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Unity China wants to do more than just games.

Author｜Li Zi

In late July, the annual ChinaJoy temporarily shifted the focus of the technology industry from AI to video games.

During the days when ChinaJoy was held, thousands of gamers came to Shanghai from all over the country. In addition to participating in this offline game carnival, they also experienced the latest versions of their favorite games for the first time.

For example, Ubisoft brought its action-adventure game "Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown" released earlier this year.

In the game, the player plays a Persian warrior, saving the prince and restoring world peace. Although the plot of the game seems old-fashioned, as one of Ubisoft's classic game IPs, "Prince of Persia" has been loved by players since the era of the red and white console when they were young. Today's consoles, PCs and even mobile platforms have enabled this game to be updated countless times in terms of graphics, actions, gameplay, etc., injecting new vitality into this classic IP.

Behind this, it is inseparable from the support of the game development engine Unity.

Unity is a familiar name to game developers. Currently, more than half of the games in the world are developed based on the Unity engine. Among the top 1,000 mobile games in the world, 73% are developed based on Unity. This also includes works from Chinese developers, such as "Honor of Kings" and "Zero".

On July 23, the global Unity developer industry event Unite 2024 was held in Shanghai. This was the first time Unity held an offline developer conference in five years. During the three-day conference, Unity and users from all over the world witnessed Unity's world-leading technical strength, its technological development in China, and Unity's innovative applications in games, automobiles, industry and other fields.

As Unity's annual flagship event for the world, Unite 2024 not only showcases the latest achievements of Unity 6 in the field of real-time 3D technology, but also brings Chinese users the Unity Engine developed specifically for the Chinese market, as well as capacity building for the entire digital ecosystem.

In the view of "Jia Zi Guang Nian", from game development to game distribution, from digital twins to smart car cockpits, Unity is opening a new chapter in various fields.

1. Unity China was born with games

Once upon a time, the games played by Chinese players were all produced by world-class game manufacturers in Europe, America, Japan and South Korea, such as Blizzard, Ubisoft, Nintendo and Sony. But now, the games such as "Genshin Impact" and "Rise of Kingdoms" on the mobile phones of overseas players are all from Chinese game companies.

Statistics show that in the first half of 2020, the penetration rate of Chinese games in the top 200 best-selling games in the three major global game markets of Japan, the United States and South Korea reached about 20%, and the Japanese and Korean markets even reached 25%. The combined revenue of the three major markets accounts for about 60% of the total revenue of Chinese games exported overseas. Among them, Mihoyo's "Genshin Impact" and Lilith's "Rise of Kingdoms" are frequent visitors to the top list of Chinese games exported overseas.

From the perspective of the global game market, China is the third largest game market after Europe, the United States, Japan and South Korea, and has become the main battlefield for global mobile game development.

In 2020, the actual sales revenue of China's self-developed games in overseas markets was US$15.45 billion, breaking the 100 billion yuan mark for the first time (converted by exchange rate). In the first half of 2021, the actual sales revenue of China's self-developed games in overseas markets was US$8.468 billion, a year-on-year increase of 11.58%.

In other words, the Chinese market has become a battleground for the global gaming industry.

As early as 2012, Unity saw the huge potential of China in the video game market.

In the global game development engine market, Unity has a market share of over 70%, forming a duopoly with Unreal Engine. After Unity officially entered the Chinese market in 2012, its game development software of the same name has provided support for many popular games such as Tencent's "Honor of Kings", "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds", and MiHoYo's "Genshin Impact".

With the continuous development of the global game industry, the importance of Chinese developers in the global game market is also increasing. In order to better serve Chinese users, in August 2022, Unity established a joint venture "Unity China" in China to build local customized versions of its core products for domestic game developers. At the same time, Unity China is also providing all-round support for the development of digital twins and commercial economy in the local industrial field.

In an interview with media including "Jia Zi Guang Nian", Zhang Junbo, CEO of Unity China, said that China is a market with huge potential. Whether for games or other industry application scenarios, China's market value is an irreplaceable and important component.

Unity China CEO Zhang Junbo, source: Unite 2024 conference live photo broadcast

In fact, this can also be reflected from Unity’s financial report data.

In the second quarter of 2022, Unity's revenue from Greater China (including mainland China, Hong Kong, China, and Taiwan, China) was US$42.29 million, a year-on-year increase of 9.4%, accounting for 14.2% of the total revenue. Greater China has long been one of Unity's fastest-growing market regions.

2. Unity China's three axes:

Mini games, smart cockpit, open source Hongmeng

In order to better serve Chinese developers, Unity China officially released the Unity Chinese version engine - Unity Engine in August last year.

Unity Engine is a development engine specially launched by Unity for the Chinese market. As an accelerator of Unity's localization process in China, Unity Engine is based on Unity 2022 LTS and based on in-depth observation of the domestic technology market, it provides deeper technical empowerment and efficiency acceleration for small games and smart cars.

Through a number of original local optimizations and expansions, Unity Engine is now compatible with many software and hardware platforms within the Chinese technology ecosystem, including Windows, Mac, Linux operating systems, as well as Android, iOS, OpenHarmony, etc.

When Unity Engine was released a year ago, Unity had high expectations for it. At that time, John Riccitiello, the global CEO of Unity, said: "The vitality of the Chinese market and the creativity of local developers have enabled us to expand the application scope of real-time 3D technology in breadth and depth. With the release of Unity Engine, I believe that the Chinese market will bring us more surprises in the future."

