TIGA survey finds 72% of UK developers use Unity

A survey by TIGA – a network for games developers and digital publishers and the trade association representing the UK video games industry – has released the findings of a new survey that indicates 72 per cent of UK studios use the Unity 3D Engine to develop their games.

The survey – which reached out to a representative sample of small, medium and large studios developing games across a range of platforms, equating to roughly 10 per cent of all UK games developers – also found that 27 per cent use an “internal proprietary engine”, and another 27 per cent use Epic’s Unreal Engine. 

“Our survey shows that 27 per cent of participating UK studios use an internal proprietary engine, whilst Unity Technologies dominates the third party engine market,” said Dr Richard Wilson OBE, TIGA CEO. “The majority of UK studios now self-publish. Studios often look for a third party engine that supports self-publishing operations, monetisation and analytics. The more that third party engine providers enable studios to self-publish effectively, the greater will be the opportunity to grow market share.”

“Whilst the initial investment in developing your own game engine is greater, the technical challenges are higher and the time to start is longer, the ongoing costs tend to be lower, the general frustration level is lower and the long-term gains are greater,” added Chris Kingsley OBE, CTO at Rebellion, which uses the internal proprietary engine Asura.

“Your game engine will be tuned to your game type and its requirements. You will have all the access you need to the source code and at no extra cost, so you can find and fix bugs quickly. You will not have to constantly integrate changes every few months, which can take your engine and your game out of use for weeks. You will not have to pay engine royalties to anyone, or manage multiple seat licenses. Unless you want them to, no one can buy your engine and take it off the market, or redeploy the engine development team onto another project. Finally, your engine can be used for free on your next project.”

The latest version of the Unity platform, 2019.2, is now available. The new iteration includes “a host of notable changes, furthering the company’s commitment to making its platform more flexible and feature-rich for all creators”, including artist tools and “next-level” rendering.