Unity, which makes the popular Unity game development engine, announced an intent to acquire the tools, pipeline, technology, and some engineering staff from Weta Digital; which is perhaps best known for its work on the The Lord of the Rings movies.
Weta Digital was co-founded by LOTR director Peter Jackson and has worked on huge entertainment franchises like Game of Thrones; The Planet of the Apes, and many Marvel movies.
The deal is a major bid by Unity to bring powerful new tools to visual effects (VFX) teams; game developers, and other industries that rely on computer graphics.
It’s also a big move to compete with Epic Games’ Unreal Engine; which has been used by Industrial Light & Magic in The Mandalorian and by League of Legends developer Riot Games for mixed reality esports stages.
Unity intends to purchase Weta Digital for $1.625 billion in cash and stock, and the deal is expected to close during Unity’s fourth quarter (which we are currently in), according to a press release.
Two hundred seventy-five of Weta Digital’s engineers will move over to Unity, as will “dozens” of the company’s tools.
The VFX teams at Weta Digital aren’t included in the deal; instead, they will be part of a standalone entity called WetaFX that will still be majority owned by Jackson.
Weta Digital is also entirely separate from Weta Workshop, which makes physical props and costumes.