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If you do have to redo everything, why the hell would you switch to another proprietary technology?! Why not use OpenSceneGraph, OGRE, Irrlicht, Cube2, or one o

by Figs 8y ago

If you do have to redo everything, why the hell would you switch to another proprietary technology?! Why not use OpenSceneGraph, OGRE, Irrlicht, Cube2, or one of the hundreds of other free game engines / frameworks out there instead?

philipov 8y ago
Because it's easier and cheaper to hire developers who already know Unreal. Also, one reason enterprises pay for RedHat Linux is so that when something goes wrong, there's a business liable for it. You can't get a service level agreement from a community.
Thaxll 8y ago
Because open source game engines are bad. There is a huge gap between Unity/Unreal and an open source engine, it's not even comparable.
- nacs 8y ago
  Godot is getting pretty close but I agree with Unity and Unreal being quite a bit ahead at this time.
cwyers 8y ago
The commercial offerings are far more used, which means there's more tools, there's more prebuilt assets you can buy, there's more documentation and StackOverflow answers. I would bet that either of Unity or Unreal have more dev resources going into them than all of the ones you mentioned there combined, too.
Impossible 8y ago
Based on your comment it seems like you haven't looked into or used a game engine since the late 90s (Cube 2 and Irrlicht?). The only real open source competition for Unreal and Unity is probably Godot, and it's not really competitive. Many of the engines you mentioned (OSG, Ogre) are not full game engine, but renderers and scene graph implementations. For that something like bgfx or even three.js if you're targeting the browser is a better open source alternative. Most of the engines you mentioned haven't been updated in years and don't have support for modern tech or platforms (VR, AR, DX12, Metal, Vulkan, PS4, XB1, Switch, etc) so you'd be better off writing your own engine if you wanted to actually ship a game. Your advice is like telling someone to license idtech in 2019...
- Nullabillity 8y ago
  Then put your money towards improving them (or writing your own, if that's cheaper/better?), rather than feeding yet another proprietary hog. By continuing to buy UE you're just digging yourself a deeper hole for when things inevitably turn sour (as they just did for Unity).
  - outworlder 8y ago
    That's an absurd proposition for most people. Rolling out our own worked for Minecraft. It also may work for bigger companies (Frontier Developments, Bethesda?). Successful releases using open-source engines are rare. For the overwhelmingly majority, they are much better off just using one of the big game engines, even after paying them.

by Figs 8y ago

philipov 8y ago

Because it's easier and cheaper to hire developers who already know Unreal. Also, one reason enterprises pay for RedHat Linux is so that when something goes wrong, there's a business liable for it. You can't get a service level agreement from a community.

Thaxll 8y ago

Because open source game engines are bad. There is a huge gap between Unity/Unreal and an open source engine, it's not even comparable.

nacs 8y ago
Godot is getting pretty close but I agree with Unity and Unreal being quite a bit ahead at this time.

cwyers 8y ago

The commercial offerings are far more used, which means there's more tools, there's more prebuilt assets you can buy, there's more documentation and StackOverflow answers. I would bet that either of Unity or Unreal have more dev resources going into them than all of the ones you mentioned there combined, too.

Impossible 8y ago

Based on your comment it seems like you haven't looked into or used a game engine since the late 90s (Cube 2 and Irrlicht?). The only real open source competition for Unreal and Unity is probably Godot, and it's not really competitive. Many of the engines you mentioned (OSG, Ogre) are not full game engine, but renderers and scene graph implementations. For that something like bgfx or even three.js if you're targeting the browser is a better open source alternative. Most of the engines you mentioned haven't been updated in years and don't have support for modern tech or platforms (VR, AR, DX12, Metal, Vulkan, PS4, XB1, Switch, etc) so you'd be better off writing your own engine if you wanted to actually ship a game. Your advice is like telling someone to license idtech in 2019...

Nullabillity 8y ago
Then put your money towards improving them (or writing your own, if that's cheaper/better?), rather than feeding yet another proprietary hog. By continuing to buy UE you're just digging yourself a deeper hole for when things inevitably turn sour (as they just did for Unity).
- outworlder 8y ago
  That's an absurd proposition for most people. Rolling out our own worked for Minecraft. It also may work for bigger companies (Frontier Developments, Bethesda?). Successful releases using open-source engines are rare. For the overwhelmingly majority, they are much better off just using one of the big game engines, even after paying them.