Unlock More than 1 Billion Potential New Users

i'm just waiting for steve to enter the room um he is going to present unlock more than one billion potential new users um he will talk for about 20 minutes we will offer some links as well and we will obviously offer a q a so steve are you there hello i am here fantastic pleasure to have you on you've got the you've got the best shift of the lot you've got the one everybody's been waiting for before lunch i'm going to step out now and then i will come back in about 20 minutes and we'll run through the q a awesome thank you very much let me start sharing my screen and there you go um can you see

my uh unlock over billing potential new user screen are we good to go i trust we are um all right thank you everybody for being here my name is steve taylor i'm the product manager for the unity distribution portal and today i'm going to talk about how you can unlock over a billion potential new users so the question that i ask developers all the time is why isn't your game on every app store in the world and the answer you should get is um okay what stores are the lovely encumbrance obviously and here's a few facts about alternative app stores is that they represent by 2023 1.7 billion mobile gamers and

that's a market that is gonna represent upwards of five billion dollars outside of china alone and these channels are right now growing faster than google play store i'm going to talk about the unity distribution portal and and how it can help you reach over a billion gamers that are connected to these stores but let's talk about the challenges of alternative distribution submitting to these stores is really a tedious process first off there's just so many stores out there which ones are there you need to discover them you need to establish a relationship with them you need to create builds specifically for them you need to implement their sdks right you need to submit your builds to these app stores and then your store your games are your gamers live on these stores they start generating revenue this saginating activity you have to track that performance as well on each of

these store systems and you know this is a process you will repeat for every game update so yes it is it is a tedious process and it makes the landscape look like this right if i plot x awareness y effort and the size the bubble is the revenue opportunity those alternative stalls really are just scattered there to the left and they represent different level of effort and they often represent an uncertain roi which is why a lot of you are usually saying you know i i would love the extra money i'm just not sure what our eye there is for me so i'm going to tell you that story in a different way let's let's start with your game you have a game and there's four stalls out there there's more actually but let's just take the example of four stalls what would you have to do you have to implement the blue sdk in your game create a blue

build gather all the metadata images descriptions according to the store's requirements before you can put a submission together and submit that to the store via its developer console for instance and your game is live on the blue store starts generating revenue on the brew store and that's that's activity that you will actually track um over the systems that they provide and there's a yellow store so you have another sdk and another build and another set of metadata and likewise another submission process another reporting system and you get the you get the drift right for the red store you get another sdk another build another set of metadata another submission process etc right so you you you get the drift your life can quickly become like this so many stores just so many builds so many sdks so many different um metadata

requirements uh dev consoles reporting systems so let's take a step back what does idea look like ideal would look like this you only have single sdk to implement so that you only need to um create and manage a single build you only need to gather a single set of metadata and you only need to use a single console to upload it to the stores and your reporting data is centralized in a in a single location so that's the vision that we built the unity distribution around and how does it work well we we try to stay true to this model a single sdk that allows you to manage a single build a single set of metadata that you then you then decide on the udp console which are the stores you want to distribute to and what udp will do is that it will take your single build and it will

repack it and to store specific builds it will directly patch in the the iap sdk of each of the stores it will also determine which is the metadata that each store needs to receive and then through a single submission process it will actually allow you to get your game on these stores right that makes the landscape look like this same chart as before but now all of those alternative stores that were previously scattered to the left now regrouped in a single low-hanging opportunity that makes it a lot more worthwhile to address so now i'm going to switch gears a bit and show you a demo of how it actually works for the benefit of time i'm going to run a video that we have made that shows the entire developer journey here we go

the unity distribution portal enables you to distribute your games to multiple android app stores through a single hub and using a single build allowing you to focus more time on creating your game and making the process of distributing your game much easier the unity distribution portal or udp currently supports games built for android devices it is supported on unity versions from 5.6.1 however unity versions 2018.4 and above are recommended udp is free for developers and can be downloaded for use in your project using the package manager in unity it's also available via the unity asset store once the unity distribution portal package is installed into your unity project you can access and set it up by choosing window unity distribution portal settings to work with udp your project will need to be using a unity project id if your project doesn't already have an id assigned you will be prompted to create one

once you have a designated unity project id you're ready to set up the udp client to get started using the distribution portal you'll need to set your project up in the unity distribution portal console head to the console by visiting distribute.dashboard.unity.com and log in with your unity id udp is free to use for any individual or organization with a unity account once logged in simply press the create new game button to add a new game project to your console then fill out the information about your game on the game info tab including any promotional assets you'd like to use on the store page if you've already got the project set up on the google play store and would like to reuse the information from there you can choose the import from google play button to copy over the metadata of your game from the google play store into your udp console project simply

copy the google play store link into the field and the console will auto fill the fields based on the metadata from the play store page then add any remaining text or assets into your game's profile that are needed the in-app purchases section allows you to update the prices of iaps for your game and set the prices for additional currencies you can add and manage individual items or you can import multiple iaps at once using the import catalog button we can also import iaps using a csv file in the google play format here you can download the template csv file using the download template link fill in your ieps locally and upload the file to add all of your in-app purchases at once when you're done setting up your project hit save scroll down to the integration information and copy the client id

