The Coming Game Engine Inflection Point(members.newdesigncongress.org)
members.newdesigncongress.org
The Coming Game Engine Inflection Point
https://members.newdesigncongress.org/the-coming-game-engine-inflection-point/
90 comments
My advice to anyone setting out making games would be to pick any major engine with a trackrecord (can be broadly construed), stick with it, and just start pumping out games. Start small, like your smallest idea then cut that in half. Complete the game and ship it to Steam. There's a lot you'll learn in the last 20%. Grow the scale for the next game slightly. Repeat. If you're dying to build a dream game, don't. Save that for the next decade. Yes, decade. That's when you're skills will match your ambition. Ultimately, the tech isn't that important. Project management, scope, persistence, and execution are more important. Flipping around will drain your time, and reduce the rate you get better.
I started making a game last year (https://github.com/sdwr/UNDERLOD), and by now wish I had been half as ambitious. It's kinda nice to be getting fed up with it though, means it's not as precious anymore.
Hey, nice concept! I would very much like to play it if it were in the browser
If you've been working in Unity for a few years you'll also notice a trend about Unity's future:
- New versions of Unity offer more configuration options for your game or app, which make it hard to figure out which option to select. Choosing the wrong option will often result in incompatibility or other headaches down the road. Things like the proliferation of render pipelines, the new input system, etc.
- The experience of using the Unity editor itself has gotten much worse. The editor presents you with a progress bar much more often.
IMO these problems look like symptoms of a company culture where developers are rewarded for adding new features but not incentivized to work on things like editor stability, editor performance, or UX. Kind of a classic problem at lots of larger software companies.
- New versions of Unity offer more configuration options for your game or app, which make it hard to figure out which option to select. Choosing the wrong option will often result in incompatibility or other headaches down the road. Things like the proliferation of render pipelines, the new input system, etc.
- The experience of using the Unity editor itself has gotten much worse. The editor presents you with a progress bar much more often.
IMO these problems look like symptoms of a company culture where developers are rewarded for adding new features but not incentivized to work on things like editor stability, editor performance, or UX. Kind of a classic problem at lots of larger software companies.
Been using unity since 4.0 and it's problem is it wants you to treat the engine as the operating system and enforces that with walled-gardens and a deluge of bad programming and systems-design advice that leads to some of the most unscalable spaghetti imaginable.
I used Unity for years, starting in the 2.x days when their moving off Mac was big news. I agree with Unity having a lot of issues, but disagree with this being one of them: Unity doesn't really encourage anything that ECS doesn't encourage.
ECS is a very ergonomic abstraction for games: that's the only reason it's even put up with over data oriented models like DOTS which are much more performant
To me the spaghetti code thing is in part because games are just a really hard architecture problem if you're not used to it. It's like trying to build the design, frontend and backend of a CRUD app while also feeling out the business plan as you go along. Before you know it, you have the bones of a few wrong turns sticking out of the foundation, there's huge amounts of coupling between everything, and you essentially can't change any side of the puzzle without breaking a ton of stuff.
Realistically I think Unity is often picked up by people who could make spaghetti code in any engine. And for the same reason I still contend that the asset store should never have allowed primarily code assets.
You need a certain level of engineering rigor to not end up with a brittle buggy mess to slog through by the time something as open ended as a game. The asset store is full of just awful code written by people who don't know better, picked up by people who don't know better, resulting in a gnashing of teeth for everyone involved.
ECS is a very ergonomic abstraction for games: that's the only reason it's even put up with over data oriented models like DOTS which are much more performant
To me the spaghetti code thing is in part because games are just a really hard architecture problem if you're not used to it. It's like trying to build the design, frontend and backend of a CRUD app while also feeling out the business plan as you go along. Before you know it, you have the bones of a few wrong turns sticking out of the foundation, there's huge amounts of coupling between everything, and you essentially can't change any side of the puzzle without breaking a ton of stuff.
Realistically I think Unity is often picked up by people who could make spaghetti code in any engine. And for the same reason I still contend that the asset store should never have allowed primarily code assets.
You need a certain level of engineering rigor to not end up with a brittle buggy mess to slog through by the time something as open ended as a game. The asset store is full of just awful code written by people who don't know better, picked up by people who don't know better, resulting in a gnashing of teeth for everyone involved.
