Unity Technologies doubles community to two million developers
Unity Technologies, provider of the Unity multi-platform engine and development tools, is excited to announce that after reaching 1 million registered developers just over a year ago, the community has now surpassed 2 million, cementing Unity as one of the largest and most active developer communities in the world. This new milestone includes more than 400,000 monthly active users.
In its first seven years on the market, Unity's stellar community grew to an impressive one million developers thanks in part to ambitious democratization initiatives such as the release of the first truly free game development tools in late 2009. In May of this year, Unity furthered this vision to democratize development by adding fundamental iOS and Android deployment tools to the free version of Unity, a move to further enable Unity developers to take their games to the mobile marketplace. Windows Store and BlackBerry 10 fundamental tools will be added upon the release of Unity 4.2. In addition, Unity's development tools for the Nintendo Wii U are completely free, and a recent agreement with Microsoft makes the Pro version add-on of the Windows Store publishing tools free for existing and future Unity Pro 4 customers upon release.
Now, in just over one year, the Unity Community has doubled to 2 million registered developers, demonstrating the continued surge in popularity of Unity. In addition to continued increase in adoption in North America and Europe, the unique combination of an efficient and intuitive editor, powerful engine capable of rendering high-performance 3D and 2D environments, and industry leading multi-platform deployment options has sparked massive growth across Asia, Latin America, Russia, and beyond, making Unity one of the most widely used platforms across all of software development.
In the last year, Unity announced development of tools to support BlackBerry 10, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, PlayStation Mobile, a future Sony Computer Entertainment cloud gaming service, Tizen, Wii U, Windows Phone 8, Windows Store, and Xbox One. Combined with current deployment options for Windows, Mac, Linux, Unity Web Player, iOS, Android, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3, Unity offers unparalleled reach for developers looking to connect with broader audiences.
The Unity Web Player has also reached new highs with over 225 million installs. The Web Player, which totaled 72 million installs for all of 2012, has already hit over 54 million to date in 2013, marking a 50% increase in the install rate for the plugin. With partners such as Facebook, Kongregate, Qihoo, and others, actively seeking Unity-authored games for their gaming ecosystems, the outlook is extremely positive for continued acceleration of the adoption of the Unity Web Player.
The Asset Store, Unity's premiere marketplace for community created a wide variety of editor extensions and assets used to help make development more efficient and inexpensive, now boasts over 8 thousand asset packages and 350 thousand users. With some developers making over $30,000 per month and hundreds of developers generating significant income, the Asset Store has proven a success not only for Unity and developers making games, but also as a marketplace for asset creators.
Unity's tremendous growth over the last year reflects the company's fast-paced business across industries, including traditional game applications, interactive simulations, gambling, and more. In the past three months alone, Unity has partnered with Sony Computer Entertainment, Facebook, Qualcomm, and Microsoft to deliver new, incredible paths of delivery and opportunities for developers.
"We are proud of this new milestone that we have reached for what it means to the vision to democratize the game industry," said David Helgason, CEO and Co-founder, Unity Technologies. "In 2005 we started out with a few hundred users and the goal of making game development accessible to everyone across an increasing array of platforms and devices. We continue to dream big and innovate for our developers. We can't wait to shed more light on our new initiatives and plans at this year's Unite conference in Vancouver."
To celebrate the extraordinary Unity Community and its continued expansion, Unity will be giving a development suite to a lucky member of the community that includes Unity Pro plus all commercially available Pro add-ons including iOS, Android, and BlackBerry 10.