[xex70]

AAA here. Actually, it is a stretch, because you’re expecting an entirely different discipline of software development to reflect the trends, knowledge, and assumptions of your discipline. We are a CryEngine shop but I’ve used Unity extensively for MVP pitches, spec work, and side projects. I also left the Web vertical to do this so I still have context from your side as well.

I took the time to read what you’ve written. Just about every single point you made in that essay can be distilled to “Web developer with strong convictions about Web software engineering and expecting game development to look like familiar territory,” with only a couple exceptions. I read that essay and I walk away with “that person is going to have a hard time if they pursue professional game development,” not the intended conclusion you had about Unity’s lackings. That’s reflected in nearly every concern about Unity expressed in this thread because this is a Web forum.

Unity has deficiencies we are all aware of in the industry, but none of them are in your essay. Several of your points are misunderstandings, several are just wrong, and all of them paint a picture which also gives a lot of AAA shops pause about hiring Web folks (and that I’ve had to deal with): there’s a pretty strong strain among the Web industry of “if you don’t do software like FAANG does, you’re doing it wrong and your stuff is terrible.” Meanwhile, the stuff you call bad/terrible/worse is generating billions in revenue and employing thousands. Seriously, Unreal is worse than Unity? Nearly stopped reading there.

I’m reminded of a friend who does control development for factories and had someone come in straight from a Google internship who started trying to reimplement SCADA from first principles using Kubernetes. The Web is one way to do software engineering. There are others, and one of those others is reflected in the design of Unity.

[tikhonj]

Game programming isn't—or at least shouldn't be—so different from other fields that fundamental software engineering principles do not apply. It seems like discarding criticism just because it comes from outside the immediate industry is going to lead to an insular culture and get in the way of any real change or progress.

Doubly so for an industry that still has high-profile, highly funded projects (Battlefield V, Anthem... etc) flounder because of technical debt and poor tooling. (And yes, these issues are all downstream of awful management for those particular projects, but that doesn't change the technical side of things!)

[tikhonj]

This goes in the other direction too: other fields can and should borrow ideas from game programming. At the end of the day the goals of different software projects are pretty comparable: we all want to produce quality code, minimize bugs and do it as quickly and productively as we can. The details and trade-offs aren't identical, to be sure, but at the end of the day different programming fields are far more alike than not.

[stevofolife]

Your first paragraph is like saying ship building, plane building or car building isn't or shouldn't be so different from one another. Wait what?

[JamesSwift]

Sure theres similarities, but game programming is usually at the bleeding edge of computing compared to most other areas. Its like saying engineering a space craft isn't/shouldn't be different than engineering a car. Sure, there's overlap, but the fundamental requirements differ so much that a lot of it is _not_ applicable.

I'm not a game developer, but I like to keep an eye on how its done specifically because it is fundamentally different from how I typically do things in SAAS / mobile app land. Its a good way to get a broader view on development, and I learn new things _constantly_ by looking at game development.

[johnfn]

I'll happily hear examples of things which are "misunderstandings" or "just wrong". As your post stands, it's nothing more than a long extended ad-hominem - it roughly boils down to "your post is wrong, but I'm not going to tell you why."

I accept that Unity and Unreal Engine are doing fine financially and will probably continue to do so for a long time. That's no reason that they can also have issues.

[xex70]

Quote one sentence where I attacked you personally. I was quite careful to speak about your essay and its conclusions from the perspective of the intended audience, and if you think I’m going to engage after having that called an ad hominem, you don’t really understand the investment of time that would entail and why I’m strongly disincentivized.

[johnfn]

A few quotes that I found particularly rough include:

> Several of your points are misunderstandings, several are just wrong

Like I said, I'd be happy to hear ways that I can improve. You saying that I am wrong but not providing specifics makes me feel bad without a way to improve my thinking.

> “that person is going to have a hard time if they pursue professional game development,”

You're passing judgement on my professional abilities, which makes me feel pretty bad. It's also an ad hominem: you've stopped attacking my argument and you've started attacking my professional character.

