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This really does seem like suicide. I'm not a game dev though. Is there any reason everyone won't/can't just switch to Unreal Engine? Is this a case where th

by robswc 3y ago

This really does seem like suicide. I'm not a game dev though. Is there any reason everyone won't/can't just switch to Unreal Engine? Is this a case where they overstepped or is it like reddit where the only leverage the user base has is illusory?

raincole 3y ago
> Is there any reason everyone won't/can't just switch to Unreal Engine? Switching engines mean to rewrite most of your codebase. Actually if you're 1) not using an additional scripting layer or 2) not willing to lose performance, it means to rewrite about... 100% of your codebase.
- robswc 3y ago
  That sucks. I mean, going forward would anyone still start projects with Unity? Or is that ship sailing?
  - raincole 3y ago
    I'm sure any studio with the resource has assigned some workforce to survey the alternatives.
  - starshadowx2 3y ago
    There are a lot of studios and devs now saying they won't use Unity for new projects. Some will be able to switch to new engines, others are just completely cancelling in-progress projects.
ZeWaka 3y ago
Porting is a relatively big issue. Core game systems often intertwine closely with how the engine operates, especially graphics systems like the renderer or particles/effects. It's totally possible though. One of the game projects I help with switched from SFML to Godot to an in-house engine. There's also the 'skilling up' of a dev team. If a studio has developed on Unity for 10 years, switching to Unreal or Godot or similar will be... Challenging.
- robswc 3y ago
  Makes sense. Is there anything about Unity that would make the community grit it's teeth and take the terms? Or is it all just economics at this point?
  - ZeWaka 3y ago
    The main benefit of Unity over all other engines (from my perspective, anyways) is the large amount of skilled developers trained in it. If studios and devs start abandoning it, there goes your value proposal.
  - strangetortoise 3y ago
    Theres a lot of value in the ecosystem through the asset store, that allows yoi to get up and running much more quickly than if you had to built subsystems from scratch (i.e. You can buy a good water package for <100 usd, whereas implementing state of the art would probably take you at least two months of dev time). Additionally, from theres lots of educational resources, that might be harder to find for smaller engines On the other hand, unity has a habit of shooting itself in the foot with incredibly messy and poor documentation, fragmented and duplicated functionality across multiple implementations (theres a common refrain in the unity community that every system in unity is either in beta or deprecated), so an engine that can provide an easier onboarding / dev experience could definitely compete there.
Macha 3y ago
The economics for in progress games means probably only a few particularly early in development or strong feeling dev teams are going to switch engines mid stream so I think in the worst case unity thinks they have buffer to climb down if needed. I can't see future projects building on unity with this "we have changed the deal and can do it again" attitude on the other hand. So I'd put the level of customer power here as more than Reddit users but less than Dungeons & Dragons users.
- robswc 3y ago
  >I can't see future projects building on unity with this "we have changed the deal and can do it again" attitude on the other hand. Yea, that almost seems the worst part. Seems like a huge risk for any future projects. >So I'd put the level of customer power here as more than Reddit users but less than Dungeons & Dragons users. That's good at least.

by robswc 3y ago

raincole 3y ago

> Is there any reason everyone won't/can't just switch to Unreal Engine? Switching engines mean to rewrite most of your codebase. Actually if you're 1) not using an additional scripting layer or 2) not willing to lose performance, it means to rewrite about... 100% of your codebase.

robswc 3y ago
That sucks. I mean, going forward would anyone still start projects with Unity? Or is that ship sailing?
- raincole 3y ago
  I'm sure any studio with the resource has assigned some workforce to survey the alternatives.
- starshadowx2 3y ago
  There are a lot of studios and devs now saying they won't use Unity for new projects. Some will be able to switch to new engines, others are just completely cancelling in-progress projects.

ZeWaka 3y ago

Porting is a relatively big issue. Core game systems often intertwine closely with how the engine operates, especially graphics systems like the renderer or particles/effects. It's totally possible though. One of the game projects I help with switched from SFML to Godot to an in-house engine. There's also the 'skilling up' of a dev team. If a studio has developed on Unity for 10 years, switching to Unreal or Godot or similar will be... Challenging.

robswc 3y ago
Makes sense. Is there anything about Unity that would make the community grit it's teeth and take the terms? Or is it all just economics at this point?
- ZeWaka 3y ago
  The main benefit of Unity over all other engines (from my perspective, anyways) is the large amount of skilled developers trained in it. If studios and devs start abandoning it, there goes your value proposal.
- strangetortoise 3y ago
  Theres a lot of value in the ecosystem through the asset store, that allows yoi to get up and running much more quickly than if you had to built subsystems from scratch (i.e. You can buy a good water package for <100 usd, whereas implementing state of the art would probably take you at least two months of dev time). Additionally, from theres lots of educational resources, that might be harder to find for smaller engines On the other hand, unity has a habit of shooting itself in the foot with incredibly messy and poor documentation, fragmented and duplicated functionality across multiple implementations (theres a common refrain in the unity community that every system in unity is either in beta or deprecated), so an engine that can provide an easier onboarding / dev experience could definitely compete there.

Macha 3y ago

The economics for in progress games means probably only a few particularly early in development or strong feeling dev teams are going to switch engines mid stream so I think in the worst case unity thinks they have buffer to climb down if needed. I can't see future projects building on unity with this "we have changed the deal and can do it again" attitude on the other hand. So I'd put the level of customer power here as more than Reddit users but less than Dungeons & Dragons users.

robswc 3y ago
>I can't see future projects building on unity with this "we have changed the deal and can do it again" attitude on the other hand. Yea, that almost seems the worst part. Seems like a huge risk for any future projects. >So I'd put the level of customer power here as more than Reddit users but less than Dungeons & Dragons users. That's good at least.