Samsung eyeing software acquisitions, including Unity Technologies

And? Their entire argument rests on them thinking that Autodesk will just make Unity Free go away "because reasons."

 

It is more reasonable that they would make for Unity the same policy they made in their other products (non-commercial, etc), than to make an special case for Unity.

Ok, this discussion is starting to get "contesting the obvious for the sake of contest". So let it be.

 

Sure, if you're just starting to learn the tools then commercial use shouldn't really be a concern. To carry on the metaphor, it's like someone who's picking up a guitar for the first time getting concerned over the details of a publishing contract.

 

OMG AutoDes(k)troy....!!!! No !!! No !!! pleaaseeee...

 

You are, of course correct. But that doesn't stop people from filling the app stores with the with the first project they created over a weekend. And then complaining about "discoverability" and seeking advice on how to better market their game and which ad networks are better and how to integrate IAP, or how to "get around" copyright infringement to use other's IP, or how to side step licensing agreements, and complaining that Pro features should be free, not being able to find a huge team of people to realize their vision working for a cut of the "profits", and how Unity needs to make massive improvements to the engine because their own lack of knowledge/ability/effort/common sense should in no way be a limiting factor to them creating (and of course selling) a GTA/Skyrim/COD clone in a couple of weeks with their breathtakingly brilliant twist on the whole genre (zombies).

My point is.... uh... hmm... I don't think I actually had a point. Nevermind, carry on.

 

Your point was "zombies". And an excellent point it is, if I may say so.

--Eric

 

Tried to use 3D$Max 9 few years back, no thanks. Frankly it's Maya that is easier, but it was purchased by Autodesk and it's usability is declining in recent years, though newest version is giving hope.

And I agree that zbrush is piece of (you know what, I'm not going to use expletives).

And by "kill" I meant they put some crazy restrictions like "you can use only X game object in scene".

Frankly, from all companies that could purchase UT, Google seems to be best bet as they would stay away from development and Google's money would make new features coming to Unity Free faster.

nVidia on the other hand probably would make it so Unity could run best on their GPUs and on AMD's/ATi's they would have (unexplainable) performance issues, so no.

 

Talking about zombies. Maya is the only Autodesk Software that will work on my Mac. I used Maya 8.5 for years but the new indie game developer MayaLT... What is this? MayaLT? I love it. Watch out the zombies will convert you in 12 secs.

CSDG

 

I concur! Zombies are pointy.
Gigi

 

I know a lot of people do not wish Autodesk or any other companies to buy out Unity. But I am just commenting from corporate strategy standpoint. Asset acquisition depends on the market segement Autodesk is targetting, and the only critical area they are missing is the 3D game engine itself. How they (or any other companies eg. Microsoft/Google/Nvidia/Samsung) handle the licensing, product development is a entirely different matter. User's own preferrence also do not factor into their strategy.

 

Interesting indeed...

Not sure if my memory is wrong, but I recall some time back (maybe 2/3 years ago?) UT received a large sum (or large at the time) of investment, something like $11m of private investment? Large investors want to see returns on their investment after a couple of years and generally have no interest in "the cause" or "community". If Samsung (or anyone else) came with a rather large offer, which let's face it, unity as probably the most widely used tool around, would not surprise me to see a mammoth offer given, those investors will apply a very large amount of pressure to sell and want to take their money and look for the next company/investment about to experience explosive growth.

 

Your memory is in pretty good shape. http://www.marketwired.com/press-re...estsummit-capital-iglobe-partners-1540593.htm

Heh... pretty awesome picture in that article.

 

You forgot Adobe.
Unity would then be leasable software only and be tightly integrated into the CC suite. It might become the 3D extension to flash and all the formats that work well with it would over time become Adobe-Only formats that work entirely with Flash.

 

It'd be a lot cheaper for all of the above companies to roll their own engine and middleware. What they're really doing if buying Unity is buying you and me. It's user acquisition, which logically means that you rule out Google, MS and Apple because they'd be acquiring users who are generally interested in different platforms.

That leaves them with an expensive engine on their hands only for their own systems, which doesn't really make sense and probably isn't quite aligned. It would probably drive around a quarter of regular users and at least half of paid users to Unreal 4. This is an educated guess but simply buying Unity does not make sense unless what Unity does is already aligned with your own sensibilities and will eventually turn a profit.

So some of the predictions in this thread are fairly outlandish

 

In the limited mergers and acquisition experience I have had, I would say that whoever acquired unity would do so to retain unitys market share and add capital to grow it further, if done correctly we shouldn't even notice the change of ownership. However I am still new to corporate law so I could be wrong.

Just my 2 cents

 

Indeed, that and brand name. Much like when adobe bought macromedia. They didn't buy tech so much as the user base and brand. You take away the user base and multi-platform capabilities and you have a very over-tooled, expensive internal engine. Any company wanting to that would be better served by just partnering/making a deal with Unity to add support for their platform.

 

I woke up this morning and put a Ferrari GT 250 on my shopping list.

I'll be funding it by popping down to Ladbrokes and putting a £10 bet on pigs flying within the next five years.

 

I can confirm, I'm pretty confident, Mr. David Helgason is getting my money every time I buy a Unity Asset, because his name is on every gundamn receipt. Doesn't that guy live in Denmark?

(Maybe I have to think back, to every other guy with loads of cash, this guy doesn't live in Denmark, he lives next door to me in Los Angeles, and Denmark is his offshore bank account!) DISCOVERED!

 

I wonder if Tencent doesn't care if Epic makes money? Like perhaps they just don't mind, that would explain their business model that makes no sense.

 

I hope Unity will remain independent for as long as possible. Acquisitions tend to introduce lots of bureaucracy, and thus impedes the ability to compete. But it all depends on how the acquisition is handled of course. Autodesk is probably the worst partner imaginable.

Epic is more than just a game engine tool maker, they have other income sources too and I'm quite sure they're profitable. And I suppose if just 1 or 2 games made with their engine become super hits, those 5% are going to be worth their weight in gold.

 

Oh good (Insert Deity here), please do not ever let anyone corporation take control such as Autodesk, they will be the death of Unity, and the forever license agreement that anyone who downloads Unity will have to pay $30,000 USD just for downloading. F*** AUTODESK, and F*** their corporation. wow, it's good to be an Indie game dev and be able to state those things against such a conglomerate, because I can assure you, EVER ASSET IN ANY ONE OF MY GAMES WAS MADE WITH BLENDER, 100%, Thank god for my artist partner. Thanks Andy!, You rock, and you saved me $80K!

 

IIRC Epic has other licensing possibilities so people with super hits probably wouldn't be paying that.

 

What rumors?

 

I think it was necro'd by a spamvertiser with supposed links to data recovery apps for Samsung phones. They've obviously been deleted.

 

Oh, didn't notice it was an old thread.
I'm glad the rumors turned out to be just that - rumors!

 

Well I gave my broken in less than 3 years 42" Samsung to Goodwill Industries to see if it's worth fixing. A TV in it's time that costs more than one almost double it's size today.

 

With regards to this, perhaps it is worth re posting Mr.Helgason's direct quote

from here

To me, that looks as emphatic as anyone can get about the topic
I sort of translated that as
"No!.. Hell No!"

(yeah its a necroed thread, but it might get necroed again, and someone else might have a shock again so ..)