> “if you don’t do software like FAANG does, you’re doing it wrong and your stuff is terrible.”

Is it really necessary to include the thing about FAANG? I'm not even employed by FAANG. To me it feels like you're casting me out to be a FAANG elitist, which feels pretty alienating. It's also an ad hominem: you've stopped attacking my argument and you've started attacking me as a FAANG employee.

> all of them paint a picture which also gives a lot of AAA shops pause about hiring Web folks

Is the absolute "all of them" really necessary? That you dismissed every one of my points is pretty rough. Can you imagine if you wrote a 4000 word post and someone said "yeah I read it and every point you made gives me pause." and that's all they said, no further explanation? You'd probably be pretty frustrated, wondering what could possibly be wrong, but having no clue with which to even start understanding their different perspective.

> I’m reminded of a friend who does control development for factories and had someone come in straight from a Google internship who started trying to reimplement SCADA from first principles using Kubernetes.

You're comparing me to a friend that overengineers things. If you have specific things you think I'm overengineering, I'm happy to hear them, but a comparison like this without any concrete steps makes me feel bad without providing me a way to improve.

[xex70]

Perhaps your error is marrying yourself to your creative output and taking criticism thereof personally. Your essay is all over the place and plays a tune many folks in AAA have heard from many folks who got their start in Web development, and I was illustrating the broader context that, again, makes your intended audience develop that conclusion. Honestly, it reads like a projection of your expectations of software development, and that’s what I’m trying to tell you.

I was not accusing you of overengineering, I’m not accusing you of working for FAANG (I don’t even know you, come on), I was making the point that people default to where they’re comfortable, and if you’re going to put yourself in a a position of authority and claim that Unity is bad (and Unreal is worse), you need to be comfortable in the environment and practices in which they are intended to be used. There is a minimum level of comprehension required to criticize an implement of another profession, otherwise someone proficient in COBOL would pick up a torque wrench and ask “why is this necessary? This design is just bad.”

You used subjective indictment terms (“bad,” “worse”) to describe positions that you don’t have experience to develop. That’s fine. Elevate your argument and understand the why behind some of them. Example: we don’t give two shits about deprecations because they’re a distraction from a ship date and we ship vendored artifacts including the engine.

You selectively quoted more than one thing I said to twist a personal attack from them, by the way, but that’s your prerogative. It’s also odd to do when you’re crying ad hominem foul.

Edit: I took the time to read your essay, respond to it candidly, and we are ending this conversation with you lecturing me on tone, politeness, and productivity. Even in the face of great hems and haws I doubly endeavored to remain polite. One would be forgiven for thinking you are not approachable with criticism.

[johnfn]

EDIT: Fair enough, I'll remove my lecturing.

I understand your point about not elucidating the why. Thing is, I'm not an AAA developer, so often times I don't know.

All I'd like to know is a bit more on why specific points my essay were wrong. Like, if you don't think the thing about clearing the Debug window is correct, I'd like to know why that is.

[SXX]

I'm too lazy to write 1000 word essay from my phone, but having a bit of experience in both webdev and c++ gamedev on custom engine I certainly can say one truth here.

FAANG literally spend billions of dollars on developer tools alone, not even including browser runtime itself. There are thousands of engineers who work full time to make web and tools both fast and easy to use. There is also tons of open source developers competing to create best tools for other developers. And let's be honest tasks that average web developer has it's not rocket science.

Gamedev is nothing like this: resources are ever limited, budgets are tights, and there is almost never ending crunch to release ASAP. Till recently every AAA company mostly used it's own tech and everything was not only proprietary, but always closed source so only papers were shared. Oh there also proprietary secret under-NDA targets called consoles where you cant just expect user to buy faster hw and more RAM. And skills you expected to have to work in AAA as C++ programmer can be more than in let's say SpaceX.

So first of all you don't see how much better gamedev tools became in last decade. Other issue is that no one gonna hold your hand and force you into best practices because all games are mostly built of hacks and if you gonna enforce some strict rules it's mean developers wont be able to get those extra FPS, or better network latency or some absolutely unsupported feature that no one ever needed before.