NGUI

Unity3D’s GUI system is absolutely atrocious. The fact that it continues to go unaddressed in 3.5 is a source of embarrassment. Unity gave a quick flash of the new GUI system at Unite’11, but it seemingly has been pushed off until the next major point release. Because this is such a universal problem, some of the most popular offerings in the Asset Store are GUI solutions.

When looking for a GUI package for my current project, NGUI was recommended to me by a colleague. I never really liked the impenetrable video tutorials of EZGUI. Plus, NGUI was really cheap, so I took the plunge. Overall, I’m very impressed.

Like most other 3rd party GUI solutions for Unity, NGUI builds a GUI out of flat geometry and a texture atlas. If all the controls use the same material, you can render your entire GUI in a single draw call. Building GUIs out of 3D objects is a somewhat fiddly process compared to the buttery slickness of Interface Builder. However, NGUI has the added bonus of being able to display the interface as actual 3D objects, kind of like how Dead Space does it.

NGUI is solid. It has a wide array of interface types and widgets: scrollviews, tableviews, buttons, drop-down boxes, etc. Tasharen Entertainment is constantly offering updates with new features and bug fixes–Usually in response to comments in the support thread. NGUI is frequently the top-selling paid extension in the Asset Store–absolutely deserved.

Localization Package

Localization is not one of those sexy game development tasks, so I never thought to look for a solution in the Asset Store before I wrote my own. Now I wish I had. Localization Package from M2H provides an elegant solution for localizing both text and assets such as textures and models.

In the case of text, Localization Package hooks into Google Docs to pull down spreadsheets containing text strings. It also features an automatic translation option, using Google to translate the strings in your spreadsheet. This may be a decent stopgap until you pony up the dough for a real localization. An absolutely brilliant package.

MoPub

Prime31 are the kings of plug-ins. I should list the entire Prime31 site as my favorite plug-ins, but I’ll illustrate a few I’m using right now. Keep mind, most of Prime31’s plug-ins are not available in the Asset Store and have to be purchased from Prime31’s own website.

Not every ad network has an ad to display every time your app asks for one. To solve this inventory problem you have to use multiple ad networks. MoPub consolidates all of the ad networks you are using into a single widget. Because MoPub pipes other ads through their widget using each ad network’s respective APIs, you get your ad revenue from the individual networks. This is superior to systems like MobClix which collect the money from various ad networks on your behalf which can lead to delays in payments. (Prime31 also makes a MobClix plugin)

MoPub’s control panel allows you to set the rules for when it shows ads from a particular network. It can optimize which ads are shown based on how valuable they are. So, for instance, it will always show an iAd if available and eventually drop down to AdMob as a last resort.

Prime31’s MoPub plug-in can’t be easier to use. You simply import it into your project, then drag any additional APIs you need into its folder in the Project window. I’ve found a few bugs in it. However, Prime31 and MoPub have been very responsive to my support requests.

StoreKit (In-App Purchasing)

Prime31 to the rescue again. Supposedly, Unity is coming up with a cross-platform In-App-Purchase solution, much like they did for achievements with ISocial in 3.5. Until then, it is necessary to use native plug-ins to support IAP for iOS and Android. For my iOS build, I dropped Prime31’s IAP plug-in into my project and got transactions working in 20 minutes or so. As with the MoPub extension, there’s also an Android equivalent of this plug-in.

What I’d Like To See

There are a lot of fancy shader packages that target desktop GPUs, but they are usually too heavyweight for iOS or Android. I’d really like to see someone put up a pack of mobile optimized shaders.

Overall, the Asset Store just keeps getting better and better. To whip up a quick prototype you can find models, animations, textures, effects, and code plug-ins to get something up and running in a day. The Asset Store is becoming a decent business too–supposedly there are at least a few people making a living entirely off of what they sell in the Asset Store. Browsing the Asset Store has become a near daily routine for me.

On this episode, I’m rambling for a about a half hour about games, development strategies, the realities of the business, and a bunch of other stuff. Hey, I talk fast so it’s over quick.

By the way, I used the Samson Meteor Mic with Skype to record this. What a great sounding mic–and super cheap! If anyone else has a podcast they are desperate to get guests for, my Meteor Mic and I are ready.

Making the Survey

The first step was creating the survey. For this, I paid for an account at SurveyMonkey. I find SurveyMonkey not only has the easiest survey creation tools but great features for analyzing the data. Alternatively, you can create surveys in Google Docs for free or inside Mechanical Turk itself using HTML.

