As of 2022, Unity still holds a 45% game engine market share, has 4.5 million registered developers, and remains the game engine of choice with 61% of developers worldwide. Unity game developers are hands down among the most wanted specialists on the market, and it is not that easy to find a reliable Unity game developer.
That is why in this article we wanted to talk about what one should focus on when looking for a reliable Unity game development provider. We will explain why it is important to decide on a specific location outsourcing, carefully study portfolios of potential partners, and why the scope of services and an employer brand plays a significant role in further cooperation.
But first, let’s see why Unity technology is popular among game developers and why it is considered to be among the best game engines.
Unity: Pros and Cons
Being one of the main competitors of Unreal Engine, Unity is a cross-platform game engine developed by Unity Technologies and released in 2005. It is suited both for 3D and 2D game development, as well as interactive simulations and other experiences. These are some popular games built with Unity that you likely know about: Ori and the Blind Forest, Cuphead, Hearthstone, Rust, Hollow Knight, Albion Online, Gwent, and the notorious Disco Elysium.
Let’s see what makes Unity the best engine for mobile and indie games and what is good and bad about this game engine:
Advantages
- Unity game engine is quick, light, and rapid to get things working. It is simple to use compared to the alternatives and is perfect for quickly implementing an idea that’s been on your mind to know whether it is worth the effort. That is why the engine often becomes a choice of indie game developers.
- Unity uses C# programming language that is more forgiving than C++ used by Unreal Engine. Since Unity has a shallow learning curve, it is easier to find and train new Unity game developers. What is more, the development and launching process itself is also less complicated and faster with the Unity engine. This makes the engine perfect for quick results.
- If you find a trusted Unity game developer, you do not have to worry about a license since your vendor’s team is bound to have one. More importantly, you do not have to pay any royalties for using Unity once your game starts making a profit.
- Unity has a huge and active developers community, as well as plenty of free online tutorials, which is quite a support when it comes to finding a solution to an urgent issue. Again, this adds to time efficiency and accelerates the development process.
- For some, this point might be an advantage, while for others it is most definitely a bad thing. Unity has a huge asset store and many plugins, but in most cases, you have to rely on third-party developers’ assets to get the functionality that you need. Hence, there is a risk that those developers will lose funding or run out of business, leaving you without the support, making the assets you relied on dead in the water.
Disadvantages
- Unity has an older graphics engine than UE4, which makes it weaker in terms of visualization. You can still create high-fidelity visuals with Unity, but it would take more effort and time compared to the competitor. Nevertheless, Unity’s graphic engine capacities are more than enough to create stylized games and stunning mobile hits.
- The rendering process is slower than in Unreal Engine, especially when it comes to lightning. For instance, on one of our projects, our team had to wait for almost 2 weeks will the engine processed all lightning. And if you want to change something, you have to re-render it again.
- An average Unity game developer does not have access to the engine’s source code since it is available only under specific conditions.
Overall, Unity makes a better fit for mobile and mid-core games, while its competitor Unreal Engine is great for AAA titles. The best part about Unity is that it is fast. It allows for effective, rapid prototyping and game logic development and is perfect if you need to quickly test your idea.
Choose Outsourcing Destination
The first important thing to do when looking for Unity game developers or any other kind of outsourcing service is to decide on a location you are going to outsource from. Narrowing your scope of searches will allow you to see more relevant Google results and provide you with an understanding of the local game development market and main players. This, in turn, allows taking a far more informed decision, choosing a candidate that is right for you.
What is more important, it is exactly the destination of outsourcing that will decide your budget (since development prices vary significantly even among European countries), quality of communication between teams, cultural and time-zone issues, business travels, etc.
Speaking about the budget, this chart with the average salaries of Unity game developers across the world might help you form reasonable expectations:
Why Outsourcing to Ukraine?
Ukraine is a treasure trove of game development talents and is, in fact, one of Europe’s top software development outsourcing destinations. More likely you have already stumbled upon or played one of the games developed in Ukraine: S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Warface, Cossacks, or Metro.
Ukraine has around 250,000 software development specialists and 3000+ IT companies, over 114 of which are focused on game development. Ukraine’s game development industry has been gaining momentum in the past several years, and now game development is starting to actively integrate into the education system. This is first-hand information since our company, N-iX Game & VR Studio, takes part in the Unreal Engine development courses at Lviv Polytechnic National University. An efficient educational system annually contributes to the country’s tech talent pool with 25,000+ graduates, a large portion of which are interested specifically in game development.
In addition, Ukraine offers a transparent taxes policy, convenient geographical location, favorable business infrastructure, and English-speaking specialists with a western mentality. That is why many AAA-level game development companies have already chosen Ukraine as their outsourcing destination, including Ubisoft, CD Project Red, Paradox Interactive, Activision, Capcom, and others.
