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I'm beginning to get sick of the Unity monoculture. All their games have the same feel to them, which I can only describe as 'sluggish'. Truly ambitious games

by Mikeb85 10y ago

I'm beginning to get sick of the Unity monoculture. All their games have the same feel to them, which I can only describe as 'sluggish'. Truly ambitious games built with Unity inevitably wind up buggy as well, since doing anything outside the box requires hacks and workarounds.

whatever_dude 10y ago
Do Limbo, Inside, Monument Valley, or Ori, feel slow or buggy to you? There's a lot of bad stuff out there, since Unity has a low entry point. But Unity is not inherently bad; it's just that some developers lack the chops to do it well.
- Vexs 10y ago
  The issue is is that if a game is subpar, or even par, it's really, really obvious it's made with unity. All the best games you can't tell, but unity seems to have a sort of unique feel to it that you can pick out pretty easily, which gives it a bad name.
- Impossible 10y ago
  Minor nitpick, Limbo wasn't a Unity game, it was a custom engine. Limbo predated Unity having decent console support, they moved to using Unity for Inside (a reference link http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/126729/Limbo_Developer_Playdead_Using_Unity_Engine_For_Next_Title.php http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/126729/Limbo_Developer_Pl...).
- lost_name 10y ago
  Indeed. This one has proven popular as well. https://unity3d.com/showcase/case-stories/hearthstone https://unity3d.com/showcase/case-stories/hearthstone
  - droopyEyelids 10y ago
    Notable for being one of the most sluggish, buggiest, and resource intensive triple-a title available on each of its platforms.
    - bduerst 10y ago
      Is that because of Unity or is it because of the constant phoning in to the servers?
indenturedsmile 10y ago
While I agree most of the time, there are still great games made with Unity. I think the problem is more around the ease of use for developers. They might not make performance or "feel" a priority when it's so easy to make a game that's "good enough". Inside was a Unity game, and it was a dream to play from a technical perspective.
kayoone 10y ago
The nature of Unity makes huge amounts of mediocre games done by inexperienced devs inevitable, but i don't think it is a problem of Unity specifically. There are amazing games done on the platform like Firewatch, Cities Skylines, Monument Valley, Ori and the Blindforest etc
- anchpop 10y ago
  Don't forget Kerbal Space Program
golergka 10y ago
Unity is a fantastic tech for its proper use case. As a Unity dev, I have a lot of grievances against them — but the problems you're describing come not from the tech, but from completely inexperienced developers for whom their Unity projects are first software projects ever. For better or for worse, the whole Unity dev culture is centered on amateurs: on one hand, it leads to a lot of game designers and artists starting to write code for the first time in their life, but on another, it leads to horrible architecture and complete disregard for good development practices. Unity asset store, for example, is full of awfully written code, bit it doesn't stop heaps of developers around the world from using it in their projects and create amazing stories and visual experiences woth it. In other words, sometimes worse is truly better.
- bas 10y ago
  Reminds me of the JavaScript ecosystem.
happyslobro 10y ago
Yep, if there was ever a game that deserved a custom game engine, it would be Kerbal Space Program. The version of Unity that they used constrained them to 3.5 gb, and 32 bit floating point coordinates, in a game that deserves a true scale solar system. I keep hearing that double precision floats for coordinates are unrealistic because of the optimisations that are available only for 32 bit floats, but I am willing to make serious sacrifices to free myself from the Spheres of Influence and the Orbital Railroad of Destiny; the real solar system mod forces a full scale environment, and even though the visual geometry is off by roughly a metre from the physical geometry, I still consider it to be an improvement.
- dietrichepp 10y ago
  I don't know where you're hearing that double precision is unrealistic. You can operate on half as many at a time, and some of the operations are slower, and some GPUs have no support for it—but if you're not using GPU acceleration, it should be possible.
- mxfh 10y ago
  The engine itself can only do so much, if you don't want to write a whole new graphics library too. This post by the Outerra dev on planetary scale precision issues and on how to circumvent some issues by implementing custom log scale depth buffers offers a good introduction. http://outerra.blogspot.de/2012/11/maximizing-depth-buffer-range-and.html http://outerra.blogspot.de/2012/11/maximizing-depth-buffer-r...
- erikpukinskis 10y ago
  > 32 bit floating point coordinates, in a game that deserves a true scale solar system. How are 32 bit addresses inadequate? Just have a multi-level addressing system and you're done. You're going to have a Level of Detail system anyway, right? This seems like a non-issue. It's not like you need to do math on grains of sand spread across multiple galaxies.
aphextron 10y ago
It's not the engine, it's the devs. Unity is head and shoulders above UE4 nowadays. The problem is that it has made developing games so dead simple that anyone in their bedroom can release a game on Steam these days, and as a result there's a lot of garbage.
- tedajax 10y ago
  > Unity is head and shoulders above UE4 nowadays This is demonstrably not true. Just look at the limitations of the standard shader to see where Unity falls apart. Or hell input handling or any number of features for which UE4 has a better solution (or at least a path towards a better solution since you have the source code).
PhasmaFelis 10y ago
As I understand it, Unity's big PR problem is that they require the Unity logo on games made with the free version, but not with the paid version. So you see lots of cheap/dodgy Unity-branded games, and never realize how many top-shelf games are also made in Unity.
busterarm 10y ago
I am Setsuna and Firewatch were neither sluggish nor buggy.

by Mikeb85 10y ago

whatever_dude 10y ago

Do Limbo, Inside, Monument Valley, or Ori, feel slow or buggy to you? There's a lot of bad stuff out there, since Unity has a low entry point. But Unity is not inherently bad; it's just that some developers lack the chops to do it well.

