Unity and Google announced that the companies are expanding their partnership and deepening collaboration across their ecosystems to help studios accelerate the growth and development of their live games.
Together, Unity and Google are making it easier for all developers to create multiplayer experiences by offering solutions from Unity Gaming Services (UGS), Game Server Hosting (Multiplay) and Voice and Text Chat (Vivox), on Google Cloud Marketplace. Additionally, the companies announced that Google Ads and Display and Video 360 will soon bid into Unity LevelPlay, Unity’s mediation offering, as part of Google’s partner bidding program. This will enable mobile developers to integrate Google’s quality advertisers into their real-time auction for their ad inventory, helping them improve monetisation opportunities and increase auction competitiveness, while providing app advertisers with another avenue to reach their audiences. More information on availability will be coming soon.
“Unity and Google are working together to provide developers with the most robust tools and infrastructure to build, launch, and grow games seamlessly at a global scale. The integration of Google demand into Unity LevelPlay and the expansion of our UGS solutions, Game Server Hosting and Voice and Text Chat to Google Cloud Marketplace serve as important milestones in this deepening partnership that aims to enable game creators to deliver on their creative vision and to achieve business success,” said Unity Gaming Services general manager Jeff Collins.
Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian shared, “Unity and Google Cloud have a long history of partnership in supporting developers by providing access to Google Cloud’s infrastructure, cloud compute technologies, and expertise in data, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. Our expanded partnership with Unity enables us to more easily deliver products like Game Server Hosting and Voice and Text Chat at scale, making building games with Unity even more seamless.”
Game Server Hosting (Multiplay) and Unity’s Voice and Text Chat (Vivox) are the first products from Unity Gaming Services to be available on Google Cloud Marketplace. Game Server Hosting is a dedicated game server hosting service that helps creators effectively scale their game to millions of players in minutes. Voice and Text Chat enable in-game player communications, which, according to the Unity 2022 Multiplayer Report, is the primary way players want to communicate. Self-serve features were also recently added to both solutions, giving developers immediate access to foundational management tools that will accelerate multiplayer operations and deliver the best connected gaming experiences.