Search Unity

Unity Turns 5, Happy Birthday!

June 7, 2010 in Technology | 3 min. read
Placeholder image Unity 2
Placeholder image Unity 2
Share

Is this article helpful for you?

Thank you for your feedback!

In 2003 three talented and creative individuals came together in Copenhagen, Denmark based on a shared vision about making their own game engine, one that they felt would quite literally change the game. They began to make that vision a reality while living the life of starving up-and-coming developers, working long hours and late nights with the hope that they would one day be able to share their dream with the world. Roughly two years later they did that and Unity was officially born. The first step came when Unity 1.0 was unveiled on stage at Apple's WWDC conference on June 6, 2005. The second step came a day later when the first ever Unity license purchase was recorded on June 7, 2005, exactly five years ago today.

To help capture a bit of the feeling and emotion from those earliest of days I'd like to share some thoughts from David Helgason, our CEO. The following is taken from a blog post he made late at night on June 6th, the eve of Unity's official release upon the world, titled "Last Day In This Life" (permalink):

I sincerely love my life.

It's late again now, I'm listening to Xploding Plastix' Amateur Girlfriends Go Proskirt Agents of the hateful genre nu-jazz... however it's completely lovable like anything which is insanely too much.

... yeah... last day of what life? We're wrapping up the last stuff for Unity, due to be released tomorrow, probably 2pm Pacific Standard Time (utc-8 if I recall correctly)... it'll be out for the world to enjoy.

Keli is finishing off the webshop so people can actually buy Unity, I'm wrapping up the new Conception designed website, and Joe? He's fixing bugs at what seems to be an average speed of 0.42 bugs per minute.

Most of the guys have gone home now – they know it'll be a long day.

I need coffee. Now.

Little did he know just how much his life, and the lives of many thousands of others would actually change...

Fast forward to today, June 7th, 2010, there are now in excess of 170000 developers out there with Unity installed and that user base includes everyone from students and hobbyists on up to major studios like Electronic Arts. Additionally, the founders' vision involved not just the creation of a new engine, but one that would empower developers to reach everyone, everywhere. As such Unity has grown from a tool that at first let developers target the desktop and web, to one that now allows them to target the desktop, web, mobile devices and consoles. Needless to say it's been an incredibly exciting five years and we can only dream about what the next five (and beyond!) will be like. So today we celebrate and honor the 5th birthday of Unity. Please take a look at the press release we put out as it includes a number of interesting key facts about our company as well as a timeline of key milestones showing our progress over the last five years:

Unity Technologies Celebrates Five Years of Continual Leadership and Innovation in Making Cutting Edge Game Technology

Thanks to everyone at Unity Technologies for all the hard work and incredible passion you put into your work, we would never have this awesome thing called Unity without the blood, sweat and tears you've given. And thanks to everyone out there for your love, support and use of the product, without users out there creating cool content there is no Unity, period. So always remember that Unity isn't just a product name, it's a mission we're all on together to democratize game development so we can all bring our digital dreams to life, and I for one couldn't be happier to be a part of it.

Happy Birthday Unity!

June 7, 2010 in Technology | 3 min. read

Is this article helpful for you?

Thank you for your feedback!