Couchbase, Inc., a NoSQL database provider, today announced Couchbase Mobile for Unity, making it faster and easier for developers to build video games. Couchbase will demonstrate Couchbase Mobile for Unity at Booth #425 during this week’s Game Developer Conference (GDC) in San Francisco.
Game developers are under significant pressure to quickly build and launch the next big blockbuster game – often without the resources they need to meet critical deadlines,” said Ravi Mayuram, senior vice president of products and engineering at Couchbase. “Couchbase Mobile makes it easier for game developers to build on the Unity platform, and we are providing them with a technology that can significantly reduce the amount of time spent on writing code to manage and synchronize data.”
Building Games Faster
Game developers want to build a successful business by creating multi-platform games and interactive content. They need to focus on providing the best user experience with a fast and efficient go-to-market strategy. Developers can’t lose precious development time writing extraneous code to manage data and data synchronization, and that’s why the Couchbase team built Couchbase Mobile for Unity.
With Couchbase Mobile for Unity, game developers can massively reduce coding time with a fully featured, lightweight embedded NoSQL database for the device. When coupled with Couchbase Sync Gateway, game data is securely synchronized between users, multiple devices, across platforms and with the cloud.
Using Couchbase Mobile for Unity, game developers can:
- Sync data across devices and platforms automatically: Sharing player game and profile data is critical to the gaming experience. Typically profile, game state, level of play, score and additional details are stored in the cloud. In order to ensure this data is available across multiple player devices, developers must write extensive code that will manage the synchronization of that data. Using Couchbase Mobile, game developers no longer have to write that code. Player and game data can be stored on the device, guaranteeing an automatic and secure sync with the cloud and other devices. This makes it easy for developers to build games that enable players to continue play across laptops, phones, tablets, and consoles.
- Deliver updates to a game without requiring a reinstall: Game developers often want to update a game by adding new game play elements, such as characters, scenes, and music, after the game has been delivered. Traditionally, they need to code the new elements and deliver them in a new release of the game, which players must reinstall. With Couchbase Mobile, developers can add the new elements to the game in the cloud and Couchbase Sync Gateway will push the new data to players’ devices without interrupting gameplay. This eliminates the development challenges associated with trying to manage and sync new game elements and makes it seamless for gamers to benefit from new functionality without having to reinstall the game.
- Build games that are fully functional online and offline: Most games today provide full functionality only while online. The two primary reasons for this have been very few mobile database options for the device and complicated and extensive code is needed to sync data between the database on the device and the cloud. Couchbase Mobile solves this problem with Couchbase Lite, the world’s first fully featured, lightweight embedded NoSQL database and Couchbase Sync Gateway, a sync server that manages secure synchronization between the mobile and cloud database. This makes it easy for game developers to build games that work online and offline without having to spend massive amounts of time writing data management and sync code.
With Couchbase Mobile, developers can easily deliver beautiful apps that work online and offline,” said Macy Mills, director of strategic partnerships at Hitcents, the mobile game and app development company behind Tom Hanks’ Hanx Writer and Draw a Stickman: EPIC. “Couchbase Mobile for Unity will enable the game development community, including Hitcents, to more easily build multi-platform games and worry less about coding for data management or synchronization. This is a game-changer.”
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