What is Unity 3D and why you should use it!

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Unity is a cross-platform game engine developed by Unity Technologies, first announced and released in June 2005 at Apple Inc.’s Worldwide Developers Conference as an OS X-exclusive game engine. As of 2023, the engine had been extended to support more than 25 platforms.

Usages of Unity 3D

The engine can be used to create three-dimensional, two-dimensional, virtual reality (VR), and augmented reality (AR) games, as well as simulations and other experiences. The engine has been adopted by major video game developers and publishers who use it to create games for Android, iOS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux. More than half of all new mobile games are built with Unity.

In 2022, Unity had been named “the #1 game engine” in the “most popular commercial game engines” category by Game Developer magazine another year in a row!

History of Unity

Unity was created based on the vision of three co-founders: David Helgason, Joachim Ante, and Nicholas Francis. The initial target market was 3D games for OS X and Windows. The company’s website says that the engine is now “used to target more than 25 platforms, including consoles, mobiles, AR/VR, and the web.”

The engine has been adopted by major video game developers and publishers who use it to create games for Android, iOS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux. More than half of all new mobile games are built with Unity.

In March 2016, Gartner estimated that more than 50% of mobile games were developed using Unity. In January 2017, Unity announced that they had reached 5 million monthly active users of the engine. In October 2018, they announced they had reached 7 million monthly active users. In the fourth quarter of 2021, Unity had, on average, 3.9 billion monthly active end users who consumed content created or operated with its solutions.

The company’s headquarters is located in San Francisco. It also has regional offices in Canada, China, Colombia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan and the United Kingdom.

What are the benefits of using Unity 3D?

One of the key reasons behind Unity’s widespread adoption is its ease of use. The engine is designed to be accessible to as many people as possible, with a focus on making it easy to get started and then learn more as you go. This has helped it become the engine of choice for many independent developers, who make up a significant portion of the overall games market.

Another key advantage of Unity is its flexibility. The engine can be used for a wide variety of genres and styles of games, from first-person shooters to puzzle games and everything in between. This makes it an attractive option for developers who want to create games for multiple platforms, as they can often reuse a lot of their code and assets.

Its current biggest competitor is Unreal Engine which offers a better out-of-the-box experience for artists at the expense of mutch bigger expertise required but the developers.

Finally, Unity has a strong support ecosystem, with a large community of users and plenty of resources available online. This includes an asset store, where developers can buy or sell pre-made game assets, as well as a range of services that can help with things like hosting multiplayer games or analytics.