Unity going public?

I do hope this isn't true.

Text:

 

I'd have loved to be able to afford some but I guess not
(no idea about it, just would like to own a tiny bit of the company I put a lot into)

 

It's been a matter of when not if for some time now.

A few years back at least, Unity was really tight about giving out equity, they didn't have an option plan like most tech startups it was selectively handed out.

 

I wonder how much will be 1 stock?

 

Why?

 

Perhaps fearing the death of democracy, just my 10cent...

 

Going public changes the focus of a company dramatically. It gets a payday for their investors and C-level execs(who slink off once their pre-IPO shares are vested/out of lock-up and contractual minimums met) and then, these days, the public market only wants to see growth of earnings. Nothing else matters. Whatever it takes until the stock ticker is done, make more money every quarter forever. If they're not making money and selling more(or firing employees to make up the difference), quarter over quarter, they're toast(as far as the market is concerned). Investors* don't care about value stocks at all these days.

*the big players running the casino

 

Yikes... hope this isn't the start of some dramatic shift for all of this. Anyway, I second the "how much per 1 unit of unitycoin?" question.

 

Was that last part on purpose? Because I think Unity getting bought out by a company like Tencent is precisely why they don't like the idea.

 

Unity has raise around 600 million. https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/unity-technologies

Their only options are to sale to a tech giant for some billions or go public. The investors have to be cashed out. It's obvious this is why the EA guy was brought on board. Once they took the money the clock started ticking.

I have always seen this issue as the biggest risk for Unity as we know it because investors now days demand crazy growth (aka raise prices and squeeze every penny out possible) every single quarter after quarter.

 

There have been rumors of a public IPO or a corporate buyout for as long as I've been using Unity. It will happen one day, that's just how business works. But in the mean time there is no point worrying about it.

Even when it does happen, its unlikely it will make a difference to us.

 

Well this is S*** news for nearly everyone.

 

Have you ever watched a company going public and then acting in good faith for their customers?
As soon as they go public it's all about happy investors which means they need to earn more money every quarter.

I just hope this will happen in the far future, not in 2020.

 

Unless you buy some, then if they switch to profit you'll profit, if they don't you'll still have a good engine to use. Hedging for the win.

 

Facebook is still around, and is still by far the dominant social media network. And for the most part still has its customers.

I'm still using Google search engine.

Despite what the internet seems to think of Microsoft, most people still use Windows as their default operating system.

And so on.

I would suggest counter examples are harder to find. Companies that go public and then screw over all of their customers tend not to stick around.

 

Most of the biggest companies behind Linux are public companies.

https://www.linuxfoundation.org/membership/members/

Incidentally Tencent - the parent company of Epic Games - is a platinum member.

 

So who is going to buy 51% shares? FB, M$, Google?

 

Isn't Unity in too much of a mess to be a good purchase,

How many of it's systems are in preview/change?

However it has managed to get prefabs to work and their burst compiler tech could be spun off to other tech companies...

Won't an IPO push Unity to be more profitable and therefore expensive to use e.g. royalties% tiered products?

 

They generally are not trying to monetize Linux directly though, instead Linux is integrated into or somehow key to one or more of the products they are actually monetizing. Example: Google supports Linux development, Linux is the base of Android, the Google Play Store is made core to Android app installation for the purpose of generating revenue for Google.

If/when Unity does go public, expect Unity to focus more on monetizing users of Unity Personal after a few years of being a public company. As a private company Unity can do things that hurt short term, but benefit them greatly long term (which is kind of the point of Unity Personal in the first place, eventually converting some of those users to Plus/Pro or just getting Asset Store purchases out of them). As a public company they will become considerably more focused on quarterly revenue growth, making hurting their long term prospects to make some short term gains far more attractive.

 

No. Utterly bizarre comment.

What does that have to do with anything?

--Eric

 

Why you using unity then?

 

I have read some really pesky reviews from former Unity employees about the management inside the company. But the engine itself is in order.

Source: Glassdoor.

 

It sure feels like they can't finish or fix anything fundamental to the engine at faster than a snail's pace. More and more new stuff announced every weekly Unite though. I get it, they gotta have a bunch of irons in the fire that hype the IPO to look like there's a lot of future growth to initial stock flippersbuyers but it feels like hardly anything completed that isn't a flashy toy that will just be thrown away or forgotten about in a year or so. All that while some fundamental game engine things just languish and don't get fixes or enhancements. Here's a few:

Give us variable frame rates for mobile apps(almost 2 years)
Give us an override for Time.deltaTime until you can find a better solution for jitter(3+ years)
Give us an any sub-state node in sub-states(3.5 years)
Give us async dynamic texture loading(4 years)
Give us separate physics and render layers(7.5 years!)
... and I'm sure there are many, many more things people could rattle off.

This post is getting a bit hyperbolic here and is quite sarcastic but I'd pay for a year of Pro even though I have no real need of it if they included variable frame rates for mobile in the next 2018 and 2019 versions(2017 would be nice too but probably too big a change).

