The gaming industry thrives regardless of the challenging global economic situation. According to Technavio, the gaming sector is predicted to grow by $74.9bn by 2026. At the same time, the recent study by data.ai and IDC shows that 60% of the entire market is dominated by mobile gaming. That’s why starting a mobile game development project can be promising, whether your company operates in the gaming or non-gaming field.
So, if you’ve decided to join the promising mobile gaming market, it’s better to do it correctly. To create a truly outstanding product, plenty of companies opt for Unity — an all-in-one game development solution. To understand its benefits and processes, you are welcome to explore this article in detail.
Reasons to Choose Unity for Mobile Game Development
Unity is considered a golden standard for mobile game development. This piece of software requires specialized development skills and experience working with it. Yet, it’s not strictly necessary to be a professional yourself, as you can hire a reliable Unity game development company to handle your project. So, let’s examine the reasons for choosing this particular program.
- Free to start. Unity offers developers a free version with essential game-building and content-creation capabilities. Thus, your team can perform all the stages of building a mobile game without spending a budget on a subscription or purchasing a development plan.
- Straightforward coding. With the primary programming language — C#, Unity perfectly suits mobile gaming projects. This technology’s capabilities are enough to create an outstanding mobile game, while it’s not as hard to learn as other languages.
- Wide documentation base. Plenty of manuals and step-by-step guides help specialists perform any element of development most efficiently. In addition, the broad Unity community offers developers professional support and the opportunity of finding answers 24/7.
- Pre-ready materials. In the case of a rush or limited budget, you can avoid building a game from scratch. For example, specialists can find pre-ready content (characters, environments, props) in the Unity Asset Store and customize it for their specific needs.
- Cross-platform support. Since Unity partners with 18 platforms, developers can find useful materials to make the game creation process for a particular OS/device easier. For instance, Unity provides SDKs for Android and iOS that help set up a proper development environment and give all the necessary tools for mobile game creation.
4 Main Stages of Mobile Game Development with Unity
Since Unity is an extensive system for content creation and full-cycle game development, it takes specific knowledge to avoid getting lost there. To get a clearer image of how efficient Unity mobile game development looks, you are welcome to explore the 6 basic steps leading to a decent result.
1. Set Up the Development Environment
When entering Unity, specialists should select the right SDK that suits a platform. Then, depending on the requirements from the game design document, it’s better to make sure that all the functionality, tools, and plugins are available. If not, specialists can find any materials they need in the Unity asset store.
2. Content Creation & Animation
Whether you are developing 2D or 3D games, the Unity game engine provides basic content creation capabilities. Thus, a 2D artist can easily paint scenes for a mobile game and animate them with desired methods, including rigging.
When it comes to 3D games, many experienced specialists prefer to use third-party software like Blender, Maya, 3ds Max, and the like for 3D modeling, texturing, and other related processes. Then, artists export ready models and import them into Unity for further development.
And yet, everything depends on the type of your project. For example, if you don’t have any specific requirements for gaming content, Unity’s functionality might be perfect enough for your team.
3. Coding
Following the approved specifics for gameplay and mechanics, specialists use Unity documentation on how to develop gaming functionality better. Then, all the content, animations, mechanics, and scenario actions are turned into code with the programming language and skilled game developers. In addition, a defined monetization model is implemented with Unity monetization plugins.
4. Testing
To ensure the sustainability and high-quality user experience of a ready-made game, testers check the crucial functionality for bugs. When testers detect an actual result, which doesn’t match an expected one, they report to developers to fix the errors. In Unity, specialists use a specific testing framework to check quality.
As a result, testers and developers constantly work on quality maintenance and new features implementation to make a product even better, even when a game is launched. Thus, working with professionals is highly recommended for getting an outstanding product.
