4 ms·

Godot is no threat at all to Unreal, at the high end of AAA development you really need the dialed-in horsepower of either an in-house engine, or something like

Godot is no threat at all to Unreal, at the high end of AAA development you really need the dialed-in horsepower of either an in-house engine, or something like Unreal, which has been increasingly consolidating market share over the last decade. Godot competes squarely with mid-market stuff: Indie, so-called "Triple-I" (high budget """indie""") and AA development, where Unity is the dominant engine. Unity has very little penetration share among the big AAA games. Godot and other open source engines squeeze Unity from the bottom, and Unreal squeezes it from the top.

simonebrunozzi 4y ago
Given you seem to know a lot about this, what's the main reason why Unreal is great at high end AAA, while Unity is not?
- floydnoel 4y ago
  Epic has shipped first-party AAA games with Unreal. Unity has not done so. They had a planned release (of a high quality first party title) but have more recently cancelled it.
  - squeaky-clean 4y ago
    Unity also had a collaborative open source game project and canned that. And an example multiplayer FPS, but canned it because the UI, scene loading, and networking layers were all implemented using custom code and not the Unity built in equivalents. They had a 4 player multiplayer co-op game demo that they abandoned. Many of their demo projects where they promised to release source code, and they didn't deliver on that (a few of them they did deliver on but specifically under a license that allows no asset or code re-use). Studios have made some great games with Unity. But the company Unity themselves have no idea how to finish a game, or even make one using stock unity. Even if they can't use current stock unity, they never bring their custom code into the mainline engine releases... And I'm making these complaints as someone who exclusively uses Unity for their own hobby games. I really ought to give Godot a try, I just have so much personal experience using Unity (and working around their engine) that the idea of learning a new engine is daunting.
- pdntspa 4y ago
  Personally I think it is because it has terrible performance. Scenes that Unreal seems to be able to render at full frame rates run at a fraction of that in Unity. Even its vaunted 2D system is slow as balls... load times for Graveyard Keeper, as an example, are agonizingly long. And for what? A hundred megabytes at most of 2D pixel-art assets? What is the engine doing with all that time? Certainly not just loading and decompressing shit into RAM.
  - cdchn 4y ago
    Reminds me of the unnecessarily long GTA Online loading times that were a result of parsing a giant JSON file. Is it really worth blaming the engine when maybe its the game doing something improper?
    - pdntspa 4y ago
      Maybe, and I don't know the details. I just have a hard time seeing how something like Graveyard Keeper doesn't load nearly instantly.
    - omoikane 4y ago
      "How I cut GTA Online loading times by 70%" https://nee.lv/2021/02/28/How-I-cut-GTA-Online-loading-times-by-70/ https://nee.lv/2021/02/28/How-I-cut-GTA-Online-loading-times... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26296339 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26296339
- dbrueck 4y ago
  I'm a daily user of UE but not a game dev, so my perspective might be skewed, but nearly everything in UE targets high end dev (even the clunky parts, haha). The materials and rendering stuff are stellar, but also things like their asset pipeline and content workflows all have a "big project" vibe. Sometimes the complexity of UE can be overwhelming. For example, if you're just trying to set up an AI-controlled actor to animate differently in some different states, you'll initially be frustrated by the gazillion bits of setup work you have to do. But in every case I've seen, that complexity exists to support the flexibility and richness needed by top of the line games. Basically, for better and for worse, UE was written by and is used by people who have built, shipped, and supported AAA games.
- maccard 4y ago
  I've worked on a few "high end" games, and used to work for Epic. Epic dogfoods the engine with _real_ games. Fortnite, Paragon, Battle Breakers, Robo Recall are all titles written in UE4, by Epic, which have had active contributions to the engine in their development. Whether you like the game or not doesn't have much of a bearing on the impact the game has on the engine. They did the same with older games too, and the remnants of games like UT and GoW are very visible in the source of the engine itself.
  - Arelius 4y ago
