Unity, a game engine developer, recently announced that they had signed a multimillion contract with CACI International, a company partnered with the US government. CACI Internation supplies the United States with surveillance technology for its military branches and Customs and Border Protection (CBP.)
The three-year deal is Unity’s largest yet, with the company aiming to produce “digital simulation technology” for the United States, alongside aerial surveillance technology. “Through this relationship, Unity will help the government define human-machine interfaces or HMI for aerospace applications and beyond,” Marc Whitten, senior VP at Unity said in an earnings call. “These applications demand an interactive, robust user experience very much like games.”
In the written report, Unity called the partnership the “single largest digital twin solutions deal for Unity to date,” with the company aiming to use Unity’s 3D engine for “future systems design and simulation programs across the US Government.” Previously, Unity has partnered with the US Defense Department to create 3D visualizations of “plane runways attacked by live munitions,” according to Bloomberg.
This has caused some concern among employees at Unity, with many of them questioning why a video game company is shifting towards designing tools for war. Speaking to Waypoint last year about the US Defense Department contract, several Unity employees spoke out about the game development tools they designed being used by the military.
A drafted memo was leaked from Unity, which detailed instructions on how to address the issue, such as instructing managers to use the word “government” instead of “military”, or that nothing the company is doing “will be used in live warfighting. ” The memo went on to instruct employees to avoid mentioning “any projects that involve the use of simulated or virtual weapons or training to harm another person.”
While Unity attempted to downplay the involvement with the US military, an employee reached out to ask if the company could name any projects that did not involve the Department of Defense. Unity could only respond with a single project.
Unity has been in the news a lot recently, from their CEO calling developers ‘f*****g idiots’ for not monetizing their games, to Unity stock crashing after a merger with an advertising company.
Written by Junior Miyai on behalf of GLHF.
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