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I fully agree with the author about the risk of Unity as a closed source engine. Unity isn't just closed source, but your main access to the engine is through

I fully agree with the author about the risk of Unity as a closed source engine. Unity isn't just closed source, but your main access to the engine is through an ancient Mono .NET environment that hasn't been updated in years due to licensing issues. The latest re-licensing of Xamarin should help here, but as with many other features Unity will be afraid to make upgrades for fear of braking compatibility. This means that most of the Unity game code that will set your game apart has to be written in C# 3.0, and your memory use and performance is heavily taxed, unless you resort to platform specific native plugins. As a game developer this scales down your ambition down to mostly casual games. The type of AAA games that Unity advertises are mostly distinguished by large amount of content, but nothing innovative in gameplay or technology besides what the engine provides. I can't imagine anyone starting a No Man's Sky or even a next Minecraft in Unity. This is sad, because about 5 years ago I was cheering for Unity and having a lot of fun with some prototypes. They know they are a mill for casual clone games too, since they are shifting their business focus to online developer services like advertising and multiplayer hosting with per-player fees.

douche 10y ago
Microsoft really ought to buy Unity. Selfishly, it might prod them along to expand their .Net Core (or whatever they are calling it this week) offerings further. XNA used to sit in this space, and it was a pretty nifty little game development platform for C#. Monogame has carried on, and expanded the target platforms nicely, but hasn't really made many other improvements, from what I've seen, getting back into it after a few years away.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- Fr0styMatt88 10y ago
  It's unfortunate but Unity is a prime example of what technical debt can do to a product it seems. https://feedback.unity3d.com/suggestions/change-font-size-in-unity-editor https://feedback.unity3d.com/suggestions/change-font-size-in... http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/when-will-unity-support-high-dpi-on-windows.424958/ http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/when-will-unity-support-hig...
  - izym 10y ago
    I'm not quite sure how those two threads indicate technical debt. Could you elaborate?
    - loup-vaillant 10y ago
      First thread is asking for a simple fix ("change font size" feature), that would really improve the usability of the editor. It has not been done for 7 years, which suggests that it's not an easy fix at all. It should be. Second threads ask for support for high DPI. It's a simple scale issue, but somehow hard to do it on Windows. Stuff that should be easy but isn't is a strong indicator of technical debt.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      - Fr0styMatt88 10y ago
        Yeah, I should have explained a bit better but that's exactly what I was getting at with those two links.
      - user5994461 10y ago
        > Stuff that should be easy but isn't is a strong indicator of technical debt. It can also be an indicator that there is noone working on it. It's common to have fix which are relatively easy but noone to implement them.
        loup-vaillant 10y ago
        Doesn't apply to obvious wins such as variable font sizes or high DPI. Those items are necessarily high priority, because of their low hanging fruit nature. Or, they just get their priorities wrong, meaning, they're being stupid. Not a safe assumption in my opinion.
        user5994461 10y ago
notoes 10y ago
The Mono compiler has been upgraded recently: http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/upgraded-c-compiler-on-5-3-5p8.417363/ http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/upgraded-c-compiler-on-5-3-...
- bluesilver07 10y ago
  But this is just initial step and doesn't add any new language features. From the link: The Mono runtime we use in our Editor and Players has not been upgraded. The compiler still targets the C# 4 language. This is approximately what our old compiler supported. The compiler still target the .Net 3.5 framework profile we previously supported.
  - jackmott 10y ago
    .net 4.6 and runtime and gc upgrades are all in the pipeline. but that doesnt help anyone right now.
  - bluesilver07 10y ago
    They have started the upgrade - https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/upgraded-mono-net-in-editor-on-5-5-0b4.433541/ https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/upgraded-mono-net-in-edito...

douche 10y ago

Microsoft really ought to buy Unity. Selfishly, it might prod them along to expand their .Net Core (or whatever they are calling it this week) offerings further. XNA used to sit in this space, and it was a pretty nifty little game development platform for C#. Monogame has carried on, and expanded the target platforms nicely, but hasn't really made many other improvements, from what I've seen, getting back into it after a few years away.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Fr0styMatt88 10y ago
It's unfortunate but Unity is a prime example of what technical debt can do to a product it seems. https://feedback.unity3d.com/suggestions/change-font-size-in-unity-editor https://feedback.unity3d.com/suggestions/change-font-size-in... http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/when-will-unity-support-high-dpi-on-windows.424958/ http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/when-will-unity-support-hig...
- izym 10y ago
  I'm not quite sure how those two threads indicate technical debt. Could you elaborate?
  - loup-vaillant 10y ago
    First thread is asking for a simple fix ("change font size" feature), that would really improve the usability of the editor. It has not been done for 7 years, which suggests that it's not an easy fix at all. It should be. Second threads ask for support for high DPI. It's a simple scale issue, but somehow hard to do it on Windows. Stuff that should be easy but isn't is a strong indicator of technical debt.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - Fr0styMatt88 10y ago
      Yeah, I should have explained a bit better but that's exactly what I was getting at with those two links.
    - user5994461 10y ago
      > Stuff that should be easy but isn't is a strong indicator of technical debt. It can also be an indicator that there is noone working on it. It's common to have fix which are relatively easy but noone to implement them.
      - loup-vaillant 10y ago
        Doesn't apply to obvious wins such as variable font sizes or high DPI. Those items are necessarily high priority, because of their low hanging fruit nature. Or, they just get their priorities wrong, meaning, they're being stupid. Not a safe assumption in my opinion.
        user5994461 10y ago

notoes 10y ago

The Mono compiler has been upgraded recently: http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/upgraded-c-compiler-on-5-3-5p8.417363/ http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/upgraded-c-compiler-on-5-3-...

bluesilver07 10y ago
But this is just initial step and doesn't add any new language features. From the link: The Mono runtime we use in our Editor and Players has not been upgraded. The compiler still targets the C# 4 language. This is approximately what our old compiler supported. The compiler still target the .Net 3.5 framework profile we previously supported.
- jackmott 10y ago
  .net 4.6 and runtime and gc upgrades are all in the pipeline. but that doesnt help anyone right now.
- bluesilver07 10y ago
  They have started the upgrade - https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/upgraded-mono-net-in-editor-on-5-5-0b4.433541/ https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/upgraded-mono-net-in-edito...