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[AlexRamallo]

void rant() {

I believe the reason that commercial game engines like Unity have gotten so popular over the past couple of years is because they're so easy to use that they're practically games themselves. It's kind of like a really complicated version of Minecraft when you're starting out. You don't have to code or read manuals or anything; just drag and drop the dolls into the digital playpen in front of you and feel good that you made something.

I'm not saying Unity is bad or "noobish" or anything like that. On the contrary, it is a very powerful engine which extremely talented individuals have used to create amazing games. However if we were to view the Unity userbase as mountain climbers, then those "extremely talented individuals" would be somewhere near the top planting a flag, and the "Minecraft people" would be at the bottom in a hotel bathroom taking selfies in their shiny new hiking equipment. And there'd only be a handful of flags atop the mountain while the hotel rooms have all been booked for the next 20 years.

The reason I'm saying this is because I've had an "issue" with Unity for a while, but I couldn't quite figure out why. I just knew that I had an irrational hatred of that damn engine which would bubble up inside of me anytime I would see another kickstarter or greenlight survival/crafting game. I used to think that it was just the "old-timer" in me being cranky because I didn't want to accept that writing my own engines just isn't a good idea anymore. I realize now however that this disdain I feel towards Unity has nothing to do with Unity itself, rather the games people make.

I saw this video recently where a developer from Vlambeer was being interviewed, and he made a statement along the lines of "we're developers, not gamers", which was in regards to the idea that (non-dev) people think making games is like playing them. At the time I thought this was a pointless argument to bring up since what possible ramifications could such beliefs have? One look at the base of the Unity user mountain and it's obvious now.

I'm still not exactly sure how I should feel about Unity. On the one hand it is a really powerful engine and useful tool, but on the other it is polluting the indie game space with people who are just playing around with it like if it were a toy (and then deciding to create a kickstarter campaign, get it on Steam, or otherwise profit off of something that took them a week or less to make). I have nothing against people releasing shitty games, as it is a valuable part of the learning process, and a pastime that I am particularly skilled in myself  . but I do have a problem with the huge number of youtube-tutorial-powered-weekend-gamedevs half-assing things making the rest of us look bad. Low effort attempts to steal people's money at the expense of other people is something I've grown accustomed working in mobile development. If things don't slow down, Steam may become the next Google Play, and PC gaming may end up like mobile gaming is today.

(the above applies to not just Unity, although mostly Unity)

}

[cynicalsandel]

who cares

[Zorg]

I never looked at it like that, but you are right, i'm using Unity like a game (at the moment?). I'm happy if i produced a really, really small 'prototype' of a really basic behaviour and i get the feeling i found something out about how things work in Unity. Maybe i'll put it together in the future and a small game could be created by assembling the pieces. But i would not call myself game-develeoper. I guess it's part of your problem with these tools, that everyone claims to be a gamedev, but you could say the same thing about design, everybody is a designer, these days.

I don't think that hobby devs make serious devs look bad. It's pretty obvious which games are large projects which took a lot of effort to be created by pros and which are non-professional hobby work. However, it's fascinating, that even simple games with bad sounds and graphics can be fun to play. But most are not. I think it's okay that ppl dream about creating the next flappy bird or minecraft. The flood of reverse-engineered copies will likely be ignored anyway.

return dealWithIt; //

[Schoq]

my irrational dislike for unity stems from that hideous cell shader thing 90% of projects used to use which I can only assume is some checkbox setting

[ProgramGamer]

Code:

int main()
{
    original_post.replace("Unity","Game Maker: Studio");
    return 0;
}

[ｂ∀ ｋｋｕｓａ]

Steam Greenlight made me hate Unity and Rpgmaker.

[s0]

who wouldn't want developing games to become more like playing games? if game dev was less boring i'd probably be cranking out games weekly rather than starting a project every 2 years.

[ProgramGamer]

Counter example:

I used to make games with one of the older versions of Blender 3D. I would make a cube, give it basic collisions and movement and follow really basic online tutorials for things. Once I was done, I would make one or two levels and that would be it. I could make a small game in an afternoon, and it was really fun, and my parents were impressed by that too.

Then I switched to Game Maker 8. Everything changed. I checked the box that said physics, I dragged the scripts which tied keyboard keys to speed changes and voila, I thought I was done. Except that when I put the object in a room and ran the game, to my surprise, nothing happened. I had wasted 45 minutes of my time making something completely useless because I was used to the ease of just taking something someone else made and putting it in my game. Of course did I look at tutorials and guides online, but I had major trouble figuring out how to make most things, notably collision code, because Blender did that automatically and GM8 did not, and you pretty much had to make collision detection from scratch in GM8.

Moral of the story is: people like it when they can just put a bunch of scripts together and make a functioning thing, it feels like playing with really complicated and convoluted Lego pieces. The instant gratification of just putting something in a box that says "walk.scr" and running your game to find your character moving on the screen is tremendous, but it encourages a way of laziness and general entitlement from that dev. And when they try other engines like GM8, they find that they have to construct everything to the atomic level, and that puts them off, even if it does make them appreciate the effort other people put in making scripts. I was lucky enough to have the perseverance to keep working at it until I got good, which made the gratification come back to making something atomically small, but yeah. Basically any engine that allows people to just drag and drop a script on a character is looking at attracting newbies that want to make something in two hours, not necessarily dev pros that will make the next big AAA game, though that can happen if the engine supports enough things.

