Tech will transform from something we actively use to a more seamless integrated experience that is ‘on’ all the time.
January 11, 2021Unity is comparatively new in the market. It has hardly been around for a decade, however; it has not let time define its success. Unity has taken over the game development industry and it seems to have become the toughest competitor in the market. It is not just assisting indie developers or part time hobbyist developers in creating games, it is becoming the new standard way to make AAA games. It has started to seep into the movie industry as well. Some really popular examples of the use of Unity are Assassin’s creed and Adam, in the game and the movie industry respectively. The movie Adam has been created solely with Unity 3D. Furthermore, unlike most of the short films that are pre-rendered, this short film plays in real time. This goes to show the vast usage of Unity 3D and how elaborate the use of the Unity actually is.
So what is Unity? It is a cross platform game engine. It has been developed by Unity Technologies and it has shocked the entire game development industry. It was announced at Apple Inc.’s Worldwide Developers Conference in the year 2005. When we talk about Solaris Technologies, there is no doubt that Unity Game Development is one of the biggest players in the industry. It has become a company that has vast capabilities of developing technology which can allow games to be played virtually on any platform that you can think of. In all honesty, Unity Technologies are so good at their job that in the current times, many of the biggest most played games being produced exist only due to Unity Game Development. The company understands very well what it takes to create a sense of excitement in games for the players and they understand the customers really well. They have well researched their target audience and they create their games accordingly. Knowledge of the game together with the up to date technical aspects of creating a game and produce a complete picture in order to reap the fruit of maximum achievable success.
“Tech will transform from something we actively use to a more seamless integrated experience that is ‘on’ all the time.”
– Daniel Bæk, Co-founder of Nodes
Should we ignore mobile game apps and move towards creating VR games?
There is one thing that people need to understand: mobile applications are here to stay. With mobile phones becoming more common than not, the need for mobile applications grows exponentially high. The maturity in the market is visible over time. This means that to get into the system and succeed among the crowd of options, your game needs to be innovative enough to keep the audience engaged and creative enough to make a mark in such a cut throat market where there is a new game being launched every day. However, one must realize that it is not impossible. It is doable, and the people who have made a mark are a living example of this. If you go to the app store or iTunes app store in a mobile, you will see a lot of independently developed games in the “best new games”. These developers have created their first or second game so well that they have been featured by Apple! Let’s not get something confused, this is no easy task, however, it is not impossible either. All it takes is persistent, industry knowledge and the right tools.
A lot of people incline towards VR as it is not a crowded market and due to low saturation, it is easy to make a mark, however; it is a wager as the growth of the VR industry is uncertain and the market being targeted is also a lot smaller. You may make a mark in a smaller crowd with VR, however; with mobile applications you can target a bigger audience and reach higher levels of success quicker. VR is a bet Solaris Technologies does not appreciate and always suggests going the mobile application route, at least for now. The company believes that mobile applications should be the main focus. This does not mean that you should abandon other potential markets, it simply means that the other markets should not steal the cynosure away from mobile game applications. Play in all the different fields but remember to make a mark in the most happening field at the moment which is mobile games applications.
“Mobile is the enabling centerpiece of digital convergence. Mobile is the glue for all other digital industries to use when approaching convergence, but mobile is also the digital gateway for the real world to join in this global metamorphosis of human behavior.”
– Tomi Ahonen, consultant and speaker
There is a strong reason why Solaris Technologies believes in this ideology. Mobile applications are played the most and nothing can beat that. Not in the current circumstances. Why? Because mobile phones are handy, they are always available and they don’t require the person to be available in a specific situation to play. Imagine sitting in a public transport, waiting in line to get coffee, waiting in traffic or waiting for a friend in a restaurant. In any such situation, people will play games on their mobile but they cannot play a VR game. It is the accessibility of the mobile games that make the market an ever thriving one. No console game can beat that market. In the fast paced lives of people, very few people actually have time to play a game on a console; it is simply not feasible for most people to take out the time to sit and play. Mobile games are also just a click away. You can instantly log into the game and start playing without any delay or wait.
“Mobile is becoming not only the new digital hub, but also the bridge to the physical world. That’s why mobile will affect more than just your digital operations — it will transform your entire business.”
