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Writing your own engine requires a far stronger knowledge of math, rendering, audio, and networking (just to start with) than the median dev has, probably by a

Writing your own engine requires a far stronger knowledge of math, rendering, audio, and networking (just to start with) than the median dev has, probably by a few orders of magnitude.

naillo 3y ago
Sure but learning a framework like unity or godot is it's own massive investment (which can be taken away from you ala this article), and doing game dev isn't a part time job you do so if you're gonna spend your life on it better just learn that stuff anyway.
JoeyJoJoJr 3y ago
If you want to build the next Call of Duty, sure. Engines like Unity and Unreal promise to aspiring gamedevs that they can build the next COD. The reality is that most aspiring gamedevs won’t ship a game, partly because the tooling is orders of magnitude more complex than a simple rendering library, and because their aspirations to create the next COD is orders of magnitude more complex than building the next Celeste. Rendering libraries like Monogame hit a sweet spot of shielding the developer from most of the complex rendering maths, while being general enough to allow you structure your code how you like. Simple rendering libraries are a much harder sell though because a capabilities video demonstrating rotating sprites and blend modes doesn’t seem as enticing as Quixel scanned environments or Dynamically globally illuminated assets.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  > The reality is that most aspiring gamedevs won’t ship a game, partly because the tooling is orders of magnitude more complex than a simple rendering library, and because their aspirations to create the next COD is orders of magnitude more complex than building the next Celeste. If I wanted to build the next celeste, sure. But Even if I did I don't have the brand recognition to sell as well as celeste. I want to make a 3D game anyway, so that's big enough reason to let an engine do the heavy work.

Writing your own engine requires a far stronger knowledge of math, rendering, audio, and networking (just to start with) than the median dev has, probably by a few orders of magnitude.

naillo 3y ago

Sure but learning a framework like unity or godot is it's own massive investment (which can be taken away from you ala this article), and doing game dev isn't a part time job you do so if you're gonna spend your life on it better just learn that stuff anyway.

JoeyJoJoJr 3y ago

If you want to build the next Call of Duty, sure. Engines like Unity and Unreal promise to aspiring gamedevs that they can build the next COD. The reality is that most aspiring gamedevs won’t ship a game, partly because the tooling is orders of magnitude more complex than a simple rendering library, and because their aspirations to create the next COD is orders of magnitude more complex than building the next Celeste. Rendering libraries like Monogame hit a sweet spot of shielding the developer from most of the complex rendering maths, while being general enough to allow you structure your code how you like. Simple rendering libraries are a much harder sell though because a capabilities video demonstrating rotating sprites and blend modes doesn’t seem as enticing as Quixel scanned environments or Dynamically globally illuminated assets.

johnnyanmac 3y ago
> The reality is that most aspiring gamedevs won’t ship a game, partly because the tooling is orders of magnitude more complex than a simple rendering library, and because their aspirations to create the next COD is orders of magnitude more complex than building the next Celeste. If I wanted to build the next celeste, sure. But Even if I did I don't have the brand recognition to sell as well as celeste. I want to make a 3D game anyway, so that's big enough reason to let an engine do the heavy work.