Unity announced on their blog today that they just hit a company milestone, with 2 million registered developers for their engine. Considering they just hit 1 million registrations last year in seven years, this reflects an unprecedented growth spurt in developers using the console.
To put this achievement in perspective, the game engine is now firmly set in place as the most used in the world, and matches the user base of the world's largest development platforms, such as C++, Ruby on Rails and Python.
Unity reasserts their commitment to democratize game development, by making iOS and Android deployment free for individuals and small businesses, and promising the same will also be coming to Blackberry 10, Windows Phone and Windows Store users. Unity has also expanded purchase options for developer with a popular new subscription model, available alongside a full Unity Pro purchase.
As we've reported before, Unity has expanded it's influence with next gen consoles, with strategic partnerships with Sony and Nintendo to ease porting games to Vita, PS4 and the Wii U. Nintendo has even gone so far as to provide the Unity engine free with every development kit. This move is expected to yield more development of indie and small scale games, although the engine definitely has the capability for AAA titles.
This has also factored in with the recent popularity of crowdfunded indie games, such as 90s Arcade Racer and Road Redemption, as many of those developers are opting to use Unity for its ease of use and to make porting to different platforms easier.