Image: © DC Studio/Stock.adobe.com
The companies also plan to bring Google Ads to Unity LevelPlay, in order to help mobile app developers boost their monetisation options.
Unity Technologies is strengthening its partnership with Google by making two gaming services available on the Google Cloud Marketplace.
The gaming company’s game server hosting service, along with its voice and text chat service are now accessible on Google’s marketplace. The two companies said this will make it easier for developers to create multiplayer games.
Unity said its server hosting service – called Multiplay – lets game creators scale up their games to reach millions of users. Meanwhile, the company said voice and text chat are the main ways multiplayer gamers want to communicate, according to a 2022 report.
Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian said the expanded partnership will make it easier to deliver these products at scale to make “building games with Unity even more seamless”.
“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,” Kurian said.
Meanwhile, the companies plan to make Google Ads and Google Display and Video 360 available on Unity LevelPlay, which is a service to help developers manage their monetisation from ads.
The companies said this offering will let mobile app developers integrate Google’s advertisers into their ad inventory, to give more options for monetisation and a more competitive real-time auction.
Unity Gaming Services general manager Jeff Collins said the new developments with Google are “important milestones in this deepening partnership”.
“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,” Collins said.
Last year, Unity received an offer to be acquired by mobile gaming tech company AppLovin in a $17.54bn deal. However, Unity’s board of directors rejected the takeover proposal, saying it was “not in the best interests of Unity shareholders”.
The board instead urged the shareholders to vote in favour of the acquisition of AppLovin competitor IronSource for $4.4bn, which was completed last November.
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