing an install base that large would cost them a LOT of license purchases.
Plenty of businesses have been bought to shut them down, some much bigger than Unity.
Not long time ago they rejected a large acquisition. So doubt the got any interest.
Let’s hope.
No one is going to shut down unity… It would aggravate millions of indie dev’s and indie loyalists.
But would people big enough to buy it care?
Actually, it wasn’t Murdoch, it was Diller (IAC).
The thing about big deals/acquisitions like this is that there is that they are a lot more complex than they appear. It is true the result is that GG suffered a harsh beating over the deal, but it isn’t simply a big company crushing a smaller one. There were a lot of problems through out the whole thing. GG was seriously small, and as Indie as you can get. A tech was being developed in GG that got some folks very excited about changing the web and being the next big thing. (a plugin that let you run full high quality 3d games in browser). That is what was pitched to IAC, a web portal with console quality games, not the engine, or GG as a company/publisher, a gaming portal. GG had no experience running a portal, IAC did (HSN, Match, CollegeHumor, etc.)
Basically 2 companies, who knew little about the other’s business, trying to create product that was a mashup of the two and no solid business plan. A bunch of tech geeks and gamers didn’t know how to run a business on that scale, and a conglomerate with no knowledge of the game industry. In fact nearly a year after launch there was still no real plan for monetization. Eventually when it was clear the whole thing wasn’t working, IAC took a bigger hand, and put Castle in charge and moved it to Las Vegas. A year later it was shut down. (I don’t know much about what happened after the move, I was gone by then). At some point toward the end the tech side (the engine and tech, Torque), split of into a separate company.
The failure came from both sides, and was more a result of a lot of enthusiasm, and little planning. In retrospect, the acquisition was probably a bad idea from the start. (though didn’t seem that way at the time). And since the product and the entities involved are no longer, I can say that the “plugin” was actually smoke and mirrors, and could have been a big problem down the road. GG was great company with the best intentions, just not geared in a way to handle that scenario.
–
UT is a large successful company who knows and understands their business very well. I have faith that they won’t sell themselves off easily or a company that would significantly change or damage their product.
I can’t think of any company big enough to buy Unity that wouldn’t destroy it. Some of them would destroy it worse than others, and some would take longer, but in the end it would be destroyed. And that would suck. We can only hope that those in a position to consider selling Unity don’t get fed up with it all and decide to cash out any time soon…
–Eric
@Zombiegorilla - yes I got that info secondhand a couple of years back obviously I couldn’t recall it clearly. Good to know the actual events behind it. The point is still the same though. Once IAC got involved Torque went into a steep decline and will never recover. From our perspective the reasons are irrelevant only the result matters. From my POV that result is that I spent a lot of money on Torque before IAC dumped it and there was so much doubt in the future of the engines I jumped to Unity, which turned out to be the best decision I could have made.
as posted
Also They are now backing or was involve along with intel with the development of the tizen OS wich mean they could be moving they galaxy line product to that OS and also close down the android, Blackberry and window phone part within 2-3 years to have complete control over the mobile platform when it come to gaming… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizen 
Tizen isn’t going anywhere. It has less of a chance in the market than Windows Phone.