Unity bought the tools division of Weta Digital.
Unity bought the tools division of Weta Digital.
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Why Unity scooped up Weta Digital’s 3D tools for $1.6B

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 5 min

Peter Jackson’s Weta Digital has made some of the most amazing movie special effects, like Gollum in The Lord of the Rings films. And now Unity Technologies has bought the 3D tools division of Weta for $1.62 billion.

The move has the potential to shake up the making of both games and films, as Unity has a huge base in game development, and it is expanding into tools for making digital movies. And the deal could go a long way toward closing the quality game between games made with the Unity game engine and its rival Unreal, which is made by Fortnite maker Epic Games.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.