> ECS is a very ergonomic abstraction for games: that's the only reason it's even put up with over data oriented models like DOTS which are much more performant
I'm a bit unsure what you're saying here. By my reckoning, building objects in Unity out of MonoBehaviour components is simply not ECS, and as far as I can tell, Unity ECS and DOTS go hand-in-hand. I haven't used DOTS, though. I have used ECS but not with Unity.
The reason Unity isn't ECS is because it's missing the "S" in ECS. Unity has entities and components, but you're left on your own if you want to create a system.
Agreed that there's a ton of bad code out there, in video tutorials and on the asset store. I avoid using code assets or copy/pasting code, but I'm mostly running into the next issue you mentioned--that it's a hard architecture problem to begin with.
I'm a bit unsure what you're saying here. By my reckoning, building objects in Unity out of MonoBehaviour components is simply not ECS, and as far as I can tell, Unity ECS and DOTS go hand-in-hand. I haven't used DOTS, though. I have used ECS but not with Unity.
The reason Unity isn't ECS is because it's missing the "S" in ECS. Unity has entities and components, but you're left on your own if you want to create a system.
Agreed that there's a ton of bad code out there, in video tutorials and on the asset store. I avoid using code assets or copy/pasting code, but I'm mostly running into the next issue you mentioned--that it's a hard architecture problem to begin with.
Unity muddied the waters by naming a component in DOTS "ECS", but I'm referring to the pattern, not that package, and the fact that you need to include Systems to have ECS is debatable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entity_component_system#Is_%22...?
Even if you want to reduce it to "Entity-Component" the point is that the architecture they provide via Monobehaviors is ergonomic
It creates a very workable mental model for assembling complex game entities without relying on inheritance, and it provides reasonable tools to orchestrate them without introducing hard dependencies
Even if you want to reduce it to "Entity-Component" the point is that the architecture they provide via Monobehaviors is ergonomic
It creates a very workable mental model for assembling complex game entities without relying on inheritance, and it provides reasonable tools to orchestrate them without introducing hard dependencies
> The asset store is full of just awful code written by people who don't know better, picked up by people who don't know better, resulting in a gnashing of teeth for everyone involved.
honestly you nailed it lol
honestly you nailed it lol
This article is pretty shallow, but I agree with the broad strokes. I'm personally betting on Godot reaching an inflection point (I have $$$ personally invested in a startup betting on this), but I think it's totally a great outcome if the market is shared between Godot, Unity, and Unreal. I think the most likely scenario is that Godot enters in the indie/low-end market and moves up the ladder, Epic continues to dominate the AAA market, and Unity is squeezed somewhere between.
With that said, none of this is guaranteed and will require significant commercial support to make Godot remotely competitive. Some problems are immediately obvious like the lack of tutorials and an asset store (that's what we're working on in the near-term), but it also involves more sophisticated multiplayer options, a better asset pipeline, and much much more, so it's going to be a long road.
But I'm optimistic about Godot's future. I'm currently putting together a simple 2D RTS game with Godot 4 beta to use as a tutorial and template and it's been such a joy. Despite the bugs and the warts, I've gotten so much done in just two weeks. If you squint really hard, you can see an army of indies in the future making simple, but great games with Godot in half the time they do today and that gets me really excited.
With that said, none of this is guaranteed and will require significant commercial support to make Godot remotely competitive. Some problems are immediately obvious like the lack of tutorials and an asset store (that's what we're working on in the near-term), but it also involves more sophisticated multiplayer options, a better asset pipeline, and much much more, so it's going to be a long road.
But I'm optimistic about Godot's future. I'm currently putting together a simple 2D RTS game with Godot 4 beta to use as a tutorial and template and it's been such a joy. Despite the bugs and the warts, I've gotten so much done in just two weeks. If you squint really hard, you can see an army of indies in the future making simple, but great games with Godot in half the time they do today and that gets me really excited.
Betting on Godot is appealing from a philosophical position, but there's not much indication that it won't be the Firefox to Epic's Chrome. Likewise, Blender didn't and won't kill commercial 3D suites.
In practice, Unreal is source available enough to satisfy the needs of commercial developers, and it's backed by a billion dollar incumbent that shows little or no sign of slowing down.
