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Most game developers do not code their own engines. In fact unless you're doing something special (e.g. claybook, Miegakure, anything with true videos, or an un

Most game developers do not code their own engines. In fact unless you're doing something special (e.g. claybook, Miegakure, anything with true videos, or an unusual development pipeline/platform), it is immeasurably more economical to use an engine like unity/unreal with their large communities, asset stores, support and decent tooling. Even many 'AAA' games are now starting to use these commoditised engines (possibly with their own extensions/forks)

failrate 8y ago
Lots of game developers roll their own game engines. Some even make game engines as their new programming language training exercise. Unreal and Unity are making inroads into AAA.
ryandrake 8y ago
Aren't game engines like Unity and Unreal only appropriate for first person shooters or third person adventure games? What about 2d platform games? Real time and turn based strategy games? Flight sims? Sports games? Board game remakes? You wouldn't choose a generic "game engine" for any of these, would you? Honest question, I'm not a game programmer, but as a programmer it sounds unlikely that a single package could be appropriate for so many different genres of games.
- hurricaneSlider 8y ago
  There actually has been a lot of work done to make it suitable for use cases such as 2d, racing, etc. An engine like unity basically provides utilities such as physically based rendering, camera systems, visual editors, scripting environments, a scenegraph editor, preview windows, io, asset import and conversion, audio, etc. Some games are of course easier to make than others in such engines, but they aren't that prescriptive.
- wmil 8y ago
  Hearthstone is done in Unity. Unity has a bunch of 2d platformer features these days. What you're missing is that these big engines are also game development environments with extensive tools and integrated market places to purchase assets and features. Learning Unity is learning an entire platform. It's a marketable skill. Generally smaller developers don't have the development resources to roll custom everything. But modern platforms have enough spare hardware resources that the inefficiencies of Unity are worthwhile.
jsheard 8y ago
> In fact unless you're doing something special (e.g. claybook, [...]), it is immeasurably more economical to use an engine like unity/unreal Even Claybook is based on Unreal, just with heavily customized rendering and physics systems. Lead developer: https://twitter.com/SebAaltonen/status/977195448132775936 https://twitter.com/SebAaltonen/status/977195448132775936
gambiting 8y ago
Uhmmm....I work for one of the top 3 largest game publishers in the world and all of our games are made using our own engines that were done in-house. Unity and Unreal Engine are only used for prototyping(with maybe one exception in Unity, but that was a small project done by a very few people).
- hurricaneSlider 8y ago
  I guess I've only been exposed to the independent scene (which I would assert accounts probably for the majority of releases, if not the sales volume) That you're using a handrolled engine is fine, I'm sure your company knows what they're doing. But in the context of this post, and for people who'd like to start game development/design, saying that most devs write their own engine is in my opinion damaging, as I really don't think that most smaller studios do. It increases the barrier to entry, and perpetuates a certain amount of elitism, which really considering the make up of the industry is no help at all.
  - DTT 8y ago
    >as I really don't think that smaller studios do A great amount of indies do. Super Meat Boy was built with a hand rolled engine. Same for Cave Story, Binding of Isaac, Terraria, Stardew Valley, Dwarf Fortress, Celeste and many other memorable titles. It's more intense on the Japanese side though. Loads of -doujin- game developers, like the many Touhou spinoffs games handroll their own stuff. I'd say, using a prebuilt engine ecosystem has become more common with the appearance and growth of Unity but it hasn't stopped people doing their own thing and it certainly hasn't been a solely positive contribution, you criticize elitism in the days when the Steam store pages are flooded by trashy asset flips and barely working early access games that sometimes never truly get finished. A little bit elitism would in fact not hurt if we don't want to hit another video game industry crash.
    - Pulcinella 8y ago
      Stardew Valley and Celeste aren’t entirely custom. They both use XNA.

failrate 8y ago

Lots of game developers roll their own game engines. Some even make game engines as their new programming language training exercise. Unreal and Unity are making inroads into AAA.

ryandrake 8y ago

Aren't game engines like Unity and Unreal only appropriate for first person shooters or third person adventure games? What about 2d platform games? Real time and turn based strategy games? Flight sims? Sports games? Board game remakes? You wouldn't choose a generic "game engine" for any of these, would you? Honest question, I'm not a game programmer, but as a programmer it sounds unlikely that a single package could be appropriate for so many different genres of games.

hurricaneSlider 8y ago
There actually has been a lot of work done to make it suitable for use cases such as 2d, racing, etc. An engine like unity basically provides utilities such as physically based rendering, camera systems, visual editors, scripting environments, a scenegraph editor, preview windows, io, asset import and conversion, audio, etc. Some games are of course easier to make than others in such engines, but they aren't that prescriptive.
wmil 8y ago
Hearthstone is done in Unity. Unity has a bunch of 2d platformer features these days. What you're missing is that these big engines are also game development environments with extensive tools and integrated market places to purchase assets and features. Learning Unity is learning an entire platform. It's a marketable skill. Generally smaller developers don't have the development resources to roll custom everything. But modern platforms have enough spare hardware resources that the inefficiencies of Unity are worthwhile.

jsheard 8y ago

> In fact unless you're doing something special (e.g. claybook, [...]), it is immeasurably more economical to use an engine like unity/unreal Even Claybook is based on Unreal, just with heavily customized rendering and physics systems. Lead developer: https://twitter.com/SebAaltonen/status/977195448132775936 https://twitter.com/SebAaltonen/status/977195448132775936

gambiting 8y ago

Uhmmm....I work for one of the top 3 largest game publishers in the world and all of our games are made using our own engines that were done in-house. Unity and Unreal Engine are only used for prototyping(with maybe one exception in Unity, but that was a small project done by a very few people).

hurricaneSlider 8y ago
I guess I've only been exposed to the independent scene (which I would assert accounts probably for the majority of releases, if not the sales volume) That you're using a handrolled engine is fine, I'm sure your company knows what they're doing. But in the context of this post, and for people who'd like to start game development/design, saying that most devs write their own engine is in my opinion damaging, as I really don't think that most smaller studios do. It increases the barrier to entry, and perpetuates a certain amount of elitism, which really considering the make up of the industry is no help at all.
- DTT 8y ago
  >as I really don't think that smaller studios do A great amount of indies do. Super Meat Boy was built with a hand rolled engine. Same for Cave Story, Binding of Isaac, Terraria, Stardew Valley, Dwarf Fortress, Celeste and many other memorable titles. It's more intense on the Japanese side though. Loads of -doujin- game developers, like the many Touhou spinoffs games handroll their own stuff. I'd say, using a prebuilt engine ecosystem has become more common with the appearance and growth of Unity but it hasn't stopped people doing their own thing and it certainly hasn't been a solely positive contribution, you criticize elitism in the days when the Steam store pages are flooded by trashy asset flips and barely working early access games that sometimes never truly get finished. A little bit elitism would in fact not hurt if we don't want to hit another video game industry crash.
  - Pulcinella 8y ago
    Stardew Valley and Celeste aren’t entirely custom. They both use XNA.