Game engines. Why do they care about anyone except the people who use them to play games?
I could never understand that. I’ve played a lot of great games made on Unity, RPGMaker and more engines that are considered “media”. My philosophy has always been that it doesn’t matter what you use as long as you can do something fantastic with it. A game can be incredibly simple and still be great. A game may have images that are not the best, but at the same time offer a great experience.
Then I go online. We all know that connecting to the Internet is the biggest mistake anyone can make when they want to see something normal. You may be having a completely good day and then decide to connect and all of a sudden you’ll face Knuckles the Echidna’s cartoon ass. It’s not what you wanted to see, but it’s what you have regardless.
So, back to the point, I saw this tweet the other day and it rekindled my thoughts about people sinking into game engines:
My YouTube colleagues, I * beg you * to stop talking about game engines. It’s embarrassing! And these silly, misinformed stereotypes only hurt the game’s developer community. pic.twitter.com/l7xgphcrMC
– Game Maker’s Toolkit (@gamemakerstk) June 20, 2022
Of course, there are times when the use of certain game engines to make games has resulted in a poor product or a difficult time for the developer. But discounting a game once you find out it’s been made with a very affordable engine for developers who may not have the money or technology to use a “higher” game engine just feels … weird.
Not to mention, is it the fault of the game engine or the misuse of the game engine? Or even the result of the mistreatment of the developers? Many factors come into play.
Considering I couldn’t really wrap it up, I decided to ask some people with first-hand experience with game engines – game developers. I asked two questions:
- What is your perspective on the opinions of non-gaming developers about game engines?
- What is the ultimate deciding factor in choosing a game engine to use?
Here is what I have.
Julian de Massive Monster, Cult of the Lamb
Question 1:
“From a non-developer perspective, I think Unity has received a lot of hatred because gamers are more aware of the engines through the display screens (which are necessary if your games use the free license, which also means that you have less than $ 100,000 in funding), which means that games without funding are usually the ones that show the home screen. they can use it too “.
Question 2:
“The decisive factor for us is what will be the easiest to use. We’ve used more alternative methods before, such as the OpenFL framework with Haxe and Stencil, but they’re competing with Unity and Unreal, which have hundreds of employees for “Troubleshooting or responding to requests. Along with a plug-in ecosystem. We don’t value our code or engines, making games difficult enough as long as it works and is fast to use.”
Marbenx, shower with your father Simulator 2015
Question 1:
“Sometimes it seems like a non-developer’s understanding of game engines is a bit like someone who is passionate about eating food trying to make judgments about how a restaurant or commercial kitchen works. You may be able to figure out how it’s made. a dish by looking at it and eating it, but this is very different from the process of deciding on a menu, ordering and preparing ingredients, hiring staff, and cooking the dish.
“Someone who tells me ‘I don’t like games played on Unity because it’s a bad engine’ is the same to me as someone who rejects any grilled food because they don’t like the burgers of a cheeseburger “A game engine is just a tool. Some types of games may be easier to do with different engines, but in the end a chef’s knife and a pair of scissors can cut.”
Question 2:
“I am a solo developer, the main factor in choosing an engine is the speed at which I can do things. Being able to prototype an idea and turn it into something playable as quickly as possible (without having to spend too much time learning something new) is the main reason. “
Docien, Grabtron
Question 1:
“I think that people with no gaming experience generally don’t know what game engines are or have a fundamental misconception about what they do. This can lead to some very unfortunate generalizations, such as Unity being linked to “bad” or “amateur” games.
“Unity only requires you to put your logo on your game unless you pay for a license, so all the ‘commercially viable’ games you invested in your tools to make a finished and marketable product have been removed the Unity brand and all unfinished, prank, or low-budget games have a tightly bound Unity display screen.
The end result of this misunderstanding is that when people try to talk about games on a more technical level, they will make ambiguous statements about how “the engine is not good” or “they need to upgrade the engine.” in this way.
“To me, it’s like saying, ‘Art sucks because the painter didn’t use the right brush and canvas!’ But using the right brushes won’t stop me from trying to paint with handles instead of bristles, or creating poorly composed paints, or making bad color choices.
“At the end of the day, people want to talk and criticize games honestly, but they just don’t have the vocabulary to do it. It leads to a lot of frustrating conversations. “
Question 2:
“There are a lot of factors when it comes to choosing a game engine. Things like deciding what kind of game you really want to make (2D pixel art? Manipulated sprite animations? Realistic 3D? Something very experimental?) , the tools / resources it offers, or even the size and reliability of the community.
“At the end of the day, though, I don’t think it matters that much, no matter how unsatisfactory that answer is. research the type of game you want to play and the different tools available, but past that doesn’t matter.
“What really matters is whether you can learn and master the engine of your choice. Having a good community, extensive documentation, intuitive tools, anything that makes it easier to create and learn to create, I think, is the most important thing. ”
Caseytube, Sparkour
Question 1:
“I think that all gaming consumers tend to divide their problems with individual games into broad categories, things they can see visibly, that is, Sony vs Xbox, Consoles vs PC, etc. And game engines, as they are usually visible at the start. , are another of those things that people tend to compartmentalize games with!
“However, this is a gross simplification of game engines and what they do. Game engines are just tools to get you from point A to point B! From a game developer’s perspective, It’s a lot of fun to see people debating whether a game on Unity is bad or not, because they usually have no idea what they’re talking about!
“If non-developers want to know more, try this anecdote: Apex Legends, one of the most successful Battle Royale shooters with millions of players every month, was created with Source Engine. The source engine has its roots in a technology of almost two and a half decades (Quake, and later Goldsrc) and never created for massive maps!
“Its map format, BSP, was created for small aisles that throw grenades at demons, not an island-sized MMO with a hundred players, and the engine was never designed to run on the Xbox Series, PS5 or Nintendo. Switch (this strange mobile version of the game does not count, which was done in Unreal).
“I also know independent developers who are taking the same engine and launching it completely, making visually beautiful games with deeper gameplay. As I said before, game engines are a tool, not much different from a woodworker who uses a band saw over a hand saw or a miter saw over the first.
“Each tool has its pros and cons, and I would never use a hand saw to cut a hundred wooden planks, but I would absolutely use it for a precision cut iron, and if I don’t have room for a massive miter saw If you choose to use Unreal for, say, a multiplayer game, you’ll have a much better time than, say, someone starting from scratch on Unity.
Question 2:
“I can’t speak on behalf of all the developers, but if I did, I’d say, in general, we like to choose an engine for its strengths for our specific game, and something that we’re personally strong with. sometimes, for independent developers, we are fucking with the engine we are most comfortable with, until one day a game starts to develop in front of us and we stay with that engine and learn how to perfect it.
“Professional companies and large development groups (more than five members, for example) generally like to plan ahead, so they usually balance the pros and cons before starting development, experimenting with each engine and figuring out which will be your best platform to develop.
“While some companies may be weird, I’ve heard of some publishers forcing their developers to use a proprietary engine because it’s being developed by another of the publisher’s developers, and that’s usually a disaster for bureaucracy sucks, leave the decisions of the developers in the hands of the developers, please!
“One thing I want to make absolutely clear, though, is that any worthwhile game developer can take any of these and turn them into what …