Comments on: Unity bailing out Blade3D customers

By: David Helgason

David Helgason — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:58:22 +0000

Tony’s doing a stellar job with Unity and is certainly not getting in anybody’s way (quite the opposite, he facilitates a lot of complicated projects, freeing up other people to do their jobs). I can’t comment on Blade3D or their investors, as I only know the stories second and third hand.

By: BlueMeanie

BlueMeanie — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:01:51 +0000

So, as an update, I’ve learned the true story behind Blade3D and it was not a “good deal more benign” than it was put. Apparently the CEO put in place originally was a do nothing and managed to have a big help in firing all the Key Blade 3D members AND managed to screw up the other company that was present in the “Blade Games World” merger.

So I’m not sure why Unity3D hired Tony Garcia – do they feel their development efforts are too productive and need someone to throw them off course?

Also, if you look at Digini now, the new CEO that was installed after Tony Garcia was kicked off the team has also been fired, and with all that, it really seems like the company is going into the ground. So let me ask? What did California Technology Ventures bring to that deal? Is their idea of making successful companies seeing how fast they can bring them down in a year? There’s one thing I know – I’ll NEVER EVER trust them as an investor and nor should any entrepreneur.

By: Wewoo

Wewoo — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 04:12:15 +0000

Of course you get the kind words, I love your editor and underlying framework. Anyone who exploits mono gets street cred.

But still, this is clearly a hijack situation. Just because they left of their own volition doesn’t mean the investors didn’t put them in that position. Afterall, you’ve now got the man the VC’s installed on your team, so he’s probably got a much different perspective than they do. I’m sure if I talked to them, I’d either find that they were bought out or that they were given the shaft by the VC’s. Either way, from the user perspective, it’s a bonified hijack.

In any case, it’s kinda sad, because now the market has one less competitor in the mix to drive every player towards innovative things.

By: David Helgason

David Helgason — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 21:54:47 +0000

@Wewoo: Thanks for the kind words about Unity (and yes, we’re healthy and profitable, and as such a really good company to put your trust in).

But to be fair, the actual story behind Blade3D is a good deal more benign that you put it: for example the VCs put in a fairly substantial amount of money, didn’t fire anyone, and the founders left of their own volition.

By: Wewoo

Wewoo — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 21:31:33 +0000

Great job helping these guys out Unity team, I commend you

Blade3D was made by a good company that was hijacked and turned into a waste by a bunch of idiot venture capitalists (California Technology Ventures, LLC).

They came in, put a little money into the product 6 months ago, installed puppet CEO’s, and then fired the founders (and LEAD DEVELOPERS) 6 months after the investment (which only happened in september ‘08) and then decide to take the product and do what they please. In other words, Blade3D was HIJACKED by the vulture capitalists at California Technology Ventures only 6 months after being involved and robbed all of you and the founders of your investment in the product.

Funny considering on their frontpage they claim they make “direct investments in technology and life science companies. CTV has built a strong reputation for its entrepreneurial approach to investing and working with companies.” “Entrepreneurial Approach”? If firing the founders, shutting down the product, and saying “tough luck” to the userbase 6 months into the investment is their idea of an Entreprneurial Approach, I’d stay FARRR away from them. This is a clear case of vulture capitalism from California Technology Ventures and nothing more.

Fair warning, if you’re an entrepreneur, stay away from guys like CTV and bootstrap your product. If you’re a user, investigate the companies backers and ensure they’re not pirates like CTV.

Go with companies like Unity who have awesome track records for standing strong for their useres.

By: guy

guy — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 17:56:50 +0000

I was a Blade3d user. I have a license for Torque. I don’t like it. (It doesn’t support fbx, has it’s own file format ->dts-> That gives a lot of trouble exporting it. It can’t just run a script and debug it. You have to start the engine all over again. The way they organised it in subfolders is not very clean. I just don’t like it. Who at Digini should I contact ->mail adress please -> to give you an overview?

One last question. OnLive streaming gaming service is coming. Would you guys consider making game streaming servers for Unity games?

By: Tom Higgins

Tom Higgins — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 18:33:33 +0000

@ABC: while Torque might be offering a less expensive step into their product for Blade users, we think ours strikes a better balance between offering folks to cross over from Blade3D while at the same time respecting those that have already spent their hard earned money on Unity. If folks don’t want to send us the needed information that’s entirely understandable, there are good options from both our end as well as from Garage Games, so people can pick the one that suits them and go for it.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 15:24:42 +0000

As the collapse of Blade3D tends to suggest, you get what you pay for and low prices can’t always support great developers. It’s a nice gesture from both the Unity guys and Torque, but if you’re only deciding factor is the cost of a tool, then there’s a good chance you end up with the wrong tool for you. Just try out the free stuff and see what you like.

Personally, I use Unity for many things, but I’m rolling my own code for an iPhone game right now.

By: ABC

ABC — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 13:20:42 +0000

A nice incentive but the Torque3D deal is better. First of all, Unity subscribers don’t receive an “invoice”, you sign up and the only verification of charges is on your credit card/bank statement. I’m certainly not sending Unity a copy of 7 of my personal bank/credit card statements to get a $100 discount. Also, Digini has only been offering a subscription for a limited amount of time, probably less than a year, so unless you were foolish enough to spend $99 a month on their “pro” subscription (no reason to do this until the product was completed), the odds that you’d accumulated enough charges to get to 50% of the price of Unity Pro are possibly but pretty low.
Therefore, the Torque3D deal of 50% off for “any” verified subscriber is a far more enticing offer on an already less expensive product…that also includes the source code.

Unity is a “great” game development system, but may want to consider being a bit more competitive, particularly now that the development environment is cross platform.

By: Jim Borden

Jim Borden — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 14:23:21 +0000

I used Blade3D since around the time of its first beta when I used it to develop my senior project at my university. I switched to Unity because of networking support, but I always thought Blade would be as good as or better than Unity when it reached version 2.5. The devs of Blade were very helpful and it was a pretty good product, it’s really sad to hear it is dying.