Late last week, rumours began to fly around that the popular game development company, Unity Technologies, were making the rounds in a bid to sell their Unity software. Speculation lead to the belief that the software company were in serious talks with at least one potential buyer, with a strong possibility that they were interested in talking to Google about the plans.
However, that rumour has now been tossed out the window, as Unity themselves – particularly co-founder Joachim Ante – have come forward to decry any possibility of them selling up. In a recent report published on EuroGamer, Ante posted on the official forum stating that:
“[We] have no plan[s] to sell Unity.” He opened the post by saying that the development team, “always wanted to make a game engine that is accessible to everyone – to give customers an equal chance to develop great games and compete with larger players. In other words, democratise game development.”
Developed by the Denmark-based company in 2004, Unity is recognized as one of the world’s most popular game development tools, particularly amongst independent creators. While it was originally only available for Mac OS, it has since become a cross-platform kit and is now the defaultdevelopment software for the Nintendo Wii U. Blizzard – of World Of Warcraft fame – have even made use of the engine with their popular PC and iPad card game, Hearthstone.
Unity Technologies rrecognizesthe impact it has had on the gaming community and understands why many companies have taken an interest in their kit.
The role we now have in the gaming industry has been noticed by other companies. And today we have partnerships and collaborations with many of them. And these partnerships have enabled us to make it even better for you guys. For example offering you access to even more platforms in Unity at no extra cost. Sometimes when we talk to our partners, discussions turn to talk of acquisition.
For now – and perhaps to many indie company’s delights – it appears as though Unity will remain an independent and democratic tool for developers worldwide.