Unity Technologies revenue up 258.7 percent, Asian pirates to blame (or thank)

Revenue for Unity Technologies, developer of the Unity 3D game-authoring tool, is up 258.7 percent year-over-year in Asian markets, with the most monthly users worldwide coming from Seoul, Beijing, Shanghai and Nei-Hu, Taiwan. Unity's general manager of Asia John Goodale is excited about the company's Asian prospects and the unexpected reason for the region's growth.

"In China, quite candidly, what is driving a lot of our growth, is piracy," Goodale said. "Even through a pirated version of Unity, we can still make revenue from that customer, for example through the Asset Store."

Korea's revenue pool grew 50 percent year-on-year, while China gained 280 percent and Japan exploded with 897 percent. Unity doesn't support piracy, of course, but it doesn't not support revenue growth, no matter the reason.

"We don't condone it, but it's also something we don't super-aggressively persue," Goodale said.