As Player Demand Increases for Multiplayer Experiences, Unity Announces Enhanced Support in Unity 6
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Insights
The emphasis on multiplayer game development by studios using Unity reflects a broader trend in the gaming industry toward games that offer social experiences. With 68% of Unity-using studios focusing on multiplayer games, this underscores the importance of community and player retention strategies. The success of multiplayer games often hinges on the ability to provide a seamless and engaging experience, which can translate to longer play sessions and potentially higher revenue through in-game purchases and advertising.
From a market perspective, Unity's commitment to providing a comprehensive suite of tools for developers, regardless of the engine or platform, demonstrates their strategy to be an indispensable partner in game development. This could lead to an increased market share and strengthen Unity's position against competitors. By simplifying the complex logic of running live game services, Unity is potentially reducing barriers to entry for smaller studios, which could result in a more diverse range of games and innovation within the industry.
Unity's stock (NYSE: U) could see an impact from the company's ongoing investment in multiplayer game development tools. By catering to a significant portion of their user base, Unity ensures continued engagement with their platform, which could lead to sustained or increased usage of their services. This strategy can enhance Unity's revenue streams, particularly if the company successfully capitalizes on the trend of in-game purchases and extended player engagement in multiplayer games.
However, investors should monitor the cost of these investments against the potential revenue growth. Unity's approach to providing extensive support and services could lead to higher operational costs. It will be important to assess whether the revenue generated from these services offsets the investment and contributes positively to Unity's overall financial health in the short and long term.
Unity's focus on multiplayer experiences is a response to the gaming community's demand for more interactive and community-centric games. By offering a single-source solution with Unity Gaming Services (UGS), Unity is positioning itself as a one-stop-shop for game developers, which could lead to increased loyalty and reliance on their tools. The mention of successful collaborations with studios like StickyLock and Triangle Factory serves to validate Unity's capabilities in the space.
For the industry, the move towards multiplayer and co-op experiences signifies an evolution in game design priorities. Developers are not just creating games, but platforms for social interaction. Unity's support for these experiences, regardless of the game engine, suggests a flexible approach that could encourage innovation and potentially lead to the emergence of new gaming experiences that further push the boundaries of the medium.
Unity continues to invest in supporting developers creating multiplayer experiences - no matter the game engine they use or target platform
- Unity Gaming Services (UGS) have been used by studios like StickyLock and Triangle Factory to deliver exciting and engaging co-op and multiplayer experiences across multiple platforms.
"We chose multiplayer UGS because we wanted to have a third party take care of all complex logic for us so we could focus on the core gameplay of Histera. We use quite a few services from UGS, and it's very useful to get them with one single provider. There's less glue between various services for us to worry about,” said Jamel Ziaty, Producer, StickyLock.
“Unity's Multiplayer Services has reduced development time on player features from a few weeks to a few days. Had we built everything ourselves, it would’ve required more resources and significantly more funds,” said Pieter Vantorre, CTO, Triangle Factory.
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Additionally, Unity’s Multiplayer Hosting, leveraged by over 400 studios worldwide, provides dedicated high-concurrency servers with
99.95% uptime and may reduce costs between 30-40% . Unity Multiplay Hosting will receive these capabilities prior to the launch of Unity 6 this fall.- Bring Your Own Cloud: This gives studios the ability to run their game in their own cloud account, with support from major providers like GCP, AWS, Azure and more.
- Flexibility and Choice: Developers can connect and use existing accounts on their chosen cloud providers marketplaces.
- Additional CICD & observability options: In order for studios to build their CICD pipeline, they need a new external bucket upload and build tagging options; new self-serve logs and metrics export will improve a studio’s ability to observe their game and analytics.
“The rise in multiplayer games the industry overall is witnessing has driven change and choice not only in the tools leveraged in development but in the hosting infrastructure landscape. Game studios now have the choice, bare metal versus cloud hosting and a multitude of providers,” said Benjy Boxer, SVP & GM, Unity Cloud. “Unity Multiplay Hosting hosts over 77 million game sessions in a month and continues to demonstrate its ability to scale supporting more than 3 million concurrent users at any given moment. This service is a critical business area for Unity that will see continued investment and new features as part of the Unity 6 launch later this year.”
Additional multiplayer features and support developers can expect to see in Unity 6 are:
- Multiplayer Play Mode that gives developers the ability to quickly test game functionality in editor.
- Multiplayer Center streamlines a project set-up.
- Multiplayer for VR games will get support via the new Multiplayer VR template built on Open XR.
- Relay and Multiplay Hosting will further streamline development, playtesting, and deployment.
- Unity Multiplayer services including matchmaking, lobby, and voice chat will be fully integrated into the Unity Editor.
- Distributed Authority: A network topology that game developers can use to build large scale multiplayer games with deep simulation, in a cost-effective way without the complexity of dedicated servers.
To learn more about studios using Unity Gaming Services and Multiplay Hosting capabilities, visit the blog or download the recently released Megacity Metro sample game that provides a blueprint for end-to-end multiplayer development in Unity.
About Unity
Unity [NYSE: U] is the world's leading platform of tools for creators to build and grow real-time games, apps, and experiences across multiple platforms, from mobile, PC, and console, to spatial computing. For more information, visit Unity.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This publication contains “forward-looking statements,” as that term is defined under federal securities laws, including, in particular, statements about Unity's plans, strategies and objectives. The words “believe,” “may,” “will,” “estimate,” “continue,” “intend,” “expect,” “plan,” “project,” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. If the risks materialize or assumptions prove incorrect, actual results could differ materially from the results implied by these forward-looking statements. Further information on these and additional risks that could affect Unity’s results is included in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) which are available on the Unity Investor Relations website. Statements herein speak only as of the date of this release, and Unity assumes no obligation to, and does not currently intend to, update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this publication except as required by law.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240408826217/en/
Kelly Ekins
kellye@unity3d.com
Source: Unity
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