There’s a science to creating a survey. I never took a class in demography, so I relied on some books discussing proper survey technique.

A few quick tips:

Amazon Mechanical Turk

Mechanical Turk is Amazon’s micro task site they launched in 2006. You can create tasks (called HITs) of any sort and pay workers to complete them. For instance, give someone a nickel to tell you whether a username is profane or not. In my case, I paid users 25 cents to fill out my survey.

I used this blog as a guide on how to do it. Except instead of making the survey as a web form inside the HIT’s HTML code, I embedded my SurveyMonkey survey.

Some tips:

Sign up as a Mechanical Turk worker yourself to see how it’s being used. You’ll see a lot of surveys as well as tasks like transcribing audio clips or even calling customer service phone lines and rating the operator’s performance.

You can use MTurk surveys to collect all sorts of important data on your product or service before you even start writing code. See if you are solving a real problem for paying customers with your start-up. I’ve even heard of people surveying to test how likely users are to click on different app icon designs. The possibilities are endless and the information invaluable.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 7,600 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 6 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

When Facebook announced they were killing Places, it was kind of a shock. Several months later it makes total sense. Location isn’t a feature people use apps for. Location is now part of the social web’s fabric.

Instead of a separate Facebook feature, you can now tag a location on to anything: posts, photos, and (yes!) check-ins. It seems like location apps such as Loopt, Brightkite, and SCVNGR have faded as they all ‘pivot’ to Groupon clones or whatever.

Now location is merely an expected feature. I’m willing to bet most people don’t use Instagram primarily because of location. Still, tagging locations on photos is popular. Instagram is outpacing Foursquare for growth. Probably because it’s actually useful beyond announcing “I’m here!” to complete strangers.

Peak Soccer Mom.

Zynga is a monster of a company and congrats on their IPO. I remember seeing Mark Pincus at Cassie Phillips’ very first social gaming conference 5 or so years ago as a relative nobody. This was back when SGN had more funding.

Today, SGN is nothing but a memory. Zynga managed to upend the entire game industry, plunging the old guard into panic and chaos while blazing a trail to a 7 billion dollar valuation. Bravo!

A lot of analysts are disappointed with the IPO. And yeah, Zynga desperately needs new customers. For this reason the company seems like it’s not a growth stock.

Is it a risky investment? Perhaps not. Zynga is the first public company whose performance you can watch in real-time. Instead of looking at guidance and waiting for quarterly reports, just go to AppData and watch their DAUs. If only there was a way to automatically sell a stock once their user retention dropped across the board…

Unity 3.5

The Unity 3.5 beta is now public. The GUI is nowhere to be found–my #1 problem with Unity. Still, it has file locking for SVN and P4V support, multi-select, and a bunch of other small fixes that I’m happy with. Oh, and the Flash exporter really works. Plus, there are some promising new GUI add-ons in the Asset Store.

Console Disruption

The 3DS has been able to pull itself back from the brink with quality software this holiday season. This effort may prove futile as tablets and mobile devices are still pounding the handheld market into submission.

I’m big on the Sony Vita. I even paid extra to reserve the First Edition bundle early. I am fully aboard this kamikaze mission to stuff every conceivable feature in a massively powerful device directly aimed at a market that wants nothing to do with it. A glorious death on the battlefield! I want to see how this turns out–even though a brutal, bloody loss for the axis is seemingly inevitable. Operation DOWNFALL.

Folks I know that got a Japanese Vita say it’s a glorious piece of gaming hardware. However, the 3DS outsold the Vita during launch week in Japan. Not a good sign.

Action Bronson Has The Best Album of the Year

Action Bronson’s Well Done is the best album of the year. The first rapper to rhyme about how to properly cook and serve puffin. Real talk.

In the software world, it’s not uncommon to be dealing with management that behaves much like mackerel. Let’s say you’ve been charged with coming up with some grand plan for a new product or changes to an existing one. (Yes, I know this is very anti lean startup, but mackerel haven’t caught up with that yet) You might come up with a ‘road map’ having all sorts of features to be deployed upon some imaginary timeline.

The thing is, if you are working for mackerel, you have to understand that each option or feature is a shiny lure. When presented with a number of options, mackerel will jump on every single one. They are all sparkling, attractive, and worth risking a slow, gasping death aboard the deck of a fishing vessel for.

