Unity Cloud Content Delivery (CCD) is a specialized CDN designed for game development.
The service helps you organize your game assets, upload them to cloud storage, version them as needed, and then deploy them to your own CDN.
All your games need to do is monitor a base CDN URL for the type of release they're looking for: Production, Early Adopter, whatever. They will detect new content as you promote it from the CCD dashboard and can then use the Unity API to access it as needed.
All of this makes more sense if you're using Unity's own game development platforms, since CCD is already optimized to work with them. Unity addressable asset support makes it easy to integrate a Unity Editor asset pipeline into CCDs, for example.
However, you don't have to use the Unity engine: CCD works fine on its own.
You can build something similar to CCD by choosing the individual provider you want. Maybe you prefer Akamai's CDN, for example, and Amazon's S3 storage. Going the DIY route also brings real benefits as it is a much more powerful and configurable general purpose CDN and storage service with CCD that you can use for many other applications.
But building your own hybrid solution also requires significant time to tie everything together and integrate your content management, which CCD gives you for free. It may not do everything you want, but CCD can do enough and will do it right out of the box, without any additional integration issues.
Pricing
Unity Cloud Content Delivery has simple and straightforward pricing, especially by CDN standards. You pay for the bandwidth you use, with a flat rate worldwide (no country variations) and no hidden extras - what you see is really what you get.
There's even better news with the first tier, as the CCD is free for the first 50 GB of bandwidth. Granted, that won't cover it for even mildly serious applications, but there's always an advantage. Having a free tier allows you to sign up right away, with no “email us for a quote” delay, and you can do some basic testing to understand how the service works.
Bandwidth greater than 50 GB is charged at €0,08 per GB; above 50TB, down to €0.06 per GB; and usage over 500TB is €0,03 per GB.
It is significantly cheaper than many top tier CDNs. Amazon CloudFront charges between €0,085 and €0,12 per GB for the first 10 TB, for example, and that's just for data transfer – there are plenty of other charges.
Opting for a budget provider can save you money. Bunny CDN starts at €0,01 per GB for transfers in Europe and North America, and storage starts at €0,01. But it doesn't have the content management system, or the integration with Unity Game Editor - you'd have to create your own hybrid system to tie everything together.
Sign Up
Press the "Get Started Free" button on the Cloud Content Delivery site and you will be prompted to create an account and purchase the service.
Although there is no upfront cost, this is not a special "free plan." It is the full cloud content delivery service, and if you use more than 50 GB of bandwidth, you will be charged. That's why Unity requires you to enter a payment method (cards only).
After parting with your card details, you will be prompted to log in to the regular Unity Game Services Control Panel. It can be a bit overwhelming if you're new, simply because the Unity platform covers everything from development and diagnostics to building an audience, monetizing your work, and tracking results with analytics. Fortunately, by default, you enter the Cloud Content Delivery area, where videos and quick guides explain what to do next.
Contac us
We have taken our first step in delivering content to the cloud by creating a repository called "Staging". Cubes can also have a very basic description and permissions: open to all, promoted only (owner and admin access only), and private (only users with an access token can read the content).
In a busy production environment, you probably want to automate content downloads, and Unity provides a command line tool and API to accomplish this. But if, like us, you're looking for the quickest possible manual route just to understand the basics, you can simply download a bunch of files right from your browser.
Currently the bucket is really just a folder. You can upload more files, delete some of the others if necessary. But when you're ready, you can post a snapshot of all your content at that exact moment. At a minimum, all you have to do is give the release a name – it's as simple as that.
The dashboard then generates "addressable remote path URLs" that can be used to access your content. Set up a base URL and a "badge" (a name that identifies the type of release) and your app will get fresh content as soon as it's released.
Support
Unity Cloud Content Delivery is not difficult to set up from the dashboard and experienced technical users should have no problem.
There's a lot more to learn in the real world, of course, especially if you integrate Unity addressables or use their command line tool to automate your workflow.
The Unity documentation site has a decent explanation of the features available. We're not talking about Azure or AWS levels of detail, but it covers the basics well. (You also don't need to log in to browse the manual, so check it out if you want to know what's available.)
If the system doesn't work as expected, your best option is to create a support ticket (there is no live chat). But there is an unusual alternative.
Unity also has a user forum specifically for Content Cloud Delivery. It's not exactly busy, maybe a new thread a week when we check, but questions are answered by Unity staff (and of course other users can get in too). Even if you'll never use the forum, it's worth checking out, just to see what current Unity CCD customers think - what they like and don't like.
final verdict
A service that saves game developers time and simplifies the process of getting game updates to the right audience at the right time. Will it work for you? If you already use Unity, almost certainly; if not, the 50 GB free tier makes it easy to review and run simple tests.
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