    Also, the incentives are real. Unity, generally makes money by convincing more people that they could make video games, and keeping up that belief so they keep paying for versions or subscription fees. Epic only makes money after games have actually shipped.
    - maccard 4y ago
      That's not actually true, the royalty only license for Unreal only started with UE4, and there is still "contact us" licensing available too. On the unity side, an increasing amount of their revenue comes from "grow solutions" [0] which is basically their ad networks. Game engine development is a funny business [0] https://www.gamesindustry.biz/unity-posts-first-profitable-quarter-on-non-gaap-basis-expects-to-be-profitable-in-2023 https://www.gamesindustry.biz/unity-posts-first-profitable-q...
      - Arelius 4y ago
        It's not exactly true, but the incentives still align in practice. "Contact Us" Licensing has always existed as you state, but has often included the possibility of royalties, and even when it doesn't it's always been at the price ranges where shipping a game was more likely than not. And in-fact, a problem with early Unreal licensing has been Epic's approach to support of "If it's not a problem in an Epic game, it's not our problem" Which has improved dramatically since changing their licensing model. And regarding Unity, yes, their ad networks are becoming more important, but that still doesn't do as good a job at aligning incentives, but more importantly, Unity has 15+ years of development in a model with unaligned incentives, which when you're talking about technical decisions, those are really important. And to be clear, I'm not arguing against the point that Epic being a game developer first is an important factor, I think it very much is, however I'm suggesting there are also other contributing factors.
lovehashbrowns 4y ago
Particularly when it comes to 2D games development! Fracturing that space is far more beneficial for Unreal than it is for Unity. Unreal, at least from my understanding, is awful for 2D. I'm playing around with 2D game development in Unity now and it's insanely easy to get started. I think the same goes for Godot where 2D dev work is a first-class citizen.
echelon 4y ago
How long until every tech company pours massive and substantial investment into Godot to turn it into the Blender of AAA games and film? It's almost to the point now. Amazon will ditch Lumberyard for Godot. They have deep interests in games as a part of their vision. Twitch, Luna, in house game studios, prime gaming, etc. Apple will absolutely do it. They're building their own metaverse and VR. Although I'd also gamble on them acquiring Epic Games. Apple wants to own the future of content creation. Google's significant investment in WebGPU is going to make Godot a more attractive platform. Google is indirectly contributing to this. As Godot gains more and more mindshare and economic activity happening atop it, it will achieve the activation energy required to take on AAA rendering and workflows. Companies will see Epic as a tax. And the entire world will be submitting patches to Godot. Godot is already spawning an ecosystem of support companies and console SDKs.
- Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
  >Amazon will ditch Lumberyard for Godot They are using O3DE now, which actually seems better than godot for 3D at first glance. Only issue so far is there isn't much of a community. Edit: >Although I'd also gamble on them acquiring Epic Games. That is never happening.
  - _hypx 4y ago
    O3DE is just open sourced Lumberyard.
    - Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
      I know, I was just pointing out that they have a better(?) open source engine already.
- objclxt 4y ago
  > Although I'd also gamble on [Apple] acquiring Epic Games Given Tim Sweeney holds a controlling stake in Epic this seems like the least likely outcome.
- riidom 4y ago
_hypx 4y ago
That's worryingly close to the same story high-end Unix providers told about Linux. If there is an open source engine that does 99% of what a proprietary engine does, then it's very likely we won't see that proprietary engine last for much longer.
- RobotToaster 4y ago
  Worryingly? Why would that be a bad thing?
  - _hypx 4y ago
    It isn't. You read that wrong.
- phendrenad2 4y ago
  Yes and all of those high-end Unix providers went on to enjoy great success selling addons for the Linux kernel and ecosystem.
Groxx 4y ago
Yeah, this is the real reason. Godot doesn't compete with Unreal. It competes with their largest commercial competitor: Unity. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. And when they want to "upgrade", Unreal is right there, and they already have an Epic account.

