The Chinese mobile market is big and growing rapidly. Western companies are very keen on getting a slice of the pie but find it difficult embedding themselves into the market, usually finding co-operation with a Chinese firm a far easier route. Recently Unity Technologies – one of the leading middleware companies – announced a partnership Chinese tech company Xiaomi to enable Unity users to publish on its app store and become the first third-party ad network on any Chinese Android mobile store.y’ll now be able to directly release titles to Xiaomi’s MIUI app store, which has seen approximately 50 billion downloads to date, it claims. Xiaomi provides support negotiating licensing terms, quite often a stumbling block for outside companies.
Developers will also be able to use Unity Ads, and Unity IAP to extend support to the Xiaomi platform so developers can port the in-app purchases directly.
“A Large part of ensuring developer success is providing access to the platforms that matter most,” said Andrew Tang, China Country Manager at Unity Technologies. “By partnering with Xiaomi we can help Unity developers bring their creative vision to a massive audience and accelerate the progress of quality entertainment worldwide.”
“Unity shares our vision for rapid innovation, and we’re excited to partner to accelerate creation and continue bridging the gap between desire and distribution,” said Jingyan Liu, Deputy GM at Xiaomi. “Together, we will be that much closer to allowing developers to tap into the full potential of a global app market.”
The Unity development platform is used by millions of studios worldwide, whether its for 2D, 3D, mobile videogames, virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) projects. This deal with Xiaomi will enable VR developers to access this growing market, hopefully providing new revenue streams and encouraging more immersive content to be produced.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of Unity, reporting back with the latest announcements.