Whether you’re looking for work in game development, crowdsourcing for your project, or just to be in touch with other gamers like yourself, Unity connect is the place to go. While looking for ways to learn about this engine, I stumbled upon this fresh virtual treasure.
Unity 3D has been constantly making independent video game development less challenging.
They’ve taken the next step in the developer’s community by uniting them worldwide on their new social media platform (“Unity Connect is going worldwide”). “Stronger together” “With a little help from my friends” “Unite them…” You’ve heard it so many times, the wording might be different but the message is the same, we can develop more working together.
Unity Connect is not like YouTube or Twitter, it only has a little over 150.000 users and 3400 company pages (Jan 2017) however, these people are there for just one reason, games. So you know that the quality of feedback will be a lot better, as it comes from people who want to help you as others have helped them when they were in your place. It’s not likely that your project will get lost in an ocean of tweets, this beauty is still untouched by nasty spammers.
Focused on talent recruitment and crowdsourcing.
The layout is a lot like LinkedIn, with a few additions: (“Unity Connect Is The LinkedIn Of Unity, But Better”). You can build a profile/CV with your game development skills and experience, but the best part is an awesome portfolio where you can showcase your games, articles, and artwork straight to the screens of experienced developers, and companies.
“Inclusivity” is one of my favorite aspects of the platform.
While I’m pretty sure most people there are working with Unity’s API, you can post a project from any other development engines. Not a fan of Unity 3D? don’t feel discouraged, share anyway!
There is still room for improvement, their discussion channels might be promising but I find them unorganized, they could be a bit more user-friendly, and the portfolio doesn’t allow you to upload your development projects, instead, it displays a link to your game’s site. Unity games have very small file sizes, most of that being unity’s player.dll which wouldn’t even need to be uploaded since it’s the same for every game… but this is hardly a nuisance…
There are many great hosting sites tailored for indie game dev, my personal favorite is itch.io. It allows you to publish a very detailed site for your game, with an in-site dashboard for editing, analytics, dev blog, and billing support where you can actually choose the commission they’ll charge you if your game makes any money.
Scrolling down through discovery you’ll find all sorts of awesome projects, assets, and great advice. What better place to share cutting-edge mechanics that indie companies are developing by the hour? It’s all right there for you to see, learn, collaborate, and share… why are you still reading this? go start working on your profile and connect with me, Gamers Unite!