Vexs 10y ago
The issue is is that if a game is subpar, or even par, it's really, really obvious it's made with unity. All the best games you can't tell, but unity seems to have a sort of unique feel to it that you can pick out pretty easily, which gives it a bad name.
Impossible 10y ago
Minor nitpick, Limbo wasn't a Unity game, it was a custom engine. Limbo predated Unity having decent console support, they moved to using Unity for Inside (a reference link http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/126729/Limbo_Developer_Playdead_Using_Unity_Engine_For_Next_Title.php http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/126729/Limbo_Developer_Pl...).
lost_name 10y ago
Indeed. This one has proven popular as well. https://unity3d.com/showcase/case-stories/hearthstone https://unity3d.com/showcase/case-stories/hearthstone
- droopyEyelids 10y ago
  Notable for being one of the most sluggish, buggiest, and resource intensive triple-a title available on each of its platforms.
  - bduerst 10y ago
    Is that because of Unity or is it because of the constant phoning in to the servers?

indenturedsmile 10y ago

While I agree most of the time, there are still great games made with Unity. I think the problem is more around the ease of use for developers. They might not make performance or "feel" a priority when it's so easy to make a game that's "good enough". Inside was a Unity game, and it was a dream to play from a technical perspective.

kayoone 10y ago

The nature of Unity makes huge amounts of mediocre games done by inexperienced devs inevitable, but i don't think it is a problem of Unity specifically. There are amazing games done on the platform like Firewatch, Cities Skylines, Monument Valley, Ori and the Blindforest etc

anchpop 10y ago
Don't forget Kerbal Space Program

golergka 10y ago

Unity is a fantastic tech for its proper use case. As a Unity dev, I have a lot of grievances against them — but the problems you're describing come not from the tech, but from completely inexperienced developers for whom their Unity projects are first software projects ever. For better or for worse, the whole Unity dev culture is centered on amateurs: on one hand, it leads to a lot of game designers and artists starting to write code for the first time in their life, but on another, it leads to horrible architecture and complete disregard for good development practices. Unity asset store, for example, is full of awfully written code, bit it doesn't stop heaps of developers around the world from using it in their projects and create amazing stories and visual experiences woth it. In other words, sometimes worse is truly better.

bas 10y ago
Reminds me of the JavaScript ecosystem.

happyslobro 10y ago

Yep, if there was ever a game that deserved a custom game engine, it would be Kerbal Space Program. The version of Unity that they used constrained them to 3.5 gb, and 32 bit floating point coordinates, in a game that deserves a true scale solar system. I keep hearing that double precision floats for coordinates are unrealistic because of the optimisations that are available only for 32 bit floats, but I am willing to make serious sacrifices to free myself from the Spheres of Influence and the Orbital Railroad of Destiny; the real solar system mod forces a full scale environment, and even though the visual geometry is off by roughly a metre from the physical geometry, I still consider it to be an improvement.

dietrichepp 10y ago
I don't know where you're hearing that double precision is unrealistic. You can operate on half as many at a time, and some of the operations are slower, and some GPUs have no support for it—but if you're not using GPU acceleration, it should be possible.
mxfh 10y ago
The engine itself can only do so much, if you don't want to write a whole new graphics library too. This post by the Outerra dev on planetary scale precision issues and on how to circumvent some issues by implementing custom log scale depth buffers offers a good introduction. http://outerra.blogspot.de/2012/11/maximizing-depth-buffer-range-and.html http://outerra.blogspot.de/2012/11/maximizing-depth-buffer-r...
erikpukinskis 10y ago
> 32 bit floating point coordinates, in a game that deserves a true scale solar system. How are 32 bit addresses inadequate? Just have a multi-level addressing system and you're done. You're going to have a Level of Detail system anyway, right? This seems like a non-issue. It's not like you need to do math on grains of sand spread across multiple galaxies.

aphextron 10y ago

It's not the engine, it's the devs. Unity is head and shoulders above UE4 nowadays. The problem is that it has made developing games so dead simple that anyone in their bedroom can release a game on Steam these days, and as a result there's a lot of garbage.

tedajax 10y ago
> Unity is head and shoulders above UE4 nowadays This is demonstrably not true. Just look at the limitations of the standard shader to see where Unity falls apart. Or hell input handling or any number of features for which UE4 has a better solution (or at least a path towards a better solution since you have the source code).

PhasmaFelis 10y ago

As I understand it, Unity's big PR problem is that they require the Unity logo on games made with the free version, but not with the paid version. So you see lots of cheap/dodgy Unity-branded games, and never realize how many top-shelf games are also made in Unity.

busterarm 10y ago

I am Setsuna and Firewatch were neither sluggish nor buggy.