Unity – the company behind the Unity Engine – is reportedly in talks with Silver Lake and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) for a potential acquisition. According to Reuters, the game engine maker would further deepen Silver Lake’s gaming-based investments, following its acquisition of EA alongside the PIF and Affinity Partners.
It is also worth noting that Silver Lake currently owns around 8 percent of Unity, and talks about a potential acquisition only began relatively recently, according to people familiar with the matter. The valuation of Unity ahead of its earnings report is expected to be around $25 billion, which would see its market capitalization rise to $21.5 billion. The company has also been doing well in the market, with its share price up by 4 percent.
In the meantime, Unity itself is reportedly working with an investment bank to figure out its options going forward. No deal has been signed as of yet, and none of the parties involved have made any statement regarding the matter. However, a deal going through would see Unity following in EA’s footsteps into becoming a private company, with its shares being taken off all markets.
Such a deal would also have some major ramifications on the gaming industry at large, since Unity is considered to be one of the two big game engine creators alongside Epic Games with its Unreal Engine. Unity is often used by many indie developers, as well as mobile developers, since the engine is noted as being easy to work with thanks to its use of the C# language as well as the wealth of purchasable assets available through its online store.
The last few years have been marked by controversy for Unity following the company’s decision to bring in retroactive changes to its pricing model. This change was announced back in 2023, and it resulted in many high-profile developers announcing that they would be moving away from Unity in favor of other game engines like the open-source Godot.
Eventually, Unity announced that it was going back on its proposed plans, and in a statement, Unity engine and editor team lead Marc Whitten even apologized in an open letter.
“I want to start with this: I am sorry,” says Unity engine and editor team lead Marc Whitten in the open letter. “We should have spoken with more of you, and we should have incorporated more of your feedback before announcing our new Runtime Fee policy. Our goal with this policy is to ensure we can continue to support you today and tomorrow, and keep deeply investing in our game engine.
“You are what makes Unity great, and we know we need to listen and work hard to earn your trust. We have heard your concerns, and we are making changes in the policy we announced to address them.”
In the meantime, the buyout of EA at the hands of the PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners will likely end up having far-reaching consequences for the company. EA recently announced that it was shutting down BioWare, and that the in-development Mass Effect project had been canceled.