How to Find a Reliable Unity Game Developer?
After you’ve chosen a specific outsourcing destination and started to compile a list of potential candidates, it is important to carefully examine their portfolios, scope of services, and company brands. More about this below:
Portfolio
A portfolio of finished projects is probably the first thing that catches the eye when visiting a website of your potential partner. Checking their previous experience and successfully-delivered cases is a must-have. However, it is important to pay great attention to the degree of their involvement in a project, as well as which services were offered. If you are looking for a partner with a team of skillful Unity game developers, then you should mainly pay attention to those projects where Unity game development services were involved. For instance, even if your candidate has contributed with concept art production to Assassin’s Creed Valhalla game, it still tells nothing about their competence with the Unity engine.
In turn, if a candidate delivered a full-cycle Unity-based game project or worked on some recognized game based on the Unity engine (Hearthstone, Rust, Disco Elysium, etc.), then it is likely green light for cooperation.
Scope of Services
Finding a Unity game developer that can fix some bug or add a new feature to your game is relatively an easy task. However, it is hard to find a partner on whom you can rely for years. This is especially accurate when your project skyrockets and grows in size, and now you need specialists with narrow specializations whom your previous partner cannot provide. Or you might decide to hire additional artists to work on DLC or, who knows, spice up your game with NFTs, and now you need blockchain specialists. This, of course, will require finding another vendor to cover those gaps in talents.
That’s why it is vital to have a roadmap of your project’s growth and compare this map with the possibilities of your candidate for outsourcing. If you aim for success, chose a partner with a broad enough scope of services to satisfy the needs of your project.
Employer Brand
Company brand of a Unity game developer is as important as the scope of services. If you plan to increase the vendor’s involvement in your project over time, then their company must have an appealing employer reputation to quickly find new talents. During the active phase of the development process, any hitch is undesirable, especially when if it takes several weeks or even months to find a specialist that you need.
That is why checking in your vendor’s company brand will help you choose the right one for long-lasting, efficient cooperation. If you want to find a decent Unity game development partner in Ukraine, Forbes annually publishes a rating of top employers within the country.
Why Hire Unity Game Developers at N-IX Game & VR Studio
- N-iX Game & VR Studio is a part of N-iX, a recognized European software development company with 1,700 software engineers, 19 years’ market presence, and a strong employer brand.
- Our studio offers a full range of game development services, including full-cycle development, co-development, AWS and VR services, Unreal/Unity engines development, art production, blockchain/NFT solutions, etc.
- N-iX Game & VR Studio has proved to be a reliable partner with high client satisfaction and return rates.
Our Unity Development Success Stories
Here are some of N-iX Game & VR Studio successful Unity-based game projects:
The Bazaar
Tempo Storm is a US-based esports organization that unites more than 50 professional gamers, seasoned in the world’s top competitive games. Tempo Storm decided to utilize their collective gaming knowledge to create their very own digital-first strategy game, the Bazaar. The company was looking for a reliable Unity game developer and decided to entrust N-iX Game & VR Studio with the development of their dream game.
In this full-cycle project, N-iX is responsible for game design, art production, UI/UX, Unity development, AWS implementation, etc. The Bazaar is in an active development state now, and our team is constantly polishing and improving the game before its release.
Tempo Storm seems to be delighted with the result of our cooperation:
“Partnering with N-iX has been one of the best decisions we’ve ever made as a company. They’ve repeatedly shown themselves to be skilled, responsive, fast, and flexible,” – Andrey
Yanyuk – CEO Tempo Storm .
Adverty
Adverty, a Swedish company, came up with the idea of creating a solution for game developers to seamlessly integrate ads into games without breaking the gaming experience. To this unique advertising platform, Adverty teamed up with N-iX Game & VR Studio. For this Unity-based project, our studio provided end-to-end development services: from architecture to development, testing, and maintenance.
Here is what the CEO of Adverty, Niklas Bakos, says about our cooperation:
“In N-iX we found the excellence and top competence required to build our ad tech platform for the media of tomorrow. On top of that, we have integrated with the team on levels required to not only develop state-of-art technology but having fun while doing it.”
ComPet
ComPet is a cross-platform mid-core game based on Unity game engine. Our customer, a Swedish software company – MindArk AB, requested N-iX Game & VR Studio to create a game with real-time PvP multiplayer and turn-based battles arena battles, city-builder functionality, and a real cash economy.
ComPet was a full-cycle development Unity project for which our studio provided an array of game development services, including prototype creation, game design, art production, Unity engine development, and post-release support.
The customer’s feedback:
“MindArk have been working with N-iX for a number of projects over the last couple of years. Good communication, easy to work with, and friendly people have made our projects pleasant and successful experiences!” – Henrik Nel, CEO of ComPet.