back in the unity editor in the udp settings paste your client id and continue your project is now set up and its id is linked with the unity distribution portal we can use the pull button to get data such as our in-app purchase entries from the console as you can see the iep that we entered earlier is now visible inside the editor we can also create new entries in our settings here and use the push button to synchronize them with the console some implementation work is going to be required in your game code mainly using udp methods to manage your in-app purchases the udp documentation will guide you through these steps and you can find a link to it below when you're done setting up your project and you're ready to deploy your game to stores build your project in unity it's worth keeping in mind that before deploying you should test the udp build in the sandbox environment so you can be sure your iaps work well

before committing your game to the stores when you're done building upload your apk files in the binary section of the console and create your package description notice how changes to our in-app purchases have been synced from the editor we can manage the currencies of our in-app purchases one at a time or use the convert button to automatically set global currency prices on our in-app purchases we can use the manage languages drop down to add additional language support to the store metadata for our game let's add the french italian and german languages by selecting them from the list we can fill out the copy ourselves for each of our languages we wish to support or if we already have a google play store link we can import the copy directly from the google play store using the same buttons as before and the localized url when we're done with our game information and ready to release our game choose save and then choose release

we'll need to create some information about this release so enter a revision tag and some release notes then choose release you'll then be prompted with the app stores available for your release with udp it's completely up to you which stores you want to distribute to simply select from the available stores in the list you'll need to sign up to each store and link it with your udp account in order to register your game when you've registered with the stores you'd like to use you can also choose the countries you'd like to deploy your game to on each store when you're happy with your store setup choose the repack game and submit to store option from the drop down and choose publish repacking takes your udp build and clones it for each store you're submitting to it will remove the sandbox component of the package and replace it automatically with the store specific component

this allows you to submit your game to a store without needing to include a number of unnecessary sdks the unity distribution portal automatically creates a new build each time and only packages it with its required sdks for the store you're submitting it to after repacking you may then be presented with a pre-submission dialogue to help with any issues or changes that need to be made for successful submission to a store once any changes have been made and your submission is ready you'll be prompted to continue you'll then be taken to the status page as udp begins repacking and submitting your game congratulations your game should now be submitted to multiple stores to see how your game has been performing on all of your stores you can use the reporting tab in the console you can use the drop down to filter the report across all stores or an individual storefront this page gives you information such as monthly active users retention

rate installs gross revenue and more the partner stores tab shows an overview of all the stores available to submit to with more coming soon to learn more about each of the stores you can distribute with through udp choose the read more link as you can see the unity distribution portal makes it fast and easy to distribute your game across multiple stores simultaneously all right so that was that was the udp in less than seven minutes so i'm just going to summarize very quickly what did we see that udp uh with udp you do not need to worry about the store specific sdks you only need to implement a single sdk you only have to care about a single build and you will do your submission through a single hub yet you retain full control

over your distribution and it gives you access to exciting new channels so in summary and especially if we look at indie developers small size studios it really only takes one person one build one platform to reach a billion users let's have a quick look at the stores that are available on udp there is samsung samsung galaxy storage preloaded on all the galaxy smartphones and tablets it represents 400 million maus there is huawei app gallery which is also pre-loaded on all huawei and honor smartphones represent 150 million they may use um these are the other ones xiaomi the app store also pre-loaded on all the xiaomi smartphones there is one store which is a south korean store preloaded on all the android smartphones that i sold in korea um let me jump to tpe mobile

which distributes content through mobile carriers in the middle east and africa apptuty which is not really a store but more a publishing channel where you can submit your game to and and have it published in china and then there's a global app store such as up to down q a share that actually together represent north of 200 million maus udp has been has been publicly launched last month uh after a year in public preview these are the numbers you're already getting over 400 of you using it close to 600 games submitted and among the developers who used udp other games uh has been one of the early adopters and they've used it to get their game jurassic monster world onto new app stores and within two weeks of work if they had the game that was submitted

and featured on the samsung galaxy store and power app gallery and generating significant traction in in new markets for them so the purpose of udp is really to address the complexities that are typically associated to gain distribution so it's really about simplifying the work and we're quite happy to see that this is working out for some of you already last but not least and this was mentioned in the earlier video yes udp is entirely free for developers you need to have a unity account but regardless of whether you're a pro user plus user personal edition user even it's entirely free and let me take the example of the samsung galaxy store typical revenue share terms of 70 30. well if you develop if you submit your game through udp you still have access to the same 70 so it is entirely free you will get revenue from the app store that you would otherwise get directly you just get the convenience of the platform

so it's publicly uh released go to unity.com udp to have more information to get access also to all the get started material and the other information that we have the app store is really eager to get more content on board they are putting a lot of promotion and marketing effort behind them so the time to get your game to these alternative stores is now thank you very much and stuart thank you questions now thank you steve that was that was excellent and um where i'm sitting looks pretty compelling i must admit so um when did you um when did you launch this and how do you feel the reaction has been so far well udp was launched in public preview last year at gdc last year and we've taken all the time to really improve it and getting to a stage where we felt it was really ready to launch publicly