From the perspective of the entire game market, WeChat mini-games are a unique product in the Chinese game market and also a major highlight of the growth of the Chinese game market.

According to data released at the WeChat Mini Game Developers Conference in June 2023, the total number of WeChat Mini Game users exceeded 1 billion in the first half of 2023, with monthly active users reaching 400 million; and data from the "2023 China Game Industry Report" showed that the actual revenue of the domestic mini-program game market in 2023 was 20 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 300%.

In this trend,When Unity Engine was first launched, WeChat mini-games became one of the focuses of Unity Engine.Unity China has developed a dedicated target platform for WeChat Mini Games based on WebGL, allowing developers to easily convert games on other platforms into WeChat Mini Games.

After one year of use by developers, Unity Engine has been recognized by many Chinese developers.

In the interview, Zhang Junbo told "Jia Zi Guang Nian" that from the actual usage of developers, Unity Engine is very suitable for the needs of Chinese developers. According to Unity China's observation, compared with the past, the quality of WeChat mini-games today is much better than before. With the support of Unity Engine, it is becoming easier for developers to make higher-quality mini-games, and the porting efficiency of classic mobile games is also higher.

In addition to WeChat mini-games, another focus area of ​​Unity Engine is the smart cockpit.

Today, the smart car industry in China is already very developed, and more and more consumers are beginning to choose smart cars. With the collective upgrade of large screens, computing power, and vehicle electrical architecture, car human-computer interaction has also entered an era of rapid evolution.

As a technology company with a forward-looking layout in the automotive field, Unity China has helped many domestic and foreign automobile manufacturers, including Weilai, Xiaopeng, and Ideal, to create a more immersive and intelligent human-computer interaction experience. The code of the Unity Engine car version comes from this rich practical experience.

For example, the Unity Engine car version has built-in development templates for a variety of commonly used car apps, which can greatly shorten the development process; the car simulator realizes visual development and can provide real-time feedback on every step of the development process.

As of now, Unity China has established cooperative relationships with 35 car manufacturers and jointly launched 68 mass-produced models. More than 85% of smart electric vehicle manufacturers are using Unity to create a new generation of central control screens and instrument panel experiences.

also,Another highlight of Unity Engine's localized business in China is its support for OpenHarmony.

In fact, when Unity Engine was launched, Unity China revealed that Unity Engine would support OpenHarmony. And a year later, Unity Engine has actually implemented this promise, helping developers quickly deploy applications to the new operating system.

At the same time, many companies are already developing domestic industrial operating systems based on OpenHarmony and ARM Linux. I believe this direction will become a major trend in the future.

3. More than just a game

Unity China adheres to Unity's three principles of "popularizing development, solving tool problems, and helping developers succeed", bringing Unity's technology to the Chinese market and achieving great success through a series of localization measures. Today, Unity has 3.5 million registered users in China.

The market potential in China is huge. Not just games, Unity China obviously wants to empower developers in more industries.

In fact, in addition to game development, Unity has long been used in many industry scenarios including industry and manufacturing, especially digital twin technology.

Zhang Liming, head of Unity China's industrial business, revealed to "Jia Zi Guang Nian" that many domestic automobile manufacturers have approached Unity China, hoping to cooperate in the construction of digital twin projects.

"They hope to realize all business simulation capabilities of real production operations in the 3D digital twin factory. The advantage of this is that before actually building the factory, we have simulated the construction of the entire factory in a 3D environment. In addition, we can also simulate the operation of each equipment in the production line in a 3D environment, as well as the interaction between equipment and factory buildings, the interaction between people and equipment, and the transmission and interaction between materials and equipment. This can avoid us discovering problems, making adjustments, and performing maintenance while building the production line, which can save the project a lot of time and capital investment." Zhang Liming introduced.

However, there are actually many manufacturers in China that can provide digital twin technology. What are the advantages of Unity China and Unity Engine?

According to Zhang Liming, although there are many industrial software, each software focuses on its own niche. For example, some software is only used for robot simulation, some is only used for architectural design, and some is only used for logistics simulation.

Today’s manufacturing companies need to fully simulate all elements in a digital twin of all quantities and scenarios. However, no industrial software can meet this demand.

The solution provided by Unity China's Unity Engine is to use Unity Engine as the data exchange center of various industrial software, which can be connected to different industrial software, such as connecting robot simulation software and architectural design software, and synchronizing their data to Unity's digital twin system in real time.

In addition to the industrial field, Unity China is also participating in the construction of smart cities, helping urban management and scheduling through real-time 3D technology; there are also practical application cases in non-gaming fields such as e-commerce and cultural tourism, improving user experience through 3D visualization and interactive technology.

From the perspective of business focus, Unity China currently focuses on three businesses: games, smart cockpits, and industry. When asked about future business strategies, Unity China CEO Zhang Junbo revealed to "Jia Zi Guang Nian" that games, as its basic base, will continue to solve the current pain points of game development and distribution for Chinese developers with the support of the Unity Engine; smart cockpits are the second growth curve of Unity China in the next stage, which needs to be fully grasped; and industry is something that requires long-term attention, but it is not an urgent issue at the moment.

"Developers are the core force driving the continuous progress of the industry. Unity has always been developer-centric, listening to their needs and sparing no effort to provide innovative solutions. We hope to empower developers with technology to unleash their creativity and unleash their unlimited potential on a broader stage." said Zhang Junbo, CEO of Unity China.

(Cover image source: Unite 2024 conference live photo broadcast)