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There are plenty of successful studios that have their own in-house engines. Naughty Dog, From Software, ex Kojima Productions... Besides, for simple games, us

by phn 11y ago

There are plenty of successful studios that have their own in-house engines. Naughty Dog, From Software, ex Kojima Productions... Besides, for simple games, using those engines are a huge overhead and an unnecessary cost. I understand what you're saying, but I don't like how you make it sound a simple, already-made-for-you decision, when reality is much more nuanced. Each case is a case, and no one should turn down their critical sense when making these decisions, there are no rules.

pjmlp 11y ago
Having gotten lots of Gamasutra postmortens and GDC presentations, is why I just oversimplified the statement.
emsy 11y ago
Engines bring their overhead, but they also bring expertise small studios most likely lack. It's easy to cripple your performance with a single error. This can also happen to you while using an engine but even more so when writing your own engine. Or put differently: Simple games probably have so sleek game logic code that the engine overhead can safely be ignored. I don't say custom engines are pointless, but for the hundreds of games that are released on the App Store daily, a ready to use engine is "enough".
- phn 11y ago
  Yes, I understand that, the expertise point is very pertinent indeed. I am not against using available engines at all. My main point is still that this should be a decision that you make when starting a project, not one that has presumably been made for you. Team members expertise, project cost, for how long you'll be using the tech you're developing, etc. should all be taken into account. A practical example: Imagine trying to optimize loading times when the whole resource system is a massive generic thing that has been made for you. Now imagine having to support a new platform. You could be in a bind simply because you're using third-party tech (especially if closed-source).
chrisBob 11y ago
> Besides, for simple games, using those engines are a huge overhead and an unnecessary cost. I don't think the pricing of $0-$75/month is a huge cost. They made some big changes to their fee structure this year.
solidpy 11y ago
Simple games will be simple enough to be able to move without too much cost/time. The big companies with their in-house engines will be able to pay someone to do the job.
s73v3r 11y ago
"Besides, for simple games, using those engines are a huge overhead and an unnecessary cost." For simple games, you're probably not going to be reaching down to the Metal layer anyway. You're probably gonna stay up at the CoreGraphics layer, use SpriteKit/SceneKit, or something like Cocos or something similar.
epsylon 11y ago
> There are plenty of successful studios that have their own in-house engines. None of which develop for Mac.

by phn 11y ago

pjmlp 11y ago

Having gotten lots of Gamasutra postmortens and GDC presentations, is why I just oversimplified the statement.

emsy 11y ago

Engines bring their overhead, but they also bring expertise small studios most likely lack. It's easy to cripple your performance with a single error. This can also happen to you while using an engine but even more so when writing your own engine. Or put differently: Simple games probably have so sleek game logic code that the engine overhead can safely be ignored. I don't say custom engines are pointless, but for the hundreds of games that are released on the App Store daily, a ready to use engine is "enough".

phn 11y ago
Yes, I understand that, the expertise point is very pertinent indeed. I am not against using available engines at all. My main point is still that this should be a decision that you make when starting a project, not one that has presumably been made for you. Team members expertise, project cost, for how long you'll be using the tech you're developing, etc. should all be taken into account. A practical example: Imagine trying to optimize loading times when the whole resource system is a massive generic thing that has been made for you. Now imagine having to support a new platform. You could be in a bind simply because you're using third-party tech (especially if closed-source).

chrisBob 11y ago

> Besides, for simple games, using those engines are a huge overhead and an unnecessary cost. I don't think the pricing of $0-$75/month is a huge cost. They made some big changes to their fee structure this year.

solidpy 11y ago

Simple games will be simple enough to be able to move without too much cost/time. The big companies with their in-house engines will be able to pay someone to do the job.

s73v3r 11y ago

"Besides, for simple games, using those engines are a huge overhead and an unnecessary cost." For simple games, you're probably not going to be reaching down to the Metal layer anyway. You're probably gonna stay up at the CoreGraphics layer, use SpriteKit/SceneKit, or something like Cocos or something similar.

epsylon 11y ago

> There are plenty of successful studios that have their own in-house engines. None of which develop for Mac.