I’m pretty sure UT has already thought this one up, or is already thinking about it, or is already rolling the ball, or maybe they’re like on the verge of announcing and releasing…! What do people think of a digital distribution “store front” specifically for Unity games? I think UT is in a position to take on the likes of Steam, Origin, gog, and the humble store, by just having a store exclusively for Unity-created games. For me, this thought came up while reading reddit, and the fact that any number of game developers now can name quite a few very successful and popular Unity-based games. I think the perception of the Unity brand is changing quite rapidly.
I seriously don’t know what sorts of issues standing this service up would entail, whether there’s lots of red tape with partners, existing sponsorships and endorsements, other publishers, etc.
Yeah… I bet UT is on it, and it’s either lots of hush hush right now, or I just haven’t been paying attention.
Or hell, maybe it’s just a lame idea for whatever reasons I can’t think of.
Yeah I see the pieces falling together over time. The new storefront-like made-with-unity section for example which is sort of modeled after user interfaces for appletv and consoles. I guess this is also leaning toward unity being a publisher as well. I wouldn’t mind at all giving unity 30% of sales if it meant a chance to get access to decent traffic on a game portal website. I guess it would mainly be for platforms that can download games from the web, ie mainly desktop, or access to a webplayer or html5 or something like that. I think it would be quite cool and probably most Unity people would think it’s a good idea, so I wouldn’t be too surprised to see Unity branch out into this direction sometime soon.
They just recently made the ‘connect’ markeplace thingy for setting up jobs and such, and made-with-unity lets you have your own profile about your game/company etc… so it’s not too far off. Needs a better shopping experience though cus too many games are hidden or hard to find/filter. To be more of a ‘store’ you’d need things like categories, filters, tagging, reviews and such like. But it could be cool.
Or, you could set up your own ecommerce store/game portal website. Some exist already. But an official unity one I think would be great. We just have to be careful to realize that Unity DEVELOPERS are not the primary audience of most games.
I think overall it’d have many benefits for Unity because besides more profit it also acts as a great advertisement for the company/platform with ways to tie in ‘make your own game’, ‘become a developer’ etc as part of the marketing etc.
If it works anything like the built in asset store within Unity, it would be a fail… only developers could put up with something so rubbish, then again consumers these days… who knows.
It might even push valve into making actual games again as opposed to feeding off sales from the store… I was never much of a fan of steam, infact considering the money they make off it, the platform is kinda shit, just the social im stuff alone… I mean msn messenger over a decade ago was better in some aspects, and you could play quick games directly with those you were chatting to… what does steam offer for glorious pc gaming… fuk all. They be trying to moving into couch potato steam controller and steam os and vr junk, like whatever.
Unity could go ahead and make a game storefront aswel I ain’t opposed to it, they could do something for mobile aswel… its not like the google playstore is good, its total shit. just steam roll them all, then again weren’t they doing something in collaboration with fakebook? I’m surprised Epic haven’t introduced the indie store Who doesn’t want more launchers on their os anyway. Makes you feel all connected, like a win10 user which I’m not. Hoping I can hold off while staying on the great win7 until year of the linux desktop arrives, ie when it bypasses window xp ui/ux functionality sometime in another decade.
Anyway gonna go look at building a launcher for my game, launcher within launcher within another launcher.? eventually you actually get to the actual fcking game once you’ve signed into everything. Hopefully you haven’t lost interest and friends don’t want to play something else instead
Competing with your customers is never a good idea. Unity and Steam should be strategic partners, not competitors.
I don’t think distribution should be part of Unity’s core business. And I don’t think starting a price war with Steam would be a good way for them to go.
The other services (analytics, ads, cloud build) were filling holes where an equivalent service doesn’t exist, or is poorly served by the existing market. Distribution is already well established.
i would have to ask why, also having a store only for unity based games just seems like a terrible idea and will just fragment things for no reason. They would be better off pushing services like analytics, ads and cloud build more, and offering integrations for existing stores frameworks (Google Play Games, Apple Game Center, SteamWorks)
I think the Made With Unity page would be better if the game pages had a direct link to where the game can be purchased.
As it is, unless I am missing something, I look through the games, see something that catches my eye, go to the game page, look for the link to the maker, click on that, which usually goes to the makers Unity page, find the link which takes you to the makers website, look for the game page there, then maybe find a link to a purchasing option.
Would be nice if released games had a platform list, publisher site, purchase options, right in one neatly located table on the game page.
Who doesn’t want more launchers on their os anyway. Makes you feel all connected, like a win10 user which I’m not. Hoping I can hold off while staying on the great win7 until year of the linux desktop arrives, ie when it bypasses window xp ui/ux functionality sometime in another decade.