– Thomas Husson, Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research
Popularity of Mobile Game Applications.
The mobile app market is not going anywhere and many companies have utilized this to their advantage. Many popular games launch on the mobile and then once they gain popularity, they move to other platforms. A very good example for this is PUBG. The game was launched on the mobile and once it had made a mark in the market, it moved to other platforms. People who love your game on the mobile will like to play that same game on a VR system or console. Other companies launch their games on mobile applications as well as on consoles simultaneously. This is also a great strategy that is used to target all the major target audiences at the same time. Fortnite is a great example of such a game. The game launched simultaneously on the mobile app and on console, allowing them to target a huge market audience and gaining popularity swiftly. It helped build a strong fan base really quickly and it also allowed people to enjoy the game on their platform of choice.
“The rich and interactive experiences we have come to expect on mobile apps have created new standards and expectations for all digital media including the web. The result is websites are evolving to become more app-like in their rich functionality.”
– Raj Aggarwal, CEO of Localytics
Unity Game Development
Developers who create Unity Games work on a large number of platforms and they are not restricted to any one kind of platform. That is the beauty of Unity Game Development. These developers create games for personal computers as well as for gaming consoles of all the different types. These developers also work on game development for all the different types of mobile devices. That is not all. Unity game developers even create games for websites. To give you a clearer image, if you have ever played a game of virtually any type in the last decade or so, chances are that this game was developed completely or at least in part by Unity Game Development. That is how vast Unity has spread over the gaming industry. Any gamer will tell you that they have had experience with playing Unity games. The company is moving towards a monopoly and it is becoming a synonym to game development at a striking rate. It is one of the most well-known companies in the gaming industry and the well-deserved popularity is completely understandable too.
Solaris Technologies prefers Unity for many reasons. For one, Unity allows its data to be used by customers. This allows the customers to then take this data and utilize it in the creation of their own games. This assists the game developers immensely and helps them build better games that the target audience requires. Unity also provides two different versions to developers which makes it easier for developers of different levels to create a game. The first version is called the Unity Personal. This version of Unity caters to developers working individually or companies that have less than $100,000 of gross income per annum. There is no fee for this version of Unity which makes it easier for startups and individuals to work with Unity. It also helps companies who want to explore Unity before investing get their hands into the system and see if it works for them or not. If a company makes more than $100,000 per annum, they can avail the second version of Unity. This second available version is called unity Pro. Unlike Unity Personal, this version has a fee involved to avail its perks and benefits. Although there is a fee for this version, there is no limitation attached to the number of times it is utilized nor does Unity restrict the developers on the basis of the amount of income that they generate from the games being developed. The fee is only limited to the access of Unity Pro and does not intervene with the work that the developer does while utilizing it.
“The future of mobile is the future of online. It is how people access online content now.”
– David Murphy, Founder and Editor of Mobile Marketing Daily
Unity Game Development has a proprietary license. From the very beginning till date, there have been 5 different versions that came into being. Every update that was created came with its own updates that were included with it. Each version was created with a purpose, it was better than the last one and it catered to the issues in the previous version and ensured that any errors previously faced were catered to and smoothed out in the next version. Due to this proactive approach and making sure that problems were nipped in the bud, Unity Game Development produced this specific platform for gaming. Their immense hard work and effort paid off and in the present, others can benefit from its existence to the fullest.
When a person thinks of game development platforms, the first thought that comes to mind is Unity. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that Unity is very good at what they do; it is apparent. They are infamous in the game development industry but that is not all. It’s bigger than that. Unity Game Development is also well known in circles that have very little or nothing to do with game development. People who know very little about the subject are also aware of the company due to its vast popularity. This goes to portray the level of influence that the company has in the industry and explains why they will, without a doubt, continue to reshape the future of the gaming industry in the future times to come.
“I think the biggest change, and the one we’re already starting to see take shape, is that globally the majority of internet usage will be done via a mobile device and for most people the mobile web will be their primary – if not their only – way of experiencing the internet.”
