10 year anniversary comic

Show timeline Hide timeline

10 years of Unity

Today, Unity empowers a community of millions; ten years ago it was a game engine with just three users. Turn the page, and follow Dr Charles and Unity Chan as they travel the world battling men in black and incidentally helping to bring Unity game development to everyone.

2005

Copenhagen, Denmark - Gooball released

Gooball, an alien escape game in which extraterrestrials captured by the CIA roll around in sealed balls and try to escape, is released. The game was developed by David Helgason, Joachim Ante and Nicholas Francis, and the engine they used to make it was to become Unity.

Check out Gooball

2005

San Francisco, USA - The Unity Engine launches live on stage at Apple’s WWDC

Unity 1.0 came with deployment to Mac OS X only. With a mission to democratize game development and a disruptive ‘cheapium’ price model Unity attracted a tiny but dedicated following of independent developers. Windows and web deployment and animation support were added through Unity 1.5.

“This has been coded in offices, in libraries, in public toilets. It has survived more relationships than we can be bothered to count.”

Over The Edge Entertainment website – the precursor to Unity3d.com

2007

First Unite developer conference

Unity’s first ever Unite developer conference took place in 2007 in San Francisco, USA with just 32 tickets sold and all 8 Unity employees in attendance.

Check out Unite 2007

2008

Unity launches for iPhone

Late 2008, Unity launched a new deployment option: iPhone, and became a first mover in the smartphone space.

Check out the first Unity iPhone game build

2009

The first free version of the Unity game engine

Known simply as “Unity”, the free engine, saw Unity usage increase dramatically. The company tripled in size and attracted venture capital.

Check out the first free version of Unity announcement

2010

The Asset Store launches

Top publisher Brady Wright earned over $15,000 in the first 3 months of the store’s existence.

Check out Brady Wright and lots of balloons

2012

Unity 4 launches, expansion across Asia

Unity 4 saw the integration of the Mecanim animation system, and Unity experienced further growth, passing the 1 million registered developers milestone and opening offices across Asia.

Check out the Unity 4 release notes

2013

Nicholas Francis leaves Unity and goes back to making games

2014

Unity makes services acquisitions

Unity Analytics, Unity Ads, Everyplay game promotion tools, and Unity Cloud Build are added to the Unity family. John Riccitiello is tapped to be CEO, and the Unity Chan mascot debuts.

Check out Unity Chan

2015

Unity 5 launch

Unity 5 brings dramatic graphics and performance improvements, and the Blacksmith demo goes live.

Check out the Blacksmith demo

A true, detailed, and almost up to date history of Unity