Friday’s IPO of Unity, a gaming / ad-tech company whose core product is the primary competitor of Epic’s Unreal Engine, appears to be a resounding success. Originally intending to price their offering between $34-$42 a share, Unity was able to enter the market on a groundswell of investor excitement fueled by a year of pandemic induced mobile gaming. Trading began at $52 and ended the day at $75, leaving the company with a market cap of nearly $20B – an impressive increase over it's most recent private valuation of $6B.
 
Passing judgement on the success or failure of an IPO based on one day of trading would be a bit premature, but there is a bigger picture that Unity’s offering points towards. Investor sentiment in regard to the gaming industry is running high in 2020. So what comes next? That excitement will manifest as capital made readily available for a wave of gaming start-ups.  Investors will double down on companies providing developer/monetization tools once reserved for larger incumbent publishers like EA, Activision/Blizzard, and Ubisoft – reducing the barrier to entry and encouraging a diverse, innovative creator set to come play. All in all, it's a great time to be a gamer.