Unity‘s merger with Ironsource has been heavily criticised by game developers, due to Ironsource’s development of a malware installer.
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Yesterday, Unity – the creator of the game engine with the same name – announced that it was merging with Ironsource, a business that currently helps developers monetise their apps.
However, the acquisition has faced criticism from game developers who have pointed out that Ironsource is also the company responsible for InstallCore, which is used to bundle software downloads with other adware – which can be very harmful to PC performance.
Malwarebytes lists the software as a “potential threat”, and says it is “often served as updates for popular plug-ins like Java or Flash bundled with potentially unwanted programmes and adware”.
The…company best known for its malware delivery system? You're merging with them, and *proud* of that?
— James Deardenayake (@TechnocratGames) July 13, 2022
On Twitter, software developer Andreia Gaita questioned the decision: “Wait what, Unity is merging with the company best known for its malware delivery system, so popular that it has its own entries in VirusTotal, was blacklisted on Windows by [Microsoft], and was used to spread fake flash installers through the Equifax Site?!”
“A game engine is the thing that you use to build and distribute games to devices. The vendors of those devices, like Apple, need to trust that the engine is not bundling bad things along with the game. Merging with a company that specializes in bundling malware is…” continued Gaita.
On a blunter note, Celeste creator Maddy Thorson tweeted “man, fuck Unity”.
Yesterdays Unity new 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. TURNS OUT THEY HATE IT AS MUCH AS WE DO pic.twitter.com/WqreMhZ7u3
— Lotte 'just an idiot' May
(@LotteMakesStuff) July 14, 2022
“You’d think really all Unity needs to do to keep its goodwill in games is continue to improve the engine & not get involved with comically evil-villain level shit,” commented Nuclear Throne developer Rami Ismail.
Back in June, Unity fired approximately 200 workers to “realign” resources within the company.
In other gaming news, an Old School RuneScape developer has outlined what easy and hard mode servers could entail.
The post Unity merger under fire for Ironsource’s malware ties appeared first on NME.