and it's it's been um it's been launched last month in august where and and the numbers i was showing over 400 developers close to 600 games these are the numbers that have accelerated over the course of q2 this year so the reaction so far is pretty positive um the game has to be developed in unity presumably in order to talk about it right now it does uh yes but the plans are to expand to more platforms but first you want to get our formula right um for unity gains so yes the impact that is for unity and it's free and you're reaching all these other stores and you're suggesting that is much easier and it certainly looked easier so just just to flip the argument around again slightly why would why would i not use udp if my game is in unity if i want to reach those stores if somebody you must have targets of

companies you want to work with and at the moment they're still targets what would be the um the step that developer has to has to get over in order to engage with you guys there is very little effort needed you just need to make a little bit of time um you know in your development team to implement the udp sdk and we've we've really worked hard to make that implementation as simple as it and as and easy as possible so you need to create that udp build that android build that you can then put through the udp process and that is not a process that is going to require you a lot of game and it's a process that you can do towards you know the end of your development uh cycle when your game is ready when your iep is already plugged in this is the right time to to go and implement udp so it is and this is why we built it because we want it to be low effort that gives you access to a vast audience and

the appeal that you're suggesting it applies equally to the smallest of indies as well as the is the big corporate so the big corporates coming across as well i think i saw one in there earlier yeah absolutely uh we're building it for all developers you know unity um our our users comes from all backgrounds and there's the aaa studios and there's also the the one man outfit so we cater to everyone we've really built uh udp also for the indie developers to be able to get that reach when they would otherwise not be able to because they don't have the manpower they don't have the bandwidth so yes it was designed to you remember my slide i showed that it only takes a person to actually reach that billion users so we've built it with that in mind we are also mindful of the more sophisticated ask of the larger studios so we also build that in but it is essentially a self-serve platform so that you don't have to scale up your studio your operations

your development cost to be able to to address and access those opportunities okay i've got a few questions here thank you to our viewers for um participating i've got a question here from tambie ahmed are the ad networks mediation like max stroke level do they play work with the udp sorry if i'm reading that incorrectly what is the arp eu ad and aip compared to google play currently so right um hopefully that makes sense to you i'm not the most technical yeah it does uh so that's something that we are we're still actively looking into uh in general the ad network work but depending on the stores uh supply demand may differ so i don't have actually a very definite answer there i don't have the numbers where i can say this is what you can expect in terms of ad returns and this and this and this channel so that's one of the things that we're actively looking into to make sure that for developers who have mixed

monetization in their game which is the case many of you out there that you can maximize whether it is in-app payment or whether it is ad revenue but as for exact numbers over which ad networks slash mediation layers uh in which channels this is the data that we're still building out okay next question from cyprenath ganukti uh are you going to add other stores such as aptoide etc perhaps you could tell us particularly with regards to that store but also how many more stores do you think you can add and what is what is your timeline for for adding them on we have a few more stores coming i showed nine stores and uh there's there's another two that will be coming shortly i will we will announce them in due time um we we really want to address as many of the alternative the third-party android stores uh as possible um but we're not in a

position to actually drop names or announce any one of them at this point of time but what we want is this to be a single hub to all the alternate android stores you're not a target for the number of stores you want to hit uh for when you feel that you've got a sort of the reach that you require we already feel we have a significant reach because with these nine stores and the other two that are uh that are coming will be well over the one billion user mark we can always add more indeed and we will try to add them whenever they are relevant to our users and you know they make sense in terms of distribution channels that will be added but right now the i would say yes another two more stores coming real soon uh and the others i cannot that's right i'm sure you'll be telling pocketgamer.biz as soon as you can announce them um from an anonymous attendee don't we need to have a separate set of

app ids for all sdks for each store a different set of app ids for for all all sdks for each store so so the way it works is that these stores are integrated with udp so we do a lot of background work with the stores so that you don't have to actually worry about getting all these settings retrieving them copy pasting them so that integration we do allows you ultimately to just register your game at the click of a button and then begin the repack and submit process those parameters are then retrieved via apis thanks to the integration we do with the stores okay and around that aren't there issues with sdks like admob and others how do you work around that should we make separate ap key apk for all alternative stores well the whole idea of udp is to actually not make separate builds for each store

but that said it's uh there are some things to look into as you build sophistication into your building you include third-party services if you want to make sure that they they work properly you sometimes need to do some additional configuration tweaking um on the third-party console sites for instance to to link all your different um udp store specific builds to your main service so that they can play well together so these are we we are right now in the process of mapping out for users how the various third-party services work and what needs to be done to make them work just fine so in short yes sometimes you need to make some adjustments but what we always privilege is the route where you do not need to make store-specific bills you just need to create a single bill push it through the udp pipeline

submit it to the stores and then yes on the side you sometimes need to make sure on some services that these services are configured to support the the new bills that are created and submitted to the stores thanks steve that's a a really good um suggestion to lots of companies about how they can think about reaching stores a different way in the easier way everybody wants to do things uh using less resource so i'm sure there'll be plenty of people following up and thank you very much for joining us and your presentation will be circulated to our viewers thanks very much thanks for having me you