GameObject

GameObjects are the fundamental objects in Unity that represent characters, props and scenery. They do not accomplish much in themselves but they act as containers for Components, which implement the real functionality.

For example, a Light object is created by attaching a Light component to a GameObject.

A solid cube object has a Mesh Filter and Mesh Renderer component, to draw the surface of the cube, and a Box Collider component to represent the object’s solid volume in terms of physics.

Details

A GameObject always has a Transform component attached (to represent position and orientation) and it is not possible to remove this. The other components that give the object its functionality can be added from the editor’s Component menu or from a script. There are also many useful pre-constructed objects (primitive shapes, Cameras, etc) available on the GameObject > 3D Object menu, see Primitive Objects.

Since GameObjects are a very important part of Unity, there is a GameObjects section in the manual with extensive detail about them. You can find out more about controlling GameObjects from scripts on the GameObject scripting reference page.