Unity Releases 2020 Gaming Benchmark Report, Revealing How the Pandemic Changed Player Behaviors

Unity (NYSE: U), the world’s leading platform for creating and operating real-time 3D (RT3D) content, today released the 2021 Gaming Report: Unity Insights from 2020 and Predicted Trends for 2021, which provides a comprehensive look at how gaming changed for both players and creators one year into the pandemic. With more than 2.8 billion monthly active consumers of content created or operated with Unity solutions, this report represents the largest dataset on COVID-19’s impact on gaming.

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Key insights include:

• New content, new revenue: Creating new content to delight and engage players should still be a top priority for game developers. On average, large new content updates for live multiplayer games resulted in peak concurrent user spikes of over 11%.
• Making cross-platform, multiplayer games will be key to success: Success in 2020 was derived from experiences that spanned all platforms, unlocking the ability for players to come together no matter what system they owned. As we move into 2021, 96% of developers surveyed believe scalable cross platform solution is critical to the success of a multiplayer game.
• The weekday is the new weekend: More people are now playing games during the week: while gaming has historically been an activity that many reserve for the weekends, the difference between weekday and weekend gaming in 2020 increased by 52% in weekday’s favor.
• Lockdown didn’t create a downturn for mobile games: Mobile players are driving more revenue for game developers than ever, with day one in-app purchase increasing at the start of lockdown in March and maintaining throughout the year. Overall mobile game ad revenues in 2020 grew by more than 8%, first- day IAP purchases rose by over 50% compared to 2019.

“It’s still too early to tell if changed habits will become the new norm once the pandemic is over, but given our understanding of past player behavior changes, it would be surprising to see many players revert,” said Ingrid Lestiyo, Senior VP and General Manager, Operate Solutions, Unity. “In a year where online entertainment content - more than ever - became the cornerstone of social connections for so many when seeking a semblance of normalcy, Unity Operate Solutions was there to provide reliable, scalable solutions that helped keep the experiences connected and players engaged. Our amazing creators are here for that reason, and our mission is to enable them to focus on, and produce more, content with the technology we provide. While the nature of work may have changed for many game studios over the last year, the tools that help to power their success continued to deliver results that kept players happy, and revenue for developers of all sizes growing.”

Unity Operate Solutions provided the majority of data included in Unity’s Gaming Report. The portfolio of offerings includes products that provide support for game developers at every stage of the development and operations lifecycle, from server hosting, multiplayer services, voice communications, monetization, and player engagement. Specifically, data for the Operate Gaming report was derived from the Unity Ads, deltaDNA, Multiplay, and Vivox offerings. Additional data was also collected from surveys of game developers to provide first-hand insights into changing development needs.

For a free copy of Unity’s 2021 Gaming Report, please visit https://create.unity3d.com/2021-game-report.

About Unity

Unity (NYSE: U) is the world’s leading platform for creating and operating real-time 3D (RT3D) content. Creators, ranging from game developers to artists, architects, automotive designers, filmmakers, and others, use Unity to make their imaginations come to life. Unity’s platform provides a comprehensive set of software solutions to create, run and monetize interactive, real-time 2D and 3D content for mobile phones, tablets, PCs, consoles, and augmented and virtual reality devices. The company’s 1,800+ person research and development team keeps Unity at the forefront of development by working alongside partners to ensure optimized support for the latest releases and platforms. Apps developed by Unity creators were downloaded more than five billion times per month in 2020. For more information, please visit www.unity.com.

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