Yesterday, Unity announced it was acquiring Ironsource following reports of global layoffs, but the controversy doesn't end there. The deal has since come under fire due to Ironsource's history of malware distribution, developing a delivery system so infamous it got blacklisted by Microsoft.It's the developer behind installCore, a platform that bundles applications to install on your computer, often taking something popular and legitimate and coupling it with adware programs. It's often caught out and blocked by antivirus software due to its impact on PC performance (thanks, NME). You can usually find installCore bundled with Java and Flash, adding unwanted adware to your PC without you realising. This troubling history has brought backlash from developers using the Unity engine. One such developer, Technobabylon's James Deardenayake, wrote, "The... company best known for its malware delivery system? You're merging with them, and *proud* of that?"
"Yesterday's Unity [news] deffo for sure wasn't aimed at game devs like us, so I decided to check on Yahoo Finance to see what investor stock market type people were saying about the acquisition," Celeste creator Maddy Thorson tweeted. "TURNS OUT THEY HATE IT AS MUCH AS WE DO."
The "investor stock market type people" Thornson quoted in her tweet discuss Unity CEO John Riccitiello's history, citing, in particular, the time he purchased a $167 million stake in a Chinese online game operator called The9 Ltd. Its share price reportedly fell by more than 90 percent.
"You'd think really all Unity needs to do to keep its goodwill in games is continue to improve the engine [and] not get involved with comically evil-villain level shit and somehow," developer Rami Ismail added.
"Unity employees are excellent, but Unity management is destroying the product," Goodbye Volcano High co-director Saleem Dabbous added. "When you invest a large amount of your expertise and budget on an engine and this is what's going on."