[MrBones]

Who cares what tool people use to make their games as long as their games are good?

Sure there's a ton of shit to be cranked out of RPGMaker, Unity, and Game Maker, but that doesn't mean good games have never come out of them. I mean, take a look at To The Moon, Hearthstone, and Hotline Miami as basic examples of good games made in each respective engine. A lot of people don't seem to know that Hearthstone was made in Unity, and that was by a major company.

When it comes down to it, I think the problem has less to do with the shit being churned out of the engine onto Steam as much as it has to do with Steam's quality control. Sure, games are easier to make than ever these days, but shitty minecraft ripoffs and top down zombie shooters have always existed, just not on Steam. The problem is that it's a lot easier to get onto Steam now, whereas before getting onto Steam was like some sort of pinnacle.

[s0]

my last game was made in gm8 using all my own scripts. personally i think gm just saves me a lot of time doing pointless and boring bs (esp when my own engine is never going to reach the quality and flexibility of GM to begin with) and get down to actually making a game.

the real problem with these sorts of engines is that theyre biased towards certain genres (this is almost inevitable when designing high level tools for anything tho) and you end up having to use a lot of workarounds if you want to make a game in a "nonstandard" genre for the engine. my game was a traditional roguelike for instance and i had to work around GM's entire "step" system which is geared towards real time action games.

[AlexRamallo]

Like I mentioned above I'm not saying Unity is bad. The engines and tools you use to make a game don't matter at all; A game isn't (shouldn't) be designed around code and technology, but the other way around. I also don't care what people call themselves, whether it's hobbyist or "serious" game developer. My problem is with stuff like this, which were made be either A) a scam artist or B) a beginner who thought it would be okay to take money from people for a game that is clearly broken (and he probably only worked on for a day or two). Unity's (and other engines, but mostly Unity for some reason) gamified-game development seems to produce a lot of stuff like that. Get-rich-quick scams and people who think the game the made over the weekend after following a bunch of tutorials on youtube is going to make them a millionaire. It bothers me because I've been there too, and know the kind of person it takes it try to sell something to other people that early knowing full well that it isn't worth anything.


Also, code is only one part of a game. Unity and other engines are there to make that part easier so you can focus on other stuff. When people release Unity games with terrible design, bad graphics, no sound, and shitty stories, you have to wonder: what the hell did they even do?

[keenPenguin]

Alex, I do not agree with your frustration. I think other people's experimental or shitty games are just that: It's their games. This does not have to concern you if you don't let it. I have faith in the market regulating itself and I believe there will always be an audience for good quality games and creative games.

[ProgramGamer]

I agree with Alex. Newbie games are fine, I don't have a problem with playing them or even with them existing. What I do have a problem with is games that are fraudulent/broken, that are charging money and get a lot of exposure through steam or the likes. They damage the reputation of indies and are too easy to produce thanks to Unity or GM or anything like that.

[michaelplzno]

For me, switching to Unity was a relatively cold business decision. It makes porting your game to any platform much easier and it has a lot of features that would be time consuming to do on my own like loading in 3d meshes in a lot of different formats, particle systems, audio systems etc. There are even plugins you can grab to do online multiplayer pretty quickly.

[J-Snake]

I have faith in the market regulating itself and I believe there will always be an audience for good quality games and creative games.

Sure, but in order to achieve good regulation the ever increasing discoverability problem has to be addressed. We need more sophistication in categorizing and searching for games. If I take a look at "more like this" on Steam, the recommendations are far away from being optimal.

[Sik]

Honestly was not going to bother replying to this (since I'd probably cause a huge flamewar, knowing me) but:

which was in regards to the idea that (non-dev) people think making games is like playing them.

THIS. Still trying to convince other people that I'm not playing with the computer. Heck, I barely get time (if any) to test my own games these days, let alone play properly any game (these days it's mostly busy e-mailing), so that gets me furious, especially since I know it's used as an excuse to try to interrupt me every five minutes.

[MeshGearFox]

[Armageddon]

I had no idea people hated Unity. I mean I hate these prototypes made with Unity in two weeks being sold on Early Access because pewdiepie played them and people found them to be loltehrandumsurrealfunnycreammypantslelcrazyfakesurreal shitfests and Greenlit them pretty quickly. And Valve's gonna let it be Greenlit with no quality control because people will buy it for a month and it'll be a top seller then never be worked on ever again but Valve pocketed their 30%. End this rant huh you can sound pretty jealous complaining about people making money with minimum effort it's kind of like complaining about minimalistic art, yeah it's easy but you didn't do it so shut the fuck up. I like Unity make the games you want to make.

[J-Snake]

I don't think that hobby devs make serious devs look bad. It's pretty obvious which games are large projects which took a lot of effort to be created by pros and which are non-professional hobby work.

Great designers and artists can sometimes make a mediocre game feel good.

[gimymblert]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=WIAqPa1ttjc

I think it unlock experimentation and while wacky things like above those wacky things hint at things we could not have thought otherwise, I truly feel that joke above had some very good design in the 3rd game!