Unity’s motto is to “democratise game development”. This is a worthy aim. But there is not democracy in the Unity Game Engine development.
What I mean is that, sure you can vote on what needs to be done next, and Unity as a private company is totally free to ignore your suggestions.
Now, if Unity were to become a public company by selling shares, then share owners could all vote on what needs to be done next and the company would have to listen. And if they didn’t listen we could vote to sack people. Sure this is not total democracy as you could buy votes by buying shares. Perhaps it should become a cooperative, where every purchase of Unity automatically gives you an equal share in the company and a vote.
So yes, Unity does in a way democratise game development by allowing more people to make games.
But at the same time, paradoxically, locks people into a regime of being reliant on a software that the people have no control over. And hence all they can do is hope and beg for fixes and improvements much as happens in communists states.
So does Unity really democratise anything? Or create its own regime? And should Unity become a cooperative? Some food for thought.
Also, would you buy shares if it was offered?
(Mind you, I’m not complaining as basically it’s free software which you don’t have to use!)
We can barely get people to file decent bug reports and you expect them to buy shares in a company so they can vote on development direction? Have you seen some of the posts around here?
I think you’re overestimating the general user’s 1) capability to wisely decide complex business direction and 2) put forth the effort required to support this arrangement and make it successful.
If that were the case, the biggest shareholders would influence the direction of the company, that may not go the direction you hope it would. The aren’t going to be voting for big fixes and features.
I think that’s basically the case internally with Unity right now. So, the people with more stake often pull Unity in places that might seem illogical to the day to day developer.
And without trying to be offensive to anyone, I think a community driven version of Unity probably should be Godot. I don’t think I would stay with Unity if casual users had the dominant say. The product would be useless for serious development, and this would cause the casual users to move on and destroy the next big thing. Casual users will happily destroy things because they haven’t the experience to realise they’re doing so. They’re a complete unwitting menace and the reason why if Unity ran on votes, it’d be out of business.
In a bit of a twist, it’s probably casual users funding a huge part of Unity. But that does not mean they should be allowed control over company direction, and this lack of control does not prevent them using and enjoying Unity.
Everyone pays their electric bill but doesn’t tell the power company how to operate the nuclear reactor.
Voting… is it really worth it? Who really is the slave, and who really is the master? Are we the chattel beholden to our google overlords, or are they beholden to our fickle whims?
So many questions, so few answers, but it all only leads to the one same dilemma… to be, or not to be!
If you did this, what would happen is all the talent at Unity would flee.
The most productive companies hire the best, and turn them loose with a large degree of autonomy. It recognizes that responsibility and control are inseparable for competitive results. Most key decision making in the tech industry is done on the teams that are doing the work, even at large companies. You have a vision, and sometimes executives will override decisions, but it doesn’t happen as a matter of course.
That’s why the best tech companies focus so much on smart people, because they rely on them so heavily for key decision making at all levels. Any monkey can learn to pound out code. It takes something more to make smart strategic decisions involving more then just the code. And the entire Silicon Valley startup culture is based on that.
It also makes working as a developer a lot more interesting that way. So good developers would simply just not want to go near your ‘democratized’ structure.
My bet would be on ms of fb. Valve would never and I doubt Epic couldnt make an offer. I dont think they have enough capital or assets on hand.
Google, Apple, Amazon are interesting though I think amazon is out of its lane in gamedev to begin with and if the others got Unity it would be exclusive for only one platform or the other.
The other which you didnt mention is Autodesk, which although I use the other 3D package in there suite, I would not like them acquiring Unity either.
I would be surprised if Microsoft did not own part of Unity. I have no idea who owns what and I’m not really bothered - just saying it’s a decent investment for them, and for us if so.
It appears to me like while Amazon wants to compete with game engines and studios, MS seems to have settled on a support role. I know for instance their cloud stuff is generally a bit above Amazon for stuff realtime games care about most, and it looks like they host more of the well known names in gaming, although that’s just a guess based on scattered info.
This. Big companies get dominated by big shareholders. And big shareholders are primarily interested in profits. (This does depend on where Unity is officially located these days. Dutch laws are different to US laws, and allow the board of directors to tell share holders to buzz off.)
Alternatively its shares get sucked up by a large super fund only interested in profits. This is a far more common scenario then a corporate merger.
Maybe I shouldn’t have a vote.