Without serious revenue generation to fund its developers, Godot will struggle to attract the top talent. It will get great talent, like Firefox, but not in the numbers and dedication that Epic can pay for and so won't be able to take the same risks with development time.
And then there's professional level support. Who can you pay six and seven figures a year to in order to acquire the services of a team of industry experts who work with Godot?
In practice, Unreal is source available enough to satisfy the needs of commercial developers, and it's backed by a billion dollar incumbent that shows little or no sign of slowing down.
Without serious revenue generation to fund its developers, Godot will struggle to attract the top talent. It will get great talent, like Firefox, but not in the numbers and dedication that Epic can pay for and so won't be able to take the same risks with development time.
And then there's professional level support. Who can you pay six and seven figures a year to in order to acquire the services of a team of industry experts who work with Godot?
I'm gonna disagree with that statement about Blender. It is still growing and will probably drive a lot of commercial 3D suites into extinction. It just hasn't happened yet.
I honestly can't even name the "professional" competitors. I always thought Blender was like VLC. One of the few examples where the OSS has already won the competition and there's no reason to look for alternatives
Autodesk and SideFx are doing just fine, and are hardly beaten. It might feel that way when working Indie on a shoestring budget, but their tools are worth the entry fee to many.
They're still worth the entry fee for now but I hear the rumblings of discontent from my professional friends about Autodesk and Adobe.
In classic rent seeking fashion both these companies have strategically swallowed up many small to medium sized software companies whose products many other industries require to stay competitive.
And again in classic rent seeking fashio n they've jacked up prices while coasting on quality.
My architecture/residential friends tell me that Revit is a bloated mess.
An EE at my work complains about the poor integration of Eagle and Fusion360 and the horrible subscription model with frequent downtime.
My relative with a video game company curses the price he has to pay for Maya or 3DSM for his employees while praising Blender.
These are conversations that I've and with people in the last month alone. Everyone is fed up of those two companies and I think that you under estimate how much they have tested on their laurels while competitors are soon to grow up around them.
I couldn't be happier.
In classic rent seeking fashion both these companies have strategically swallowed up many small to medium sized software companies whose products many other industries require to stay competitive.
And again in classic rent seeking fashio n they've jacked up prices while coasting on quality.
My architecture/residential friends tell me that Revit is a bloated mess.
An EE at my work complains about the poor integration of Eagle and Fusion360 and the horrible subscription model with frequent downtime.
My relative with a video game company curses the price he has to pay for Maya or 3DSM for his employees while praising Blender.
These are conversations that I've and with people in the last month alone. Everyone is fed up of those two companies and I think that you under estimate how much they have tested on their laurels while competitors are soon to grow up around them.
I couldn't be happier.
I used to be apathetic to Autodesk, until they swallowed up Eagle and destroyed that product for hobbyists. Now all of my old designs are locked on old systems or behind their subscription model. I hope they rot in hell for that. In the meantime, long live KiKad and other open alternatives.
> And then there's professional level support.
https://w4games.com/
You can literally get support from the original authors (and still main contributors) of the engine.
And Godot has quite a few contributors. The Godot 4 rewrite is fantastic: modern rendering techniques, great features, very modular, clean code, etc...
https://w4games.com/
You can literally get support from the original authors (and still main contributors) of the engine.
And Godot has quite a few contributors. The Godot 4 rewrite is fantastic: modern rendering techniques, great features, very modular, clean code, etc...
> Who can you pay six and seven figures a year to in order to acquire the services of a team of industry experts who work with Godot?
Here's one company you can hire: https://prehensile-tales.com
Here's one company you can hire: https://prehensile-tales.com
I think Unreal is increasingly going after the AAA space with stuff like Lumen and Nanite, which is great if you are a high end shop chasing after photorealism.
On the other hand, I imagine it forces you into a workflow/rendering style, with custom, simpler art styles being much harder to achieve.
On the low end, where people are still using the tried and tested VS/PS deferred forward rendering, with custom shaders, Godot is becoming increasingly viable.
Fun fact: Tesla's mobile app uses Godot, so in a sense, Godot has already made it.
On the other hand, I imagine it forces you into a workflow/rendering style, with custom, simpler art styles being much harder to achieve.
