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Unity, Riot Games co-founders join AIAS board of directors
David Helgason, CEO and co-founder of Unity Technologies, and Brandon Beck, CEO and co-founder of Riot Games, have joined the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences' Board of Directors. For those just catching up, Unity is engine behind everything from garage development games to the upcoming Pillars of Eternity, while Riot Games is the studio behind highly-successful MOBA League of Legends. Helgason and Beck's addition to the AIAS is effective immediately, as is the promotion of Nexon America CEO Min Kim to Chairman. Ted Price, CEO and founder of Insomniac Games and AIAS vice chairman, congratulated all three men on their new titles. "Min's industry experience, his ability to tackle tough problems creatively and his collaborative approach to leadership will help propel the AIAS forward as it tackles more and more ambitious goals," Price said in a press release." "Furthermore congratulations and welcome to our newest board members David and Brandon. Whether it's through putting games development at the fingertips of every aspiring creator or delivering co-operative and competitive play on an unmatched global scale, Brandon and David have driven major change in our industry. We're honored that they're joining our team and we're excited to work with them in furthering the Academy's mission." [Image: Unity/Riot Games]
Unity adding Xbox One support in 2014 [Update: 2014, not this year]
Update: It turns out Helgason misspoke, as Unity representatives got in touch with Joystiq and clarified that Unity will not be available on Xbox One until 2014. Here's the statement from Helgason: "During an interview with OXM in July, I misspoke and suggested that Unity for Xbox One would be available sometime in 2013. At that time, work had only just begun on those tools so while there will be a very few developers in very early testing phases this year, the Xbox One tools for Unity will not be widely available to developers until 2014. We are currently hard at work on the technology and are making great progress but we are not yet ready to announce any specific release windows. I apologize for any confusion my statement may have caused." Original post: Unity on Xbox One will be officially supported sometime later this year, Unity CEO David Helgason told OXM. This collaboration is part of a new partnership between Unity and Microsoft announced this summer, which will see Unity not only on Xbox One, but also Windows Phone and PC. "Depending on which platform there are different costs, but the fundamental thing is that the tools themselves are the same," Helgason said of the process involving exporting game code to Microsoft platforms. "And once you build what you want to build you can just export it directly. So now we're adding, in collaboration with Microsoft, Xbox One support later this year and we also worked with them to make the Windows store export free." Unity is one of the most popular cross-platform game development suites offered today and the backbone of popular games such as Kentucky Route Zero, Gone Home, Surgeon Simulator 2013, Project Eternity and Deus Ex: The Fall. The company recently offered its mobile development tools to indies and small studios free of charge. The next update, version 4.3, is due this fall and will focus on providing developers with specific tools aiding development of 2D games.
Unity and Nintendo partner to bring Unity Engine, and its 1.2 million devs, to Wii U
Unity Engine is best known for supporting mobile and digital games, but Unity Technologies CEO David Helgason sees his company's game development engine as more flexible than that. Nintendo apparently does as well, partnering with Unity on a worldwide licensing agreement that offers first- and third-party developers Pro level engine access to Unity's tools for Wii U development. The partnership also grandfathers in the existing 1.2 million Unity licensees to the Wii U platform, which Helgason tells us is, "extremely easy" to port to -- Unity's calling the partnership an "excellent opportunity" to port existing Unity games from "thousands of studios currently developing mobile and social games." The partnership's effects aren't immediate, however, as Unity Engine's Wii U support won't go live until 2013, which tells us that we won't see any fruit from the collaboration until some point in 2013 at the earliest. When pushed, Helgason wouldn't out any potential games headed to the Wii U via Unity, nor would he offer up names of studios interested in working with Nintendo's next console. It's not hard to imagine big Unity games like Slender and Rochard ending up ported to the Wii U, of course, but it sounds like we'll have to wait a bit longer before we hear which games will benefit from the partnership first.
Unity takes a bow on Apple's third-party development stance
When Apple first passed out those development restrictions on using third-party platforms to create iOS apps, Unity was one of the third-party services that could have been frozen out (though Flash was obviously in everyone's minds). The team behind the popular game development environment assured everyone Unity was safe, but according to the rules as stated, the rest of us weren't so sure. Now that Apple has officially relaxed that policy, however, Unity's David Helgason is doing the equivalent of a victory dance on the company's official blog, saying that Unity respects Apple for "coming to the right conclusion, and in our eyes it's best to let bygones be bygones!" Yeah, he's kind of excited. Not that he's admitting the rules were make or break for Unity -- the company was apparently talking to Apple periodically, and even had a workaround ready to go if Apple ever did crack down on the platform. Helgason also points out that, even while things were up in the air, Apple continued to approve and, in some cases, feature lots of different Unity-created apps. While Apple preached against using anything but Xcode to create apps, the app review team allowed and even endorsed the products of third-party development tools. At any rate, the issue is settled now. Consumers are the real winners here. An end user probably can't tell the difference (if done correctly) between a third-party app and an Xcode app, so the more options for developers, the better.
