The Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation has announced that it has signed a memorandum of agreement (MoA) with Unity Technologies, creator of the world’s most widely-used real-time 3D development platform, to establish Southeast Asia’s first Unity Centre of Innovation (COI). The COI will provide developers and startups in Malaysia with access to Unity tools, resources, and analytics to better market games globally.
Through the MoA, a brand new facility will be erected at LEVEL UP Inc., an incubator space created by the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation, to support promising game developers and startup studios, with a special focus on the development of early-stage game creation. At the facility, developers will have access to Unity Analytics, a powerful platform that provides data analytics on gamer behaviour and market trends, specialized technical and business workshops conducted by the Unity Evangelist team, and benefit from cutting-edge Unity Pro software.
The MoA, inked at the Game Developers Conference 2018 in San Francisco, heralds the next step for Malaysia in building a world-glass gaming ecosystem.
“To be the first country in Southeast Asia to establish a Unity Centre of Innovation marks a significant milestone in our mission to position Malaysia as a regional hub for game production and development by 2025,” said Dato’ Ng Wan Peng, Chief Operating Officer at Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation. “We have worked closely with Unity over the years to nurture the next generation of game developers through LEVEL UP at schools and through Unity certification programs. We are confident that the new Unity Centre of Innovation will propel the growth of our games industry to an important cornerstone of the digital economy in Malaysia.”
Southeast Asia is one of the most attractive markets for developers and publishers. Game-related revenue continues to increase year over year with online PC and mobile game revenue projected to hit US$4.4 billion by 2021, according to a recent report by Niko Partners.
“We have seen the enthusiasm and passion of Malaysian game developers and are dedicated to support their growth with Unity’s latest technologies,” said Hubert Larenaudie, President, Asia Pacific at Unity Technologies. “By partnering with the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation, we look forward to solving hard problems for developers and enabling their success with better access to our tools.”
The Unity Centre of Innovation will begin operations this month, with nine game development studios, the first of few to benefit from this initiative.