On the low end, where people are still using the tried and tested VS/PS deferred forward rendering, with custom shaders, Godot is becoming increasingly viable.
Fun fact: Tesla's mobile app uses Godot, so in a sense, Godot has already made it.
I'm going to say mostly false.
Realistic lighting makes things feel very... alive. It almost always looks better. It doesn't need to be a photorealistic game. Nanite works great with those ultra high resolution megascans, sure, but it also works well with simple things. A large benefit of it is that you don't need to make many levels of depth.
Putting 2D games aside, I think Unreal is a pretty flexible choice. Moreso, I think the term AAA used to refer to realistic looking graphics, but now refers to the amount of handcrafted content in a game. Good looking graphics are simply becoming easy to obtain.
I do hope Godot eats unity's lunch though
Realistic lighting makes things feel very... alive. It almost always looks better. It doesn't need to be a photorealistic game. Nanite works great with those ultra high resolution megascans, sure, but it also works well with simple things. A large benefit of it is that you don't need to make many levels of depth.
Putting 2D games aside, I think Unreal is a pretty flexible choice. Moreso, I think the term AAA used to refer to realistic looking graphics, but now refers to the amount of handcrafted content in a game. Good looking graphics are simply becoming easy to obtain.
I do hope Godot eats unity's lunch though
>Who can you pay six and seven figures a year to in order to acquire the services of a team of industry experts who work with Godot?
Why would you need to? It's an open source engine that uses straightforward C++, You can add PRs and requests in Github or contact the devs on Twitter or wherever. You can fork it and make whatever changes you like.
FFS, Undertale was made in Game Maker of all things. A game engine doesn't need to compete against AAA studios to be successful.
Why would you need to? It's an open source engine that uses straightforward C++, You can add PRs and requests in Github or contact the devs on Twitter or wherever. You can fork it and make whatever changes you like.
FFS, Undertale was made in Game Maker of all things. A game engine doesn't need to compete against AAA studios to be successful.
>> And then there's professional level support. Who can you pay six and seven figures a year to in order to acquire the services of a team of industry experts who work with Godot?
> Why would you need to? It's an open source engine that uses straightforward C++, You can add PRs and requests in Github or contact the devs on Twitter or wherever.
This is such peak HN, and misunderstanding why companies pay for professional support, that it hurts.
> Why would you need to? It's an open source engine that uses straightforward C++, You can add PRs and requests in Github or contact the devs on Twitter or wherever.
This is such peak HN, and misunderstanding why companies pay for professional support, that it hurts.
Most of HN doesn't really get the games industry anyway.
> Why would you need to?
Well...
> You can add PRs and requests in Github or contact the devs on Twitter or wherever. You can fork it and make whatever changes you like.
So I don't have to do these things. If I can have someone capable solve the hard problems for us then I can focus the company on tasks it's better suited at delivering on.
Well...
> You can add PRs and requests in Github or contact the devs on Twitter or wherever. You can fork it and make whatever changes you like.
So I don't have to do these things. If I can have someone capable solve the hard problems for us then I can focus the company on tasks it's better suited at delivering on.
Ok. Given that everything about Godot, including support, is already available for free, why do you want to pay a team of people six figure salaries to do that when countless indie developers manage to ship games on a fraction of that budget?
[deleted]
I think the answer you want is "because everyone is stupid except you"
No. I was honestly hoping to get an anecdote from someone with experience in the game industry that would justify what to me seemed like an absurd claim, particularly in regards to a game engine that targets indie development and isn't even competing against AAA engines.
dleslie seems to be the only one here who knows what they're talking about, but I think their assertion that not having a highly paid team of industry experts on call for Godot isn't actually a slight against the engine. I could very well be wrong. It would have been nice to have some actual insightful conversation about the differences in economies of scale between small and large games, to know why that kind of cost is justifiable for a non-proprietary engine.
But it seems like you're just a poser who came into this thread to shit on me for karma. Enjoy your lunch. I'm out.
dleslie seems to be the only one here who knows what they're talking about, but I think their assertion that not having a highly paid team of industry experts on call for Godot isn't actually a slight against the engine. I could very well be wrong. It would have been nice to have some actual insightful conversation about the differences in economies of scale between small and large games, to know why that kind of cost is justifiable for a non-proprietary engine.
