The Unity engine is increasingly well-known for its position in the independent gaming community, as more and more developers turn to it to help get games into the next generation of gaming consoles, and beyond. But Unity is about to be about a lot more than its engine, as it recently acquired Playnomics, an acquisition that should go a long way in terms of giving indie gaming developers the tools necessary to make not just games, but successful games.
Previously, Unity Technologies also landed Applifier, the company that put together the Everyplay platform that allowed users to make videos involving mobile gameplay, an increasingly popular form of video entertainment. Now, with Playnomics in Unity's arsenal, the company can also offer up a set of analytics tools designed to track data that in turn can be used in several critical metrics. With Playnomics, it's easier to tell who's more likely to spend money, as well as who would be most receptive to promotional efforts. Perhaps best of all, Playnomics offers a way to help spot which players are most likely to end up being part of churn rates, or the ultimate decision to stop playing a game altogether.
Unity isn't alone in this market, either, as PlayHaven and Kontagent were recently spotted getting together to offer mobile marketing and analytics through the Upsight brand. Tapjoy expanded its repertoire recently, helping to provide monetization services.
While game development is important, of perhaps even greater importance than that is the ability to make money from what has been created. As much as artists everywhere—whether said art be interactive or not, video game, text-based or anything else—would like to just create for its own sake and to bring enjoyment to the masses, artists have to eat. Which means, in turn, that the produce of an artist's endeavors needs monetization. So game designers have to have a firm handle on marketing, getting out the word about products and services to those who would be interested in buying, and by extension, supporting the developer. A service like this, in turn, allows developers to get more information about the population of gamers at their disposal, and allows developers to make new product accordingly. If the developer knows that its sci-fi shooter game is doing better than its pie making simulator, it can put more resources into the next sci-fi shooter. Having that knowledge on hand is the kind of thing that can really put some extra life in a developer's operations.
It's basic marketing, but it runs on information. Unity, meanwhile, seems to be consolidating sources of that information to offer up a complete one-stop shop for development, and that's the kind of thing that should pay off in the long run. Unity may well be on to something here, and while only time will tell just how it works, it's a pretty safe bet that it actually will work.
