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I hope Unity gets a good deal here, but..."AppLovin"? Seriously?
But you have to admit, like "GoDaddy", it's memorable, even if it's for the wrong reasons. From a marketing perspective, it might be a plus. Better than "AppTec" or the equivalent which would be forgotten instantly.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Both are terrible for consumers/developers. Unfortunately they don't get to vote on it.
But they do: 1. Consumers vote with every dollar they spend (or add they click). 2. Developers vote with both with every dollar they spend on software, and every monetization strategy they select to earn dollars from customers. There's a ton of industry structures I don't like. (I won't list various companies I don't like, b/c that would distract from my core point that they do have healthy economics from customers w…
I'd like to be proven wrong on this in the future.
I can only imagine this will hurt the engine more and more.
Only if you mind ads in your game editor.
For people wondering what happens with the ironSource deal, this bid is meant to derail it. This is AppLovin playing offense to avoid the emergence of a stronger competitor and instead become that stronger competitor. Unity is not as strong in monetization technologies but it’s a desired asset since it has already a foot in with game developers. Unfortunately building a game engine is not as profitable as building ad…
Unity merges with IronSource 397 points 27 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32081051
"AppLovin" Who? It just highlights the parlous state of the current economic structure when some adware outfit is a 'peer' of one of the premier game engines.
AppLovin Market cap is roughly ~$14B and Unity is ~$15B. This sounds more like a merger - AppLoving is offering shares which would be worth 49% of the combined company. Unity provides the Game Engine, AppLoving provides the ad/payment side - it could work.
This is basically the same as their previously announced deal with IronSource, a malware/adware company. Both are terrible for consumers/developers.
But the play is more consolidation that anything. A large swath of mobile games use Unity, and a large swath of free games monetise using AppLovin. The Venn Diagram of these two is nearly a single circle.
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> I guess Zuckerberg’s idea to buy Unity at certain point doesn’t sound that bad now. Clearly he wanted it for the game engine technology and not to build another ad revenue source. Kind of ironic how things play out in the long term. Not sure I follow that logic.
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…
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I guess Zuckerberg’s idea to buy Unity at certain point doesn’t sound that bad now. Clearly he wanted it for the game engine technology and not to build another ad revenue source. Kind of ironic how things play out in the long term. Not sure I follow that logic.
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…