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I think a lot of developers who come into game dev have a mistaken view of Unity as the "budget" choice based on the poor quality of many of the indie titles sh

I think a lot of developers who come into game dev have a mistaken view of Unity as the "budget" choice based on the poor quality of many of the indie titles shovleled out with it. But Unity is probably the most advanced game engine in existence today. Far beyond Unreal 4 in terms of both performance and tooling. The reason the average quality is so low with Unity titles is because of just how easy the technical aspect of making a video game has become with modern engines. The barrier to entry for creating a game with AAA graphics is now a $20 shader pack and the ability to hack together some C# scripts.

emodendroket 9y ago
I have pretty much no experience with game development, but why is UE4 such a popular choice for commercial games if that's the case?
- aphextron 9y ago
  Most big studios are still on UE as a matter of momentum and the aforementioned biases. Unity really only became viable in the past 3 years, which is shorter than the average AAA game development cycle. Also certain games such as FPS are still better off with UE, as that's what it was designed for.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    Well, the examples I had in mind are, like, Guilty Gear Xrd or Tekken 7, where there isn't any obvious history or genre reason (to me) to pick it. But maybe it's just old prejudices, as you said.
    - lfowles 9y ago
      Possibly leveraging existing C++ experience.
      - emodendroket 9y ago
        Oh, yeah, that's the obvious answer. Thanks.
  - mnarayan01 9y ago
    > Also certain games such as FPS are still better off with UE, as that's what it was designed for. What game types would you consider Unity to have better performance and/or tooling for? Also, if you're feeling generous, why?
    - aphextron 9y ago
      >What game types would you consider Unity to have better performance and/or tooling for? Also, if you're feeling generous, why? The main difference IMO is that Unity has become the de facto standard for anything VR related. UE is doing a good job with their VR support too, but it's really clear which engine is favored by SteamVR, the Oculus SDK, and the community at large. Unity also has a first class asset store which can save you months of development time when it comes to things like networking or doing complex shaders. Other than that it really comes down to personal preference. Scripting with Unity vs. Blueprints with UE, C++ vs C#, etc.
  - corysama 9y ago
    You are selling UE short in a whole lot of ways. Anywhere Unity's performance is higher it's because the feature set is less advanced. It's a matter of two different approaches. Unity started out targeting low-end PC, then got into mobile a long time ago when mobile was very weak. So, naturally it used very basic techniques that are crappy but fast. Over time, Unity has been adding more and more advanced tech. UE is the opposite story. It started out targeting consoles and high-end PC. It started targeting mobile when mobile was already pretty capable. At first, the tech it used was not feasible on mobile. But, over time the perf improvements of UE and mobile hardware have been converging.
mikulas_florek 9y ago
Vanilla Unity tooling is a joke. Of course it's enough for most games. Store solves some issues, but not all.
hacker_9 9y ago
Agree, Unreal Engine still has a lot of catching up to do in terms of ease of use and performance (even importing an FBX file in the editor is a slow affair).
deleted 9y ago
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camus2 9y ago
> Far beyond Unreal 4 in terms of both performance and tooling. No, that's untrue. First it's much much easier to develop a game from scratch with Unreal without a single line of code, which isn't possible with Unity. Second Unreal "vanilla" is more advanced in every ways. Unity is a toy compared to it. Unity is "budget" and successful because it used to be much much more affordable than Unreal. That's barely the case today. There is very little reason to use it instead of Unreal. I started game dev with all that C++ bullcrap and DirectX headers with its insane API and message pump, and there is absolutely nothing better than Unreal in my book today, both in terms of ease of use, pricing and performances.
lentil_soup 9y ago
I don't know what tools you're talking about, Unity comes with hardly any tools at all. You have to buy them in the Asset Store if you want anything a little bit more advanced. Then again, Unity IS way easier to get started with, easy to script in and get something running and brilliant for prototyping quick ideas.

emodendroket 9y ago

I have pretty much no experience with game development, but why is UE4 such a popular choice for commercial games if that's the case?

aphextron 9y ago
Most big studios are still on UE as a matter of momentum and the aforementioned biases. Unity really only became viable in the past 3 years, which is shorter than the average AAA game development cycle. Also certain games such as FPS are still better off with UE, as that's what it was designed for.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  Well, the examples I had in mind are, like, Guilty Gear Xrd or Tekken 7, where there isn't any obvious history or genre reason (to me) to pick it. But maybe it's just old prejudices, as you said.
  - lfowles 9y ago
    Possibly leveraging existing C++ experience.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      Oh, yeah, that's the obvious answer. Thanks.
- mnarayan01 9y ago
  > Also certain games such as FPS are still better off with UE, as that's what it was designed for. What game types would you consider Unity to have better performance and/or tooling for? Also, if you're feeling generous, why?
  - aphextron 9y ago
    >What game types would you consider Unity to have better performance and/or tooling for? Also, if you're feeling generous, why? The main difference IMO is that Unity has become the de facto standard for anything VR related. UE is doing a good job with their VR support too, but it's really clear which engine is favored by SteamVR, the Oculus SDK, and the community at large. Unity also has a first class asset store which can save you months of development time when it comes to things like networking or doing complex shaders. Other than that it really comes down to personal preference. Scripting with Unity vs. Blueprints with UE, C++ vs C#, etc.
- corysama 9y ago
  You are selling UE short in a whole lot of ways. Anywhere Unity's performance is higher it's because the feature set is less advanced. It's a matter of two different approaches. Unity started out targeting low-end PC, then got into mobile a long time ago when mobile was very weak. So, naturally it used very basic techniques that are crappy but fast. Over time, Unity has been adding more and more advanced tech. UE is the opposite story. It started out targeting consoles and high-end PC. It started targeting mobile when mobile was already pretty capable. At first, the tech it used was not feasible on mobile. But, over time the perf improvements of UE and mobile hardware have been converging.

mikulas_florek 9y ago

Vanilla Unity tooling is a joke. Of course it's enough for most games. Store solves some issues, but not all.

hacker_9 9y ago

Agree, Unreal Engine still has a lot of catching up to do in terms of ease of use and performance (even importing an FBX file in the editor is a slow affair).

deleted 9y ago

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camus2 9y ago

> Far beyond Unreal 4 in terms of both performance and tooling. No, that's untrue. First it's much much easier to develop a game from scratch with Unreal without a single line of code, which isn't possible with Unity. Second Unreal "vanilla" is more advanced in every ways. Unity is a toy compared to it. Unity is "budget" and successful because it used to be much much more affordable than Unreal. That's barely the case today. There is very little reason to use it instead of Unreal. I started game dev with all that C++ bullcrap and DirectX headers with its insane API and message pump, and there is absolutely nothing better than Unreal in my book today, both in terms of ease of use, pricing and performances.

lentil_soup 9y ago

I don't know what tools you're talking about, Unity comes with hardly any tools at all. You have to buy them in the Asset Store if you want anything a little bit more advanced. Then again, Unity IS way easier to get started with, easy to script in and get something running and brilliant for prototyping quick ideas.