Facebook Apparently Thought About Buying Unity

Facebook acquired Oculus to make sure that the company became a major player in the rapidly growing virtual reality scene. A new book reveals that not long after that acquisition, the company also thought about making another multi-billion dollar acquisition of Unity to further its VR ambitions. Unity, as some of you will be aware, is a popular game engine that’s used in almost half of all gaming titles.

The upcoming book titled The History of the Future by Blake Harris provides a deep dive into the founding of Oculus and the story of its $3 billion acquisition by Facebook in addition to the lawsuits that followed.

Harris worked with the Facebook PR team closely in the early days of writing the book, adding that he had gained access to over 25,000 documents from sources which include an almost 2,500 word email by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to then Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe, Sheryl Sandberg, and other key Facebook leaders about his interest in acquiring Unity less than a year after Facebook had bought Oculus.

Had the company decided to go ahead with it, it would have given Facebook control of the popular game developer tool, and possibly more to work with in order to bring as many people as it could over to the VR platform. The deal obviously never took place and Unity continues to operate on its own with a valuation in excess of $3 billion.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Gaming
Tags: Facebook, oculus, Virtual Reality (VR)