In Unity’s case, paying attention to their quarterly investor materials tells you many things that aren’t as common knowledge as they should be. As a small example, most developers think Unity is primarily in the business of selling game engines.
They’re not! Less than half of Unity’s revenue comes from game engines. Over half comes from advertising. Their bottom line is more affected by the advertising market than it is by how many developers buy their engine.
EDIT Sep. 22: Unity: An open letter to our community (HN, Muta 2), with a partial reversal and slightly less-weasely excuses than before. Fuck them anyways, they will retry bullshit like this, it’s just a matter of time given the garbage direction they’ve been taking (see above quote). Move to community-built-and-supported engines!
