Everybody is into VR now and it is evident that this sector has grown tremendously in 2017. All the tech giants are increasingly investing more into this space and people are watching this closely for the next breakthrough.
But will this trend going to continue in 2018? Today, we have Mr Quentin Staes-Polet, Regional Director, South Asia Pacific Unity Technologies to share with us his view on South East Asia market.
What business Unity Technologies (“Unity”) is in and the strategic goals that it hopes to achieve in this S.E.A region?
Unity Technologies is the creator of a flexible and high-performance end-to-end development platform used to create rich interactive 2D, 3D, VR and AR experiences.
70 percent of all VR/AR content today is created with Unity and we are also working with the world’s biggest players in the world like Facebook, Microsoft, Xiaomi and Samsung to develop VR/AR content for their platforms. Although Unity was born from the gaming space with about 50 percent market share in the mobile games market, it is now being used across several industries outside gaming itself, a testament to the growing success of Unity as a creative platform.
Unity aims to “gamify” industries by making game technology, design and methodology, accessible to users beyond gaming – bringing the concept of games into industries by creating more engaging, more immersive experiences for customers and employees alike. That involves applying all that AR/VR can offer to make businesses more innovative, effective, and efficient. Ultimately, this technology can bring them much closer to their customers.
We enable anyone and everyone to develop games or applications. We do this through solving hard problems, such as the coding and scripting elements of development, so that today’s creators don’t have to. They can be freed from the worry of complicated back-end processes and focus on building beautiful and creative designs and experiences in their work.
You have built a successful business before. What’s in Unity that wants you to go back to the corporate life?
The game industry is where art and technology meet and interact with each other, which is why I was interested in joining the industry. Gaming continues to be one of the most creative industries and has been fast to adopt and leverage new technologies in engaging ways. Community tools like video conferencing, blogging, and online streaming were all leveraged on early in the industry. Even now, many new technologies are finding their first mass implementations in gaming, resulting in the industry constantly being invigorated, which is always exciting to me.
What are your personal goals you wish to or have already achieved in Unity?
When first joining Unity, I wanted to help lay the foundations and build a dedicated team of high performers who possessed a drive for excellence and fun. This has been successful so far with the team here in SAPAC, albeit at a small scale, and I am looking forward to building on this success moving forward.
So far, what’s the most challenging problem you have faced in South East Asia?
Given how young the developer scene is in the region, there has been a recruitment challenge due to the scarcity of experienced talent with the set of skills that Unity is looking for. However, given how the scene is growing exponentially, largely due to the rising interest in games and development from youth within the region, I expect it will only be a matter of time before this challenge is overcome.
Any details of the expansion plan in Singapore?
As one of the strongest economies in the Asia Pacific, Singapore has a huge market potential for the AR and VR technology. While Unity is still used largely for gaming, we are already seeing game technologies being increasingly used across several sectors, from the likes of architectural visualization, film and entertainment, engineering and manufacturing companies, as well as the government sectors.
We are always interested to see how others use our technology and other advances, especially within government organisations and smaller tech startups. We have been supporting them wherever we can, especially in the areas of education and training. We have already partnered with some organisations to help build a solid foundation of developers to support the growing industry here, and continue to move forward with helping further build the development ecosystem here where we can.
Also published on Medium.