[whoisjuan]

There are some Zuckerberg emails exposed as part of some subpoena process where he describes why Unity was a valuable asset to build Meta's AR/VR business. He goes on a lengthy argument about why owning Unity will create a value flywheel that could accelerate Meta's business by doubling down on Unity's engine as a core technology for building games and other AR/VR experiences: https://sriramk.com/memos/zuck-unity.pdf

We don't know what would have been the outcome since this never happened, but he saw Unity as a valuable core technology, so is reasonable to assume (whether you like Zuck or not) that Meta would have probably invested some serious money in making Unity (the engine) better.

Now that we are past that, we are looking at a company that can't grow its game engine business anymore, so they have started to invest in app/game monetization. But likely at the expense of being less focused on improving the game engine.

So the logic here is that Unity under Zuck (who is ironically the king of ad revenue models) would likely have thrived as a game engine. Instead, Unity as an independent company is now seen as nothing else than adware leverage.

[hesdeadjim]

I would 1000% live in a world where Facebook bought Unity. Ignoring how shitty they are otherwise, they could let Unity be Unity and remove the distraction of monetization from a game engine company.

Alas, Unity leadership (CEO) had delusions of world domination and here is where they find themselves. I’m sure Facebook even made a prelim offer behind the scenes and Unity scoffed because they thought they would be a $50b company.

[tmpz22]

> they could let Unity be Unity

Like they let whatsapp be whatsapp and instagram be instagram?

With current market incentives we should expect these companies to become less benevolent, not more.

[celtain]

I'm far from a frequent user of either, but Instagram and especially WhatsApp don't seem to have suffered terribly under Facebook. Instagram has obviously changed, but it would have changed as an independent app too. What's particularly "Facebooky" about its evolution?

WhatsApp feels exactly the same to me. Do I just have a short memory?

[croes]

Not the companies suffer but the users. Facebook would use Unity to get more user data just like they did with WhatsApp, Instagram and Oculus

[MikusR]

Unity is not used by endusers

[croes]

But the games developed with it are. It's not about tracking of developers but users.

[dvfjsdhgfv]

> they could let Unity be Unity

Some Oculus users would disagree with you.

[chresko]

As much as gamers critique Meta's handling of Oculus, Oculus would be dead/gone by now if not for the acquisition. Meta has been dumping fuel/cash on Oculus to keep VR alive and the VR experience has mostly improved over the years.

[pavlov]

Yeah, there's no way the Quest would even exist if it wasn't for Meta's multi-billion VR money bonfire. The whole industry would be poorer without an affordable standalone roomscale VR unit.

An independent, gaming-centric Oculus probably wouldn't have survived 2016 when HTC Vive shipped a much more advanced product than the Rift.

[nugget]

AppLovin is a suite of developer tools plus an ad network. By your definition of adware, Facebook is an adware company. Google too.

Given the level of anti-trust scrutiny aimed at Facebook, there's little to no chance they would receive approval to acquire Unity. Facebook probably would have invested the most money into future development, but they've also traditionally been the most hostile to third-party developers. Any value that Facebook can capture for itself, it will. I've been a Unity fan for years partly because they did seem intent on remaining independent.

I think the combination of Unity and AppLovin is smart. Unity has a tools business that needs more long-term investment and stability to compete against Unreal. Read the latest Unity threads here on HN, which devolved into Unreal and Godot love fests as soon as people smelled blood in the water. AppLovin is a revenue and profit machine but needs somewhere to invest its excess cash flow. Unity has the vision and AppLovin knows how to execute.

[killingtime74]

People do define Facebook and Google as Adware companies…

[pharmakom]

I don’t think Unity would be so hard for Meta to replicate and open-source… destroy Unity business model and make the game engine of choice one that by default integrates with Meta platforms.

[djmips]

Sure, sure - it's so easy. Tell me, how's Lumberyard doing?

[pharmakom]

I think Lumberyard is targeting CryEngine / Unreal more than Unity?