Setting the vision for Unity DevOps

Learn how DevOps tools like Plastic SCM and Cloud Build are evolving to better serve the needs of creators.

Whether you’re looking to deliver on launch day or keep players engaged with new content updates, the best way to produce high-quality games is to iterate often and catch issues early. DevOps can help facilitate rapid iteration cycles to catch issues earlier and deliver higher-quality experiences as a result.

At Unity, our goal is to provide you with cloud-based DevOps tools to accelerate your success. That’s why today we’re releasing a new metered version of Cloud Build. It includes expanded storage and concurrency limits plus a host of UI improvements so you can efficiently automate multi-platform builds in the cloud. 

We’re also retiring the restrictive Unity Teams bundles, and, as a result, removing Teams Advanced from new Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise subscriptions. We’re doing so to enable more freedom of choice while offering standalone Plastic SCM and metered Cloud Build. 

DevOps is a dynamic space, and we want to empower you with the automation, scalability, and operational agility you need to maximize quality. Over the last year, we’ve been working on evolving our DevOps services into more powerful tools that are tailored to the unique needs of real-time 3D.

We’re working on evolving Cloud Build into a more capable, multiplatform build solution that can take on projects of any size. We’re backing it with a metered pricing structure that grants you greater flexibility by paying only for what you consume – nothing more. Scroll down to the FAQ section to learn more about pricing.

We’ve increased repository limits from 25 GB to 40 GB and raised concurrency limits from six to eight. This is on top of the work we delivered last year, when we added Windows Builders that unlocked IL2CPP support, enabling future platform growth and metered pricing for non-iOS platforms at an affordable rate. 

In 2022, we’ll continue to focus on increasing the size of projects supported, further accelerating build times, reducing failure rates, increasing scale, and supporting more complex projects. We’re also continuing to invest in our web UI based on your feedback, including a new build configuration flow that will be launching soon.

If you’re an existing Cloud Build customer, you can take advantage of the new features and functionalities immediately by enrolling in Cloud Build metered pricing. If you choose not to, you can continue to access your existing pricing and capabilities until we sunset the current version. Once that happens, you will receive notice 60 days in advance of changes to your account prior to the older version being deprecated to make your decision. Note that access to larger repositories and increased concurrency limits will be unavailable if you choose to keep the old Cloud Build pricing, along with many of our planned innovations.

Interested in getting started? Cloud Build with metered pricing is available for standalone purchase today. Click here to get started.

In addition to a multitude of UI and experience improvements, we’ve upgraded Unity Collaborate users to Plastic SCM, a foundational, feature-rich version control service tailored specifically to real-time 3D workflows. 

Wherever developers and artists need to work, we want to make sure Plastic SCM can seamlessly slot into your existing workflows. Today, Plastic SCM users can access intuitive version control features inside supported versions of the Unity Editor, on desktops and even on the web. 

Later this year, we’re planning even more enhancements to the Plastic SCM web experience, with improvements to project organization, repositories, and code reviews. Check out all of these present and future improvements in our recent GDC talk, “Version control for game developers.”

We know that the ability to work outside the Unity ecosystem is important. We’ve released valuable improvements to the Plastic SCM clients (both Plastic and Gluon) over the past year, including new onboarding flows, dark mode, and changelists, as well as robust functionality with Visual Studio CodeLens and support for Unreal Engine 5.

Unity Plastic SCM Branch Explorer in the Plastic client

This is still just the tip of the iceberg – we have a robust, multiyear roadmap dedicated to enhancing automated build and version control while simultaneously introducing new parts of the DevOps pipeline. Our goal is to help you iterate more quickly to build higher-quality games, so we plan to work closely with you as we scale our DevOps service. 

In addition to the interviews, surveys, and alpha/beta programs that we routinely conduct, we’re setting up a customer advisory panel to better understand your needs. We’re primarily seeking game studios with team sizes of 15 or more who are building medium- to large-scale projects targeting multiple platforms. Please sign up here if you’re interested in the chance to work closely with us to guide the future of DevOps for real-time 3D. We’re excited to continue this DevOps journey with you through the rest of 2022 and beyond. Learn more about DevOps at Unity here.

Q: Why is Plastic SCM being prioritized over Collaborate going forward?

A: Collaborate was never designed to be a fully-featured VCS solution, which Plastic SCM is. The Plastic SCM technology is also a better fit for Unity creators’ needs, since it was designed specifically for real-time 3D, with separate workflows for artists and programmers, and support for handling large files and binaries common to RT3D development. 

Q: What’s happening to the versions of Unity Teams bundled into Unity Editor subscription plans?

A: Starting May 5, 2022, new subscribers to Unity Pro and Enterprise will no longer receive any allocation of Unity Teams. You can take advantage of Plastic SCM’s cloud edition for version control, which is free for up to three users and 5 GB per month, and then pay as you go pricing. Cloud Build has pay-as-you-go pricing.

Q: What are Unity’s current DevOps offerings?

A: Currently, there are two separate components, each available for purchase separately – Plastic SCM for version control and Cloud Build for CI/CD.

Q: As an existing Cloud Build customer, will my pricing change?

A: No, it won’t change. As an existing Cloud Build user, you will continue to have access to your current pricing and capabilities for the foreseeable future and until we move all Unity products to Cloud Build 2.0. You will receive notice 60 days in advance of changes to your account prior to conversion to Cloud Build 2.0. Note that access to larger repositories and increased concurrency limits will be unavailable if you choose to keep the old Cloud Build pricing, along with many of our planned innovations.

Q: How does the new Cloud Build pricing work?

A: Cloud Build 2.0 pricing is completely metered. You will only pay for what you use. Users are charged for build minutes, based on the platform they are building for. For Windows the price is $0.02/min; for Mac the price is $0.07/min; and it’s $10 per build machine concurrency.

Q: Can I use version control in Unity, or do I need a separate client?

A: Unity Plastic SCM works in the Unity Editor, and it can also be accessed via a separate desktop client. In supported versions of the Editor, Plastic SCM users  can check-in, check out, lock files, view file history, and even create and switch branches as well as choose to install a seperate desktop client. For former Collaborate users, see this user’s guide to switching to Plastic in Unity. A list of supported versions for the in-Editor experience is available here.

Q: Can you use Cloud Build with Plastic SCM?

A: When setting up Cloud Build, you can choose to connect to Unity Plastic SCM as your source control. If you previously used Collaborate for this workflow, you will need to take action to connect Cloud Build to Plastic SCM. Follow this video guide here.