 

I like when people come up with overdramatized BS. (No) I'm pretty sure you can go back to 4.3 and use it, since you think they didn't develop anything substantial since then.

 

Glassdoor is always an interesting source. I've only ever added something up when I've been deeply embittered with my company. It tends to skew all of the reports towards the negative side, for all companies.

 

And how any site as glassdoor validates, that poster worked there?
Maybe company was good, or maybe bad in general. But then anyone can post one way or other, counter measures.
Just like buying likes on Facebook / Youtube etc.

 

No its not, and your comment is without basis, its just speculation.

The alternative, getting bought by a big company like tencent, would be far worse. There are not many directions to go when you reach this size, and public is better than owned by a mega corporation.

 

...I'm not sure you have a full understanding of how stocks work and who buys them.

 

No it's not, and your comment is without basis, it's just speculation.

 

Going public tends to kill innovation in a lot of cases. But at this point, Unity is probably too big and slow to do anything really innovative anyway, so it's probably about time.

This isn't supposed to be a criticism really, it's just the way things go. Unity's still the best in town.

 

That's specifically why I phrased the topic as a question and my primary comment as "I hope this isn't the case." I think I'd rather hold off on doom and gloom after the whole SpatialOS situation.

 

*Makes big bowl of popcorn and passes it around*

 

Yep these usually go around to test the waters, often triggered by venture capitalists or from other sources. To gauge interest or to sell investment.

Sometimes it's just rumour but usually there's something behind it. In this case it may mean nothing like it does most times, but usually there's information here for those that can act on it.

Staff doesn't necessarily get kept in the loop with things like this if the investment was a big one by the VC.

Unity's always been proud to be private, but VC means 2 options: get bought or go public. There are no others so rumours like this are usually just tests to see who nibbles.

 

One negative consequence that I predict if Unity goes public will be that random people will post in General Discussion every time the stock goes up or down. ie. "Unity stock went down 1.75 points at close of the quarter. Should I abandon my project and switch to Unreal?" Then someone else posts "Ugh! not this again! Here's a link to the twelve page thread that sprang-up last time somebody asked the same question."

 

I would generally prefer that Unity not have a public offering. Publicly traded companies have very obvious leanings, and it is especially unfortunate when they allow their motivations to override common sense and long-term goals. Publicly traded companies are frequently most motivated by inflating their own stock values. The kind of shenanigans this results in are often counter-productive to the long-term health of the corporation, in favor of short-term boosts to the stock price. When these kinds of decisions start leaking into the design of a software package, the end is nigh.

 

Adobe.

 

Epic/Unreal

 

Anyway I've got a fiver if anyone's interested?

 

I've got $5.50.

 

Not bad.

 

I vote unity subscribers get the first stock option for a reduced fee

 

I have some google play credit, if anyone is interested. I hear its as good as gold in the unity developer community, amirite? anyone? noone? just me....

 

No no no. We need to distribute this equitably. Forum likes are the only way to do it.

 

I'm going to perform a hostile takeover by S***posting real good.

 

Adobe is public, and I don't see a reason not to use photoshop.
Autodesk is public, and I don't see a reason not to use 3d Studio Max or Maya
Google is public, and I don't see a reason not to publish your games on Google Play

etc. etc.

There can also be a lot of great things that benefit clients of a software company if the company goes public. Here are a few of the positives.

1. A huge injection of cash that would most certainly be invested in making a better product.

2. Better chance of the long term survival of the enterprise as a whole. A public company has much better access to the capital markets. If you start a project now that takes 3 years and the next financial crisis hits a few months from now. A public company will have a better chance to survive than a private company.

3. Better protection for clients of the company. If a company is privately controlled without investors, the CEO can simply decide to take all of the profits out of the company and buy himself an island, a boat, a jet, a 1000 ft high jade statue of himself, a trip to mars whatever. As a public company the boards responsibility is to oversee management and make sure they act in the best interest of shareholders. Management is obligated to reinvest the profits to build the company so the shareholders will benefit. And this of course benefits clients who have long term commitments to using the software and expect stability, bugfixes, etc.

4. Better ability to attract and retain management and employees. Public companies with more capital can pay higher salaries and also offer very attractive stock option bonus packages. If unity wanted to pick off the best guys from a competitor they will be able to offer more as a Public Company than they would as a private company.

 

It's only a rumor, even if it would happen this would not change a lot for users, or things could even turn better.
UE4 is back up by Tecent and things have turned great, no monthly subs and become free to use (still 5% royalties) , the Epic store and marketplace with good ratio income for users.

If it would happen depending on who is buying this could turn better i think.

 

Adobe's product quality and licensing has dropped dramatically because they're constantly pursuing infinite growth.
Autodesk has done the same, leading to them discontinuing support for a lot of key products.
Google has been attempting to do this with the Play store, which is why it's in the sorry state it is.

I'm not sure how you thought those were good examples.