The good thing is, mackerel are easily distracted. When managing mackerel, your job is to keep them hopping on lures and thinking they are making real decisions while you enable the people who actually do stuff to build and launch the product the right way. I’ve seen products ship using this technique. Producers convince the project leader he is in charge, but secretly direct the team to do otherwise. Once the project ships, nobody can really complain. It’s the whole “ask forgiveness later than permission before” thing.

Mackerel management requires two things. The first one is not caring about your employment status. After all, you are directly defying the mackerel and might get canned for such brazen action. Mackerel travel in schools and don’t like to think as individuals. Also, you need the rest of the people on the project to have such disregard for mackerel that they’ll agree to silently ignore management’s requests. If you have this perfect storm of “I don’t give a shit” philosophy you may be able to upwardly manage mackerel.

Of course, if you find yourself in this situation, you might reconsider even trying this and either start up your own thing or get a better job where such absurdity is not necessary. Still, it can be a fun sociological experiment–especially if you don’t care about getting fired.

Zynga’s active users are down by about 3 million. Growth is flat, this is true. However, Zynga has attributed their falling revenues to the lack of major releases generating new revenue. I’m likely to believe it.

This is a familiar pattern to anyone who follows the dinopubs–companies such as Take 2 have wildly gyrating stock prices due to the release patterns of tent pole games like Grand Theft Auto. With AAA console titles taking 3-5 years to develop, you can go many costly quarters without any decent revenue coming in. This is especially scary when you are spending $50 million to develop a title and $100 million to market it.

Remember the early days of social games? Think back to 2008 when Jetman was hot. It was a crude Flash action title that was probably whipped together in a weekend. SGN bought it as one of the first acquisitions in the space. Contrast that with Adventure World–a lush, rich adventure in…uh…clicking on lots of stuff to generate spam. Ok, not my cup of tea–but the amount of work put into this generation of social games is deceptively large.

Zynga has been spending a lot of money acquiring companies and massive amounts of staff. I’m sure their 2,000 or so employees aren’t sitting around filling out Netflix trial subscriptions for free FarmVille Bucks. There’s a lot of development going on. Social games are taking longer to make and fickle audiences are saturated with compelling content. Naturally, if you don’t have anything new out there your usage and revenue will drop off.

The thing is, this hit-driven pattern was part of what made games totally off-limits to investors until the social revolution. No longer can you throw a heap of money at a bunch of pizza-eating Stanford CS grads in a SOMA loft to crank out code and buy millions of users until you supernova into an acquisition by the greater fool. VCs wanted to invest in so-called ‘game factories’ but now you actually have to produce quality games and work hard for your users. Scary stuff.

I’m not quite sure the crop of VCs that heavily invested in social gaming are ready for slow growth and a revenue chart that looks more like a string of al dente spaghetti than a hockey stick. Will social gaming become as unattractive to VCs as the traditional dinopub industry is? Zynga better not delay their IPO much longer–or time it to coincide with the release of a major title.

These stats aren’t unique to Zynga. A recent presentation from Kontagent validates this. Across the board user retention is down along with virality. However, game session lengths, user lifetime, and ARPUs are all up. You’re getting fewer users staying to play but the ones left are spending more time and money in the games they like. Unfortunately, the cost to acquire these users is rising as everyone is fighting over the same market of bored middle-aged soccer moms.

That’s why many social game developers are moving the war to a new front: the core gamer.

Companies making so-called ‘hardcore’ Facebook games such as Kabam have shown you can extract more money out of a smaller audience of fanatical players. However, the f2p PC RTS League of Legends from Riot Games is a better example of social game economies successfully applied to the core gamer space. After all, League of Legends is a game that requires you to actually play it. Whereas many of Kabam’s offerings appear to be deeper, more complex spam hamster wheels that we’ve already seen before on Facebook. (Interestingly, Kabam has recently entered the social RTS space)

This is where dinopubs such as Activision may have an edge if they can effectively apply their expertise in marketing and developing for the core market to the mobile and social space. Retail game sales have taken a dive, consoles have clearly been disrupted, and a new generation of gamers are emerging in the era of the tablet. Meanwhile, scores of Modern Warfare players are under served by throngs of Silicon Valley game developers cranking out isometric bakery simulators on a weekly basis.

The opportunity is real. Which is why big players from outside the traditional game industry are gearing up for an attack directly on the core gamer segment. There’s a chance that the collective efforts of social game developers addressing the core space may make a serious dent in Activision or THQ’s growth by the time the next generation of consoles stumble out of the gate. Instead of sticking their head in the sand, dinopubs need to scramble to meet this challenge and create new revenue streams from the next generation of core gamers.