But it seems like you're just a poser who came into this thread to shit on me for karma. Enjoy your lunch. I'm out.
It's not a slight against the engine; it's a concern about the support one can expect to receive for customizing it. Sufficiently complex games generally require deep cutting engine modifications, regardless of the engine used.
Even Indie developers hit these hurdles from time to time, when their games explode in popularity and they find themselves porting to other platforms, adding multiplayer and social features, growing into new design elements, and so forth. I think it's a safe bet that, for instance, Innersloth and Klei have at least considered paying for such support.
It doesn't matter if the engine is proprietary or not. It really doesn't. Once the cost of development of deep-cutting features in-house reaches six figures it's easy to open doors to proprietary engine developers and pay for high-quality development of those features. Generally for less than you could expect to pay if you were to pay your own developers. Well, hopefully so. ;)
Even Indie developers hit these hurdles from time to time, when their games explode in popularity and they find themselves porting to other platforms, adding multiplayer and social features, growing into new design elements, and so forth. I think it's a safe bet that, for instance, Innersloth and Klei have at least considered paying for such support.
It doesn't matter if the engine is proprietary or not. It really doesn't. Once the cost of development of deep-cutting features in-house reaches six figures it's easy to open doors to proprietary engine developers and pay for high-quality development of those features. Generally for less than you could expect to pay if you were to pay your own developers. Well, hopefully so. ;)
I've be enjoying Love2d for the last few months.
I've been apprehensive about building a large code base in Lua but it has been OK so far.
Love has a good feature set and rock solid performance.
https://love2d.org/
I've been apprehensive about building a large code base in Lua but it has been OK so far.
Love has a good feature set and rock solid performance.
https://love2d.org/
I want to use it for small projects but the lack of static typing is stopping me. Otherwise it was very nice when I played with it.
Bad article. This is an outsider's perspective looking in.
Godot and Blender are no where near industry standards.
Not standard doesn't mean not good enough.
Godot is where Unity was in 2010... Unity used to be considered "only for indies" versus the "professional" Crytek, Unreal, idtech, etc...
Godot is where Unity was in 2010... Unity used to be considered "only for indies" versus the "professional" Crytek, Unreal, idtech, etc...
Unity is where Unity was in 2010 in that sense...
Yes large money making titles have shipped with Unity, but Unity never quite broke into Unreal's level of AAA ubiquity.
That's not to say some of those games didn't make AAA money despite that, but it's a very different development pipeline.
Yes large money making titles have shipped with Unity, but Unity never quite broke into Unreal's level of AAA ubiquity.
That's not to say some of those games didn't make AAA money despite that, but it's a very different development pipeline.
I am gobsmacked that the market share for Unity and Unreal is "only" 61%. I am interested to know if the remaining 39% is made up of other third party engines or independent engines predominantly.
Godot is definitely a positive light in the future of game engines, and I am hopeful for its future. At the very least, even if it all goes wrong, you could still use the standalone godot executables for years to come without any SaaS nonsense.
Godot is definitely a positive light in the future of game engines, and I am hopeful for its future. At the very least, even if it all goes wrong, you could still use the standalone godot executables for years to come without any SaaS nonsense.
IIRC, all the major EA titles use the same in-house engine. At least all the FPS and similar games do. That's only one example of how maintaining your own in-house engine makes sense - because it's used across multiple teams.
As mentioned, a lot of EA games use Frostbite.
A lot of other EA games (sports) use another engine.
id has an inhouse engine
Valve has an inhouse engine
Riot has an inhouse engine
CDProjekt ..
NaughtyDog ..
Ubisoft ..
Guerrilla ..
Activision/Blizzard have at least 2 ..
...
Shit even Amazon has an engine these days
A lot of other EA games (sports) use another engine.
id has an inhouse engine
Valve has an inhouse engine
Riot has an inhouse engine
CDProjekt ..
NaughtyDog ..
Ubisoft ..
Guerrilla ..
Activision/Blizzard have at least 2 ..
...
Shit even Amazon has an engine these days
CDProjekt Red Is switching to Unreal, no?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/cd-projekt-red-see...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/cd-projekt-red-see...
Oh damn, I didn't know that.
