Will Autodesk buy Unity?

So unity has risen up the ranks in the last five years since inception 5 years ago. Starting off from its humble beginnings on the Mac as a Game prototyping tool, Unity is now arguably the best middle-ware solution for multi-platform game development. Indies have over the years been drawn to Unity for one main reason: Ease of use. With the release of the feature unity 3, even more developers and artists have grown interested in the platform and have used in designing some pretty cool games.

Autodesk on the other hand has been on a shopping spree for several years now, basically acquiring anything that smells, looks or sounds like 3D. So what makes Unity 3d a likely candidate for yet another acquisition by Autodesk?

Well first of all it looks, sounds and smells like 3D. Secondly it has the tightest integration with Autodesk products like Maya and 3D studio Max. Thirdly, Autodesk has recently made some major acquisitions game development space. First there was the acquisition of Scaleform, a tool for creating UI's for games across many platforms. Then they went for the Beast! light mapping tool which Unity recently included in its 3.0 release. As a matter of fact, the Beast was the most anticipated feature on the 3.0 release. If you're still not convinced just try saying "AUTODESK UNITY" Nothing has sounded better with "Autodesk" since Autocad.

So, if they do buy Unity, what's likely to happen? Well it's widely known that Unity's greatest asset is its User Community! Unity is one of the very few truly 'Usercentric' applications out there. Almost every feature Unity may have been suggested by one user or another. It is a small company so they can also afford to have conversations with the community on blogs. Even the CEO participates :-) If Autodesk acquires it, that's likely to go away. It's going to feel like when Adobe acquired Macromedia; only a lot worse!

The free version is also likely to vanish from the radar simply because Autodesk has all the cred it needs to back it's own Unity. Unity tech on the other hand actually has to build their cred now and hence the free version. There probably will remain a 30 day license for the pro version.

Would Autodesk like to buy? erm yeah... they'll probably make an offer after Unity4 has been released! If they succeed, they get to call the next Major release Autodesk Unity V or simply A.U.V.

Will Unity Tech sell out? Well I think it depends on the nature of the deal. If the core team members continue to work on the product with very little interference from Autodesk then... yes, they'll probably sell out. I mean think about what they could do with Autodesk's money and massive code base?

To conclude, I'd say it's very likely that Autodesk will aqcuire Unity given the terms are flexible and the price is right. Want to hear your views as well so please... post em!