Salaries in the deep six figures, fat signing bonuses, and generous referral fees for those who have leads on a high a value target are put out there as incentives for skilled people to join the crew. Stakes are high.

Part of the reason for this is that the talented, passionate, and driven simply don’t need a job. There are lots of ways to make lifestyle money in the tens of thousands a month publishing apps. Or you can raise $100k in seed capital for your nascent startup during a short cab ride. Why get a job?

One of the new gimmicks is companies claiming they have an entrepreneurial environment in an attempt to bring reluctant candidates in from the cold. There’s one way to know this isn’t true, the “Invention Assignment” clause in most employment contracts.

I’ve seen all kinds. Some are quite lenient and agreeable. Most want to own the contents of your brain from the day you start working until you leave. Even then, they may claim ownership of the few lingering pulses coursing through your neurons fired off during the final minutes of your employment. (Luckily, in some states these aren’t enforceable).

If companies want to hire creative entrepreneurs they have to offer upside–risk, even. Let people take ownership of their ideas and responsibility for their success (or failure). The fact is the smartest and most creative employees won’t offer up a single decent idea if they know it’s company property whether or not it’s used.

This requires forming an organization to incubate ideas instead of just bringing on new talent to your existing corporate morass. Create a place where talented individuals can thrive, instead of slowly morphing from a motivated entrepreneur to a veal in a pen fattened up on 3 hour meetings and regular paychecks.

The GUI.

Having fluid 3D graphics in a Unity3D game isn’t a major accomplishment. It’s when a game has a great GUI that Unity developers crowd around and wonder how it was done. The fact is, Unity3D’s GUI system is absolutely atrocious. Getting anything decent out of it is worthy of a Congressional Medal of Honor. I shudder to think how much work it took to craft Battleheart’s amazing GUI in Unity3D.

Back in 2005 when Unity3D was preparing for its first release, Immediate Mode GUIs were a hot new trend. However, game interfaces can be complex beasts. Especially on iOS platforms, there’s a certain level of polish expected that Unity’s IMGUI implementation can’t come close to. Also, Unity3D’s GUI has weird performance issues on mobile devices that makes it pretty much useless on iPhone.

Unity3D 3.5 supposedly has an all-new GUI system that I’m eager to see. Unity hasn’t uttered a word about it. Instead they have been going on about AAA console game features such as light probes that are largely irrelevant to anyone doing mobile games.

AnimationEvents can only be called on the first script.

Adding and manipulating animations in Unity3D can’t be much easier. Just drag and drop animations on to a prefab. Blending between animations is just a simple API call. You can even point and click to add AnimationEvents on any animation’s timeline. These are function calls that are made on the timeline, usually to trigger sounds, particle effects, etc.

The problem is, the AnimationEvent system can only call functions on the first script component attached to the object. This wouldn’t be a big deal if you could re-order the scripts in the Inspector. Instead, the only way to change the script order is to remove all script components and re-add them with the one containing AnimationEvent code first.

Asset Server should merge binary objects.

Before Unity3D supported source control in the Pro version, your only option was the $500 a seat Asset Server. This is a no frills source control system that allows multiple users to collaborate on scenes together. Unity should be able to craft a source control system that knows its own object format. If you could merge changes of binary objects down to the component level, Asset Server would be invaluable. Otherwise, Perforce is a better alternative. Even with Perforce, scaling a Unity3D development team beyond 10 or so people can be a nightmare.

Why are you using Unity3D at all?

Here’s the thing. Why are you even using Unity3D? Is it for 3D graphics? Who cares? There might be one or two 3D games in the top 50 iPhone apps sorted by revenue. On Facebook, nobody cares about 3D either.

The fact is, Unity3D is busy trying to attack the collapsing AAA game market with high end features such as multi-core renderers and light probes while ignoring what the vast majority of their users need–mobile friendly features such as GUI and 2D support.

My interest in Unity3D stems from its multi-platform features. The ability to effortlessly spit out web, iOS and Android builds from the same code is attractive. Still, when %80 of your revenue comes from iOS, do you really think it’s worth the hassle of dealing with Unity’s shortcomings just to scrape up a few extra dollars?

The amount of time I’ve spent searching for the ultimate cross-platform solution would probably have been better spent nailing an excellent iOS version and dealing with other platforms later. Still, in the past I’ve been bitten by tying a codebase closely to a single platform when the market shifts. This is an open question, but 3.5’s new GUI may be the make or break moment for my Unity support.