111–120 of 138 posts
Modding in PC gaming adds such an incredible level of value and creativeness that it being a constant afterthought is bordering on criminal. Steam Workshop is an interesting mechanic, but it would be nice if an engine set out a baseline in advance that didn't require using additional services.
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I think this is the difference between big shops with big budgets and small indie developers. Lets say you make a game that sells $100,000 on steam. That's pretty impressive. What's your take home then? Steam takes 30%, taxes take 20%, engine takes 5%, marketing costs take 10%, etc. Now you have $35,000 left. Even in the best case scenario of a solitary indie developer that's a piss poor wage for someone who can make…
Based on your own hypothetical, that means you would spend $5,000 (or about 15% of your overall budget) for all of the mechanics that an engine provides. There are certainly games (e.g. visual novels) in which this wouldn't be very cost effective, but in most cases I believe that represents a huge value.
The value argument doesn't make sense if my original vision was a 2D pixel game that I could personally do in my spare time compared to being given the hottest 3D engine and now asset creation and dev is 10x the time and cost.
The big winners here look to be mid and big shops. Not to mention the asset stores these engine companies run. Having tons of indie devs suddenly buying all these 3D assets must be nice considering whatever cut Unity or Unreal are getting.
The thing that boggles my mind is how there seems to be concern about this concept of charging 5% (like Unreal 4 does). In my mind (not a game developer - tell me if I'm way off here), the framework gives you about 90% of the work up front (10s of thousands of man hours). Then, once you finish your game and it's a success (sales-wise), you pay only 5% of your revenue. This seems like a wonderful deal, right?
Wonderful, yes. But I see many more "it's 5%, not free" comments than "OMG 5% is soooo expensive."
These engines are not free, you just don't pay up front. It's a great success of their marketing that news websites and internet commenters are willing to go to bat for the idea they're "free," when they're so very obviously not. If you use the product for it's intended purpose, you're paying. If they weren't going to make much money off of you in the first place, there is a free trial to get you using their platform.
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Based on your own hypothetical, that means you would spend $5,000 (or about 15% of your overall budget) for all of the mechanics that an engine provides. There are certainly games (e.g. visual novels) in which this wouldn't be very cost effective, but in most cases I believe that represents a huge value.
Sure, this doesn't make sense for VN's, but its not surprising that a lot of indie success stories are often 2D games that don't use these pricey engines. The cost is a disincentive as well as the extra 3D work compared to what can be done efficiently via 2D. The value argument doesn't make sense if my original vision was a 2D pixel game that I could personally do in my spare time compared to being given the hottest…
Terraria was written in .NET using XNA and met with huge success. But they too have seen similar problems and have to use external dev houses to get the game onto other machines.
Starbound is custom built. They messed up so badly with their initial build that it took them almost a year between releases to even release an update.
Kerbal Space Program _does_ use Unity, but even they hit a wall of shame caused by using the engine in a 32-bit variety. Mods are much easier because the platform is written using a "standard" framework, but the game will implode if you require more memory than 32-bit can address.
There are also plenty of success stories (Prison Architect might be my favorite game to watch develop) but I think the more complex the basis for the game, the smarter it might be to start with something that's proven and work your way up from there.
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Not even close, most of the licenced Source games were existing HL2 mod projects being moved to a commercial standalone format. The only high profile original game ever developed on it outside of Valve was TitanFall, and they had to rewrite a good chunk of the engine to bring it up to modern standards.
I thought they rewrote stuff because they were using it as a prototyping tool, and its design didn't quite fit their game?
Anytime a game developer is asked to publicly comment on using an external party's engine, that developer is probably a producer and wants to make their project look good. They don't want their game to be seen on the same level as games that CAN get away with treating the engine as a blackbox. The exact reasoning they give (or internet apocrypha) are generally not very useful to understanding the changes they do make.
How does Source and Steam fit together? Would it make sense to lower a potential fee for Steam exclusive games built on Source? Would it be "risky" trusting the same company with both the game engine and distribution? It's really great seeing Source 2, Unreal Engine and Unity lowering the bar for game developers to deliver their products.
How does Source and Steam fit together? Source is an engine, Steam is a distribution platform. I think the only truly significant interplay is: - Source games will probably behave well with the Steam Overlay and probably work in Big Picture Mode with controllers - Steam recognizes the Source libraries as a distinct element, so you only have to download the Source engine once even if you have many games that use that…
Also, a strong presence in the dev tools arena will certainly benefit their hardware-related projects, SteamOS/box and that whole Rift coopetition thing.
The thing that boggles my mind is how there seems to be concern about this concept of charging 5% (like Unreal 4 does). In my mind (not a game developer - tell me if I'm way off here), the framework gives you about 90% of the work up front (10s of thousands of man hours). Then, once you finish your game and it's a success (sales-wise), you pay only 5% of your revenue. This seems like a wonderful deal, right?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a (possibly crazy) theory: Companies like Valve and Epic have already amortized the cost of development of their engines - those are codebases that span 16 years, and both companies had multiple commercial successes. All it took was Unity to give a little nudge. Now, IMO, the reason for giving so much for free is to keep a player out (Unity) and milk the cow one last time with the eventual royalties. I think i…
> Companies like Valve and Epic have already amortized the cost of development of their engines - those are codebases that span 16 years, and both companies had multiple commercial successes. All it took was Unity to give a little nudge. That doesn't seem to be the case. It seems that UE4 was a pretty major rewrite, and major development is ongoing: https://trello.com/b/gHooNW9I/ue4-roadmap . Source 2 looks to have b…
BSP, meshes + LOD, lightmaps, occlusion, particle system, terrain editor (since UT 2003)... it's still all there.
The thing that boggles my mind is how there seems to be concern about this concept of charging 5% (like Unreal 4 does). In my mind (not a game developer - tell me if I'm way off here), the framework gives you about 90% of the work up front (10s of thousands of man hours). Then, once you finish your game and it's a success (sales-wise), you pay only 5% of your revenue. This seems like a wonderful deal, right?
No, if it is made a commodity, which it clearly is becoming, then that is nonsense. You wouldn't offer to pay 5% flat rate of your investment banking revenues to whomever provides your hardware. This is the kind of business model fapping that happens on HN because the audience are desperately trying to get people to pay for their unimportant services & products.
The thing that boggles my mind is how there seems to be concern about this concept of charging 5% (like Unreal 4 does). In my mind (not a game developer - tell me if I'm way off here), the framework gives you about 90% of the work up front (10s of thousands of man hours). Then, once you finish your game and it's a success (sales-wise), you pay only 5% of your revenue. This seems like a wonderful deal, right?
It does not work well for large-budget AAA games. In those setups, only a small percentage of revenue goes to the developer after paying back publishers, marketing and distribution. Taking 5 out of that is a huge hit. That's why Epic explicitly expects large budget games to negotiate a custom deal. That's something Epic has a long history of with UE 1,2&3.