simonebrunozzi 4y ago

Given you seem to know a lot about this, what's the main reason why Unreal is great at high end AAA, while Unity is not?

floydnoel 4y ago
Epic has shipped first-party AAA games with Unreal. Unity has not done so. They had a planned release (of a high quality first party title) but have more recently cancelled it.
- squeaky-clean 4y ago
  Unity also had a collaborative open source game project and canned that. And an example multiplayer FPS, but canned it because the UI, scene loading, and networking layers were all implemented using custom code and not the Unity built in equivalents. They had a 4 player multiplayer co-op game demo that they abandoned. Many of their demo projects where they promised to release source code, and they didn't deliver on that (a few of them they did deliver on but specifically under a license that allows no asset or code re-use). Studios have made some great games with Unity. But the company Unity themselves have no idea how to finish a game, or even make one using stock unity. Even if they can't use current stock unity, they never bring their custom code into the mainline engine releases... And I'm making these complaints as someone who exclusively uses Unity for their own hobby games. I really ought to give Godot a try, I just have so much personal experience using Unity (and working around their engine) that the idea of learning a new engine is daunting.
pdntspa 4y ago
Personally I think it is because it has terrible performance. Scenes that Unreal seems to be able to render at full frame rates run at a fraction of that in Unity. Even its vaunted 2D system is slow as balls... load times for Graveyard Keeper, as an example, are agonizingly long. And for what? A hundred megabytes at most of 2D pixel-art assets? What is the engine doing with all that time? Certainly not just loading and decompressing shit into RAM.
- cdchn 4y ago
  Reminds me of the unnecessarily long GTA Online loading times that were a result of parsing a giant JSON file. Is it really worth blaming the engine when maybe its the game doing something improper?
  - pdntspa 4y ago
    Maybe, and I don't know the details. I just have a hard time seeing how something like Graveyard Keeper doesn't load nearly instantly.
  - omoikane 4y ago
    "How I cut GTA Online loading times by 70%" https://nee.lv/2021/02/28/How-I-cut-GTA-Online-loading-times-by-70/ https://nee.lv/2021/02/28/How-I-cut-GTA-Online-loading-times... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26296339 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26296339
dbrueck 4y ago
I'm a daily user of UE but not a game dev, so my perspective might be skewed, but nearly everything in UE targets high end dev (even the clunky parts, haha). The materials and rendering stuff are stellar, but also things like their asset pipeline and content workflows all have a "big project" vibe. Sometimes the complexity of UE can be overwhelming. For example, if you're just trying to set up an AI-controlled actor to animate differently in some different states, you'll initially be frustrated by the gazillion bits of setup work you have to do. But in every case I've seen, that complexity exists to support the flexibility and richness needed by top of the line games. Basically, for better and for worse, UE was written by and is used by people who have built, shipped, and supported AAA games.
maccard 4y ago
I've worked on a few "high end" games, and used to work for Epic. Epic dogfoods the engine with _real_ games. Fortnite, Paragon, Battle Breakers, Robo Recall are all titles written in UE4, by Epic, which have had active contributions to the engine in their development. Whether you like the game or not doesn't have much of a bearing on the impact the game has on the engine. They did the same with older games too, and the remnants of games like UT and GoW are very visible in the source of the engine itself.
- Arelius 4y ago
  Also, the incentives are real. Unity, generally makes money by convincing more people that they could make video games, and keeping up that belief so they keep paying for versions or subscription fees. Epic only makes money after games have actually shipped.
  - maccard 4y ago
    That's not actually true, the royalty only license for Unreal only started with UE4, and there is still "contact us" licensing available too. On the unity side, an increasing amount of their revenue comes from "grow solutions" [0] which is basically their ad networks. Game engine development is a funny business [0] https://www.gamesindustry.biz/unity-posts-first-profitable-quarter-on-non-gaap-basis-expects-to-be-profitable-in-2023 https://www.gamesindustry.biz/unity-posts-first-profitable-q...
    - Arelius 4y ago
      It's not exactly true, but the incentives still align in practice. "Contact Us" Licensing has always existed as you state, but has often included the possibility of royalties, and even when it doesn't it's always been at the price ranges where shipping a game was more likely than not. And in-fact, a problem with early Unreal licensing has been Epic's approach to support of "If it's not a problem in an Epic game, it's not our problem" Which has improved dramatically since changing their licensing model. And regarding Unity, yes, their ad networks are becoming more important, but that still doesn't do as good a job at aligning incentives, but more importantly, Unity has 15+ years of development in a model with unaligned incentives, which when you're talking about technical decisions, those are really important. And to be clear, I'm not arguing against the point that Epic being a game developer first is an important factor, I think it very much is, however I'm suggesting there are also other contributing factors.

lovehashbrowns 4y ago

Particularly when it comes to 2D games development! Fracturing that space is far more beneficial for Unreal than it is for Unity. Unreal, at least from my understanding, is awful for 2D. I'm playing around with 2D game development in Unity now and it's insanely easy to get started. I think the same goes for Godot where 2D dev work is a first-class citizen.

echelon 4y ago

How long until every tech company pours massive and substantial investment into Godot to turn it into the Blender of AAA games and film? It's almost to the point now. Amazon will ditch Lumberyard for Godot. They have deep interests in games as a part of their vision. Twitch, Luna, in house game studios, prime gaming, etc. Apple will absolutely do it. They're building their own metaverse and VR. Although I'd also gamble on them acquiring Epic Games. Apple wants to own the future of content creation. Google's significant investment in WebGPU is going to make Godot a more attractive platform. Google is indirectly contributing to this. As Godot gains more and more mindshare and economic activity happening atop it, it will achieve the activation energy required to take on AAA rendering and workflows. Companies will see Epic as a tax. And the entire world will be submitting patches to Godot. Godot is already spawning an ecosystem of support companies and console SDKs.

Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
>Amazon will ditch Lumberyard for Godot They are using O3DE now, which actually seems better than godot for 3D at first glance. Only issue so far is there isn't much of a community. Edit: >Although I'd also gamble on them acquiring Epic Games. That is never happening.
- _hypx 4y ago
  O3DE is just open sourced Lumberyard.
  - Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
    I know, I was just pointing out that they have a better(?) open source engine already.
objclxt 4y ago
> Although I'd also gamble on [Apple] acquiring Epic Games Given Tim Sweeney holds a controlling stake in Epic this seems like the least likely outcome.
riidom 4y ago

_hypx 4y ago

That's worryingly close to the same story high-end Unix providers told about Linux. If there is an open source engine that does 99% of what a proprietary engine does, then it's very likely we won't see that proprietary engine last for much longer.

RobotToaster 4y ago
Worryingly? Why would that be a bad thing?
- _hypx 4y ago
  It isn't. You read that wrong.
phendrenad2 4y ago
Yes and all of those high-end Unix providers went on to enjoy great success selling addons for the Linux kernel and ecosystem.

Groxx 4y ago

Yeah, this is the real reason. Godot doesn't compete with Unreal. It competes with their largest commercial competitor: Unity. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. And when they want to "upgrade", Unreal is right there, and they already have an Epic account.