Unity going public with IPO? This bloomberg article feels out of touch...

News & General Discussion
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Source:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-03/graphics-startup-unity-is-said-to-prepare-for-ipo-this-year

I glazed over the article and immediately got the impression these guys just now heard of unity and the word “engine” doesn’t appear anywhere in this entire article :X

What are your thoughts, both about the IPO and also about the fact bloomberg really looked at this from the outside a̶n̶d̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶h̶o̶w̶ ̶m̶i̶s̶s̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶f̶a̶c̶t̶ ̶u̶n̶i̶t̶y̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶g̶a̶m̶e̶ ̶e̶n̶g̶i̶n̶e̶? Also… theres some stuff I somehow missed in the article, like a lawsuit that happened at some point?

EDIT: After another read I do see:

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Money makes you do things you don’t wan’t to do;) People, start learning Unreal Engine

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Another month, another “Unity will soon have an IPO and everything will be ruined” thread.

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People have been saying Unity is going public any day now for the past 5 years.

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It’s bloomberg. Remember the spy chip story?

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Their financial writers know what they know, and that isn’t game development technologies.

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Any day from now till infinity.

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Unless Unity really sucks at PR this kind of article is planned and coordinated. So if game engine is not prominent that’s likely intentional.

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I hear that there’s a big plan to make Linux the premiere desktop operating system right before it happens.

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We even had a discussion about it a year ago concerning an article from the same news source as this thread.

https://discussions.unity.com/t/731915

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Going public doesn’t concern me much. Get worried when you see the phrase “leveraged buyout.”

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Yeah, I will feel sorry for it when I see the news that Epic+Tencent bought Unity Technologies. Until then it doesn’t concern me.

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If every year, some source “predicts” the same thing, they might eventually be right. Tech predictions are awesome!

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I hear the next Nintendo console is going to be called the Revolution and it’s going to have a hologram projector built into it.

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I guess we will just have to wait and see.

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They’re a general business news service, so I expect that the vast majority of their audience probably wouldn’t understand things like “engine” or other technical terms. From our perspective calling it “graphics software” is wrong, but from the perspective of an arbitrary business person that’s a reasonable enough description that they understand it’s computer software that helps you make visual stuff.

The bit that does surprise me is calling it a “startup” when it’s 16 years old and very well established in its industry.

And if it finally becomes right one day they’ll forget all the times they’ve got it wrong. :wink:

Note that when the article finally gets to any kind of explanation all it says is that they’re “considering an initial public offering that could happen as early as the fall”. “Considering” something does not mean they have any plan or intent to follow through, it just means it’s one of probably a whole bunch of options identified at some point. And they’re a business with shareholders, they need to consider anything that could potentially maximise profit, even if they immediately decide against it. And anything following the word “could” is explicitly just a vague statement of possibility. Nothing written here even suggests any form of intent.

I’m considering having caviar for dinner, and I could do so as early as 4pm. I don’t intend to do either of those things, but there you go… true statement anyway!

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Unity should give John his golden parachute and send him off. Hire a new CEO that’s passionate about open source technology and providing easy solutions for small indie developers.

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While we’re at it can we trade in the users who don’t understand the difference between having access to the source and open source?

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Regardless of what it’s called, clearly every other major game engine provides the source code free for developers. And they also don’t charge a premium for a dark skin.

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You’re right. Instead they take royalties, or charge for access or functionality, or they just don’t give you stuff for free in the first place, or it’s open source / public domain / etc. and as a result isn’t as well resourced to begin with. If you just want everything for free then there are actual open source engines you could be using instead.

I agree it’s an odd and maybe even silly thing to single out. But it’s their thing, and if they don’t want to give it away for free than that’s up to them.

“They’re not giving me what I want for free” says more about the person doing the complaining than it does the people being complained about.

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