Unity (game engine)

Unity is a widely used Game Engine capable of creating 3D and 2D games. It was first released in the mid 2000's. Along with the Unreal Engine, it was one of the most popular widely available game engines of the 2010s, and was well known for supporting a wide variety of platforms and being relatively easy to get started with compared to the power it offered. In particular its asset store offered an easy way to build games for small studios lacking key talent or wishing to rapidly create expansive worlds.

Unity has a contentious reputation within the gaming community precisely because it’s possible to rapidly develop and make games with little skill, leading to Sturgeon's Law being far more visible in the gaming space. A number of games made with Unity are cynical quick cash grabs that flipped asset store assets, overly eager indie projects made with poor coding practices leading to buggy outcomes, or Widget games that make the broader public go "huh?", making the Product Placement logo that appears as the start of these games a bit of a dubious mark for some. Still a number of critically acclaimed games have been made with Unity, and it’s a powerful tool in the right hands.

Unity projects are typically written in the C# language. Unity is developed by Unity Technologies. Originally Danish, the company now has offices in a number of countries including The United States, China, Japan, and others.

The official Unity website is here.

Different from the Unity webcomic.

Tropes used in Unity (game engine) include:

Allegedly Free Game: Unity starts out free of cost, but can become expensive under the right circumstances.
Backed by the Pentagon: Used by the American government since 2011 according to a Unity press release. A major partnership was announced in 2022 according to an article by Bloomberg.
Executive Meddling: The infamous runtime fee scandal of 2023. Essentially creators were told that after a certain point they would be charged $0.20 anytime a game was installed. Not sold - Installed, meaning someone redownloading a game to a new device, reinstalling after deletion to free up space, or simply malevolently uninstalling and redownloading could potentially cost the developer more money then they made with the initial sale. This was rolled back after outcry, but it still led to many developers abandoning Unity for Unreal Engine or Godot.
Executive Veto: The Unity EULA has some restrictions on how exactly Unity is used.
Freemium: The free personal version of Unity supports most of the features and functions and indie developer needs, but more expensive versions are available with additional features.
Game Maker: Through the asset store and money, it’s possible to build an impressive game with minimal staff. Low code development tools and a number of art assets are available in the store. Getting them to fit and work together is a different matter entirely, and making something good out of it still requires skill on the part of the user as with any game maker.
Genius Programming: Unity can make games that generally run OK across a wide variety of devices and platforms. The sheer number of devices it supports while generally avoiding Porting Disasters for technical reasons is impressive.
Loot Boxes: Available as a sample project in the documentation.
Mascot: Unity Chan is one for the Japanese branch of Unity Technologies.
The Merch: Unity used to have an apparel site called Unity Gear.
Microtransactions: Unity IAP (In-App Purchases) is the framework used to create them in a Unity game. Some of the cheaper assets on the asset store might count for a game developer.
Middle Ware: Compatible with some middleware such as Havok for Unity.
Real Money Trade: A tutorial in the documentation exists on how to implement this.