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The proprietary, closed, vertically integrated tooling in Unity and Unreal are what make them such terrible tools for use in a professional development environm

The proprietary, closed, vertically integrated tooling in Unity and Unreal are what make them such terrible tools for use in a professional development environment. All of the best programming tools are free, open source software. Yet somehow we're meant to believe game programming is "special" in some way that it shouldn't use the same ecosystem as every other area of software development. Yeah, right.

pjmlp 10y ago
Because the values of the game industry are rooted in the demoscene, commercialization of game related IP assets and consulting work related specific hardware and design knowledge, without any religion about freedom of tooling, this is what most FOSS advocates fail to understand about the industry.
- plafl 10y ago
  My opinion is quite similar to yours. I have never worked in videogames but my, uninformed, opinion has always been that open source videogames lag so much behind other types of open source programs because they require a lot of non-programmers to work. I don't think the complexity of the engines is the main problem, after all operating systems or compilers are also quite complex and critical software. So, what is so special about programming that makes people want to share their work for free? The only other field I think that has a similar collaboration culture would be academic research.
  - mikulas_florek 10y ago
    > So, what is so special about programming that makes people want to share their work for free? I created my engine for myself, I guess a lot of open source projects start with one person solving his problem/having fun. I open source it because: * money is not everything, it might bring value to some people, but I doubt people would be willing to pay for it * even if it's open source it does not prevent me to earn money with it * I benefit from people using it - submitting patches, reporting problems, testing on different hardware * it can bring money in different ways * if I share my property (e.g. car, flat, computer) with somebody else, it limits my use "rights", if I share software, it limits me in no way
- moron4hire 10y ago
  Given that every other industry has moved to FOSS software for their tooling, it's the game industry that has a "religion" about proprietary software being necessary to make money.
  - mikulas_florek 10y ago
    I am not sure that game industry has a religion about proprietary software, they use a lot of open source libraries. But you need a lot of tools to make a game - GUI editor, animation graph editor, audio editor, cutscene editor, AI editor ... and it makes harder to create games if all of these editors are from different 3rd party providers with different controls, settings, installers, .... What is more some of these tools need to be taylored to the specific game or integrated too tightly with other editors. E.g. cutscene editor must be tightly integrated with scene editor, or AI editor must be taylored to specific game, since they use extremely different AIs. What is more thare are not really FOSS tools for game industry. There is GIMP or Blender, but most artists prefer commercial alternatives because they are arguably better. Tiled editor is pretty popular for 2D. But other than there is almost nothing. I would love to avoid implementing an editor/debugger for my behaviour trees, or visual editor for shaders, but there is simply no good FOSS for that.
  - favorited 10y ago
    The claim that "every other industry has moved to FOSS software for their tooling" is demonstrably false. Has the graphic design industry moved off Photoshop and Illustrator? Has video editing moved off Avid, Premiere, et. al.? Have Windows devs abandoned Visual Studio?
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    What other industry? Many of the tools I use daily on our customer projects are proprietary.
  - tluyben2 10y ago
    I wish it were true but major parts of my time are not using FOSS; iOS app dev & embedded dev notably.
BoorishBears 10y ago
Unity is opening more and more of the engine up. And as for Unreal... https://www.unrealengine.com/ue4-on-github https://www.unrealengine.com/ue4-on-github
- mikulas_florek 10y ago
  I wish Unity make their code public, they might be publishing a bit of code but most of it is still hidden.

pjmlp 10y ago

Because the values of the game industry are rooted in the demoscene, commercialization of game related IP assets and consulting work related specific hardware and design knowledge, without any religion about freedom of tooling, this is what most FOSS advocates fail to understand about the industry.

plafl 10y ago
My opinion is quite similar to yours. I have never worked in videogames but my, uninformed, opinion has always been that open source videogames lag so much behind other types of open source programs because they require a lot of non-programmers to work. I don't think the complexity of the engines is the main problem, after all operating systems or compilers are also quite complex and critical software. So, what is so special about programming that makes people want to share their work for free? The only other field I think that has a similar collaboration culture would be academic research.
- mikulas_florek 10y ago
  > So, what is so special about programming that makes people want to share their work for free? I created my engine for myself, I guess a lot of open source projects start with one person solving his problem/having fun. I open source it because: * money is not everything, it might bring value to some people, but I doubt people would be willing to pay for it * even if it's open source it does not prevent me to earn money with it * I benefit from people using it - submitting patches, reporting problems, testing on different hardware * it can bring money in different ways * if I share my property (e.g. car, flat, computer) with somebody else, it limits my use "rights", if I share software, it limits me in no way
moron4hire 10y ago
Given that every other industry has moved to FOSS software for their tooling, it's the game industry that has a "religion" about proprietary software being necessary to make money.
- mikulas_florek 10y ago
  I am not sure that game industry has a religion about proprietary software, they use a lot of open source libraries. But you need a lot of tools to make a game - GUI editor, animation graph editor, audio editor, cutscene editor, AI editor ... and it makes harder to create games if all of these editors are from different 3rd party providers with different controls, settings, installers, .... What is more some of these tools need to be taylored to the specific game or integrated too tightly with other editors. E.g. cutscene editor must be tightly integrated with scene editor, or AI editor must be taylored to specific game, since they use extremely different AIs. What is more thare are not really FOSS tools for game industry. There is GIMP or Blender, but most artists prefer commercial alternatives because they are arguably better. Tiled editor is pretty popular for 2D. But other than there is almost nothing. I would love to avoid implementing an editor/debugger for my behaviour trees, or visual editor for shaders, but there is simply no good FOSS for that.
- favorited 10y ago
  The claim that "every other industry has moved to FOSS software for their tooling" is demonstrably false. Has the graphic design industry moved off Photoshop and Illustrator? Has video editing moved off Avid, Premiere, et. al.? Have Windows devs abandoned Visual Studio?
- pjmlp 10y ago
  What other industry? Many of the tools I use daily on our customer projects are proprietary.
- tluyben2 10y ago
  I wish it were true but major parts of my time are not using FOSS; iOS app dev & embedded dev notably.

BoorishBears 10y ago

Unity is opening more and more of the engine up. And as for Unreal... https://www.unrealengine.com/ue4-on-github https://www.unrealengine.com/ue4-on-github

mikulas_florek 10y ago
I wish Unity make their code public, they might be publishing a bit of code but most of it is still hidden.