– Peter Rojas, Co-founder of Engadget and Gizmodo
Unity Game Development in the Present
When we talk about Unity Game Development, it is not all talk. There are statistics to back up these claims. To add some perspective to the discussion, let’s go over some facts. According to multiple studies, pools and analysis that have been conducted the following has been deduced:
Unity Game Development has a 45 percent Global Game Engine market share. This is almost half of the entire shares. Furthermore, Unity Game Development is the preferred development tool by 47% of the game developers. This means that almost half the developers out there prefer Unity as their first option. This does not mean that the rest of the developers do not utilize Unity at all, it simply means that they may not prefer to start off as Unity being their first choice.
That’s not all. There are 4.5 Million registered developers on Unity (2012-2015). The numbers have only increased from there onwards and they keep on increasing to date. Unity Game Development is the Top Grossing 3D Mobile Game engine in all of the territories. It has made its mark as number 1 in the domain. It also boosts off 600 million gamers worldwide. That is a huge number for any one company. All of these numbers and statistics are a clear indication that Unity is amongst the Top Game Engines out there. It even got voted the best Game Engine of 2014! If the monopoly has not been created by Unity Game Development as yet, it is still part of the big 7 names in the gaming industry in the current times. They have not just made it to the top 7, they have successfully maintained their status over time and that is the tricky part with so many other competitors joining in all the time.
At this moment, it is important to point out that every coin has two sides. Unity game Engine is a well-crafted and highly comprehensive tool for game development. Yet, it is nonsensical to believe that it has no downside to it. With a list of perks of Unity, it too has certain shortcomings. To make it clearer, we have listed down some of the advantages and disadvantages of Unity Game Developers. These are not all the advantages and disadvantages however, this covers the major ones:
Pros of Unity Game Development:
The first biggest pro of Unity Game Development is the insanely swift speed. Unity Game Development follows agile game development and facilitates swift prototyping and consistent releases. It allows a swift and easy import process of resource subsystem which leads to an optimized asset pipeline that is in unison. It also supports most of the images, audios, videos and text formats which makes it that much more feasible to use and easy to work with. Unity Game Development provides an exemplary integrated level editor. This editor also supports JavaScript and C# for the purpose of scripting. The Unity Game Development offers excellent support for debugging the games and also for tweaking the game. This is done by displaying all the different game variables during the game play and this allows for a more systematic tweaking and debugging process at runtime. There are also a vast number of communities and market places for Unity 3D games. These offer a large range of built components that can be used. These components range from, but are not limited to, sound, rendering, physics, controls and much more. The Asset store is quite similar to any of the phone app stores and works in the same manner. Multi-threading, collections, I/O and expressive LINQ library functions are all available in Unity Game Development by utilizing Mono as the script host. Another major benefit of Unity Game Development is the fact that it has a wide range of applications. It can be utilized to create games for practically all the platforms out there; from consoles to cell phones, from desktops to Browsers, Unity covers it all. Unity Game Development allows you to implement 3D surrounding and panning without much of a hassle and also allows excellent implementation of audio engine.
All of the above mentioned make Unity Game Development a phenomenal tool for game developers of all the different platforms. However, there are certain down sides to Unity as well. These are as follows:
Cons of Unity Game Development:
Unity hogs a lot of memory which may cause OOM errors in mobiles and create debugging issues. Unity does not provide source codes to the developers, making it more difficult to find and fix performance issues in the game. Since Unity Pro has a fee, it can be an expensive option to avail all the features that are provided. When a developer creates a big AAA game title, it requires a lot of optimizations. As Unity has so many folders, it is easy to get un-organized and make it more difficult to get work done. Unity still does not provide support for HTML5 WebGL, even in the most latest version. One major concern of Unity is that when you are switching build targets, it requires re-importing everything and it is time consuming to work on a multi-platform game.
Conclusion
Even with the disadvantages that are presented by the company, Unity Game Development is ranked really high and developers seem to incline towards Unity. Solaris Technologies believes that with newer versions, the company will overcome their shortcomings as well. It is cost effective when compared to its competitive i.e. UnReal and CRY. These competitors will also push Unity to stay on its toes and upgrade their work to always be on top of the industry. Unity focuses on the target of developers who do not belong to big tech companies. They have made it possible for developers to create games without the technology that is available to a corporate company. This allows every developer to make a mark and create a game that can hit the top trending chart.