Wild Rift and Legends of Runeterra are Unity and Valorant is Unreal, so Riot sort of doesn't have their own engine since it's just used by LoL.
What makes the LoL engine not an engine if it's only used by one game?
It is an engine but in the context of inhouse engines taking up a significant portion of the market I don't think it counts. In Riot's case they're not going to use that engine for any more games and Riot is now more of an Unreal/Unity company.
It's a pretty weak analysis and they don't source that claim or qualify it.
By revenue, there are several big AAA titles with proprietary tech, and a handful of top mobile titles as well. I'm guessing that's the analysis they used.
Only the very largest companies can justify their own engine these days - Activision, EA, Ubisoft, Riot etc. And most of those engines date back decades. You'd be hard pressed to justify building your own engine tech starting today. An analysis by revenue isn't really very meaningful today because of the historical head start those companies. Their ongoing franchise revenue distorts the analysis.
By revenue, there are several big AAA titles with proprietary tech, and a handful of top mobile titles as well. I'm guessing that's the analysis they used.
Only the very largest companies can justify their own engine these days - Activision, EA, Ubisoft, Riot etc. And most of those engines date back decades. You'd be hard pressed to justify building your own engine tech starting today. An analysis by revenue isn't really very meaningful today because of the historical head start those companies. Their ongoing franchise revenue distorts the analysis.
Proprietary and commercial game engines.
I've used Unity since around 2014 or so, for personal projects and also at work for a VR startup. The primary problem with Unity is: 1. The editor has become so slow and buggy, to the point where it is unusable, 2. Features are half-baked, like the new ECS which has failed to replace the old user scripts, lack of a networking solution despite years of development time, etc. My relatively small personal project causes the latest Unity versions to constantly freeze with loading bars that never complete. I think that peak Unity was 2019 or so, all versions since then have been worse.
With the ironSource acquisition complete, I don't think things will turn around. Unity didn't have a cashcow like Epic, so some sort of acquisition was pretty much inevitable. The profits from Unity licenses and the Unity asset store just isn't high enough to sustain development.
With the ironSource acquisition complete, I don't think things will turn around. Unity didn't have a cashcow like Epic, so some sort of acquisition was pretty much inevitable. The profits from Unity licenses and the Unity asset store just isn't high enough to sustain development.
This really makes me want to try making something with Godot. I have too many projects already, dammit.
I'll bet $5 this inflection point never happens. Godot is good but it's no Unity/Unreal.
That's what everyone says right before they get disrupted[0]. So your bet might not be wrong, but your reason probably is.
[0] I feel like The Innovator's Dilemma is one of those things everyone should at least skim, so they know where the hype around a term like "disruption" came from and what the word originally meant. agilemanifesto.org is another one.
[0] I feel like The Innovator's Dilemma is one of those things everyone should at least skim, so they know where the hype around a term like "disruption" came from and what the word originally meant. agilemanifesto.org is another one.
I've read the Innovator's Dilemma, and it's not relevant unless you can point to something that Godot is innovating. It's just an also-ran to Unity and Unreal at this point. When people talk about Godot, they don't mention it's cool features over Unity/Unreal, they mention that it's free or libre. And there have been a million free and open-source game engines in the past, so that's not an innovation.
Most "disruptors"...fail to disrupt, largely because they misunderstood what the market wanted and "disrupted" the wrong thing.
Being "indie" isn't enough for Godot. Unity and Unreal are the market leaders because they provide a single-solution multi-platform engine. Godot does not, and a significant amount of work is required in order to make a Godot game run on multiple platforms. Until Godot can do multi-platform natively, it will be relegated to the sidelines.
Being "indie" isn't enough for Godot. Unity and Unreal are the market leaders because they provide a single-solution multi-platform engine. Godot does not, and a significant amount of work is required in order to make a Godot game run on multiple platforms. Until Godot can do multi-platform natively, it will be relegated to the sidelines.
Maybe, but again, one of the hallmarks of an industry about to be disrupted is confidence that some feature or other is absolutely critical, when in fact there's a segment that doesn't care. That segment can (sometimes, of course none of this is certain) buoy up the new solution until it eventually picks up the supposed critical feature as well.
Of course, "disruption" seems to be one of those things where if someone says out loud that they're going to do it, rather than just talking about the customers they can help, they're probably full of it. Without those customers who are happy with the cheap, janky, new solution, it's just hot air. But I would be careful not to judge disruption as a theory by BS artists who just imitate its terminology.
Of course, "disruption" seems to be one of those things where if someone says out loud that they're going to do it, rather than just talking about the customers they can help, they're probably full of it. Without those customers who are happy with the cheap, janky, new solution, it's just hot air. But I would be careful not to judge disruption as a theory by BS artists who just imitate its terminology.
Your comment is kind of confusing but you seem to be supporting my point.
Godot is all about "disrupting" game engines by being super indie. It's 99% of the conversation about Godot. The thing is that nobody actually cares about their game engine being indie. They want to make games, and Godot is actually pretty crap at making a game you intend to release.
A game engine is defined by the games made with it. All kinds of games have been made with Unity and Unreal, by solo developers and by massive teams. Each engine can boast collective game revenues (of games made using the engine) in the billions this year.
Godot has been around for 9 years. By this point in their lifecycles, both Unreal and Unity already had massive adoption. Meanwhile, Godot's single claim to fame in 9 years is being used as the graphical engine for the Sonic Colors remake, which was critically eviscerated for its many graphics-related bugs.
Godot is all about "disrupting" game engines by being super indie. It's 99% of the conversation about Godot. The thing is that nobody actually cares about their game engine being indie. They want to make games, and Godot is actually pretty crap at making a game you intend to release.
A game engine is defined by the games made with it. All kinds of games have been made with Unity and Unreal, by solo developers and by massive teams. Each engine can boast collective game revenues (of games made using the engine) in the billions this year.
Godot has been around for 9 years. By this point in their lifecycles, both Unreal and Unity already had massive adoption. Meanwhile, Godot's single claim to fame in 9 years is being used as the graphical engine for the Sonic Colors remake, which was critically eviscerated for its many graphics-related bugs.
Maybe I'd agree that if Godot succeeds in disrupting existing game engines, it won't just be because it's "super indie". Again, disruption is about "cheaper and good enough for some audience". You should read The Innovator's Dilemma, or at least a summary. Everything you're claiming about Godot is still on track for the disruption story (albeit slowly, but that's not surprising for such a complicated product developed without big funding).
What are you on about? It's trivial to get a Godot game to run on a bunch of platforms. In most cases it's just a matter of setting up the export template and hitting export.
The font they've used on this website should be a little lighter. You can still almost see it.
I'm still a huge fan of irrlicht 3d.
Sadly it got less and less support and users.
The engine was amazingly designed, I loved how you managed the game loop and entities.
Sadly it got less and less support and users.
The engine was amazingly designed, I loved how you managed the game loop and entities.
I think this is a pretty insightful piece. Godot is a pretty strong completely-free alternative to Unity and Unreal and seems like a solid offering that is continuously improving. It's already seriously impressive compared to how the earliest versions of Unity were, if you ask me. It's also far more accessible since you can literally do whatever you want with it and never have to care about what artificially-imposed limits you're going to hit and have to start paying to make the most of what you've been investing dozens or hundreds of hours (or more) into. Every time I look into it I'm impressed how much it has improved. There's serious potential and already tons of neat stuff I'm seeing devs sharing on social media that they're making with Godot. Oh, the other awesome thing? This engine is on OpenBSD! Mind blown.
If you were hoping for an insightful article or analysis about game engines, you won't find it here. It's just FUD about Unity and Unreal then surprise turns out it's an advertisement for Godot.
Er? Not really? It's pretty transparent with direct criticisms about Godot, such as: "While Godot is supported by a rich range of plug-ins, this ecosystem is not yet mature, and is no match for the sheer size and turn-key potential of the Unity Asset Store."
Summarizing, both Unity and Unreal are damaging themselves with unsettling strategies and strategic partners, and if the trend continues other game engines, such as Godot, will replace them.
It's the circle of life, not an "inflection point".
It's the circle of life, not an "inflection point".
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OT: I find myself more and more closing pages that use bad font, text color, or layout choices. I could use Reader mode, but like with paywalls that protect nothing of value, choose to simply not read them. My life is not diminished in doing so.
So, why not O3DE?
yrgulation(4)