[nrjames]

Unity and Unreal are giant resource-hungry game engines. There are plenty of people making games who only need a fraction of what those two provide. Engines like Stride and Godot -- or any number of other smaller engines -- can be easier to work with if you're resource constrained or looking for something more simple.

[debacle]

Your #1 resource is time. Why would you devote thousands or tens of thousands of hours to a game and not use the most powerful tools?

[skohan]

It depends on the game. Unreal for example is optimized for large teams, and collaboration between different kinds of professionals (programmers, artists, level designers etc.). If you're doing a one-person project relying on procedural generation and pixel graphics, you might be more productive with a much simpler game engine with a much shorter code-build-run loop

[debacle]

Like Unity?

[pjmlp]

Unity is on the same league as Unreal, with the difference to target developers that rather use C# instead of C++, other than that the complexity is the same.

[andybak]

That's just not true. Unity works very well for solo devs and the build/run cycle is very fast.

[pjmlp]

What has that to do with the feature list?

[pjmlp]

Exactly because of that unless there is a whole team of designers, level builders and artists alongside the core devs, there is more ways to spend time than getting a PhD level knowledge on AAA engines capable of producing Hollywood class 3D movies.

[debacle]

I have tried out Godot and many, many other game engines in the past. They aren't there yet. Even as a hobbyist, I find Unity much more easy to use, and even still I'm tempted to learn Unreal simply because it seems more powerful and well architected under the hood.

[pjmlp]

They are where Unity 3.0 used to be around 10 years ago.

However Unity now is capable of supporting such kind of productions, with the respective increase in learning complexity and development teams scalability,

"Oddworld: Soulstorm at Unity GDC 2019"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8uAUPGZb3I

"The Heretic short film"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQZobAhgayA

Using such engine for a basic 2D tiles game or shooter is already over budgeting.

[cridenour]

Because 99% of people using these engines are hobbyists and want to use something that works for them.

I personally prefer Godot, its node structure makes sense with my mental model of the games I tinker with. And it has enough there that if I did decide to ever finish a game, I could. That's all I need.

[nrjames]

Why wouldn't you buy a Bugatti to take you to the grocery store? The "most powerful tools" aren't always the easiest or fastest to use.

[debacle]

If the Bugatti is free, why not use it? Unity is very easy to use, and it gets easier over time. They keep making paid features free, and once ECS is mature (in the UI, I know it's production ready), I think it's going to have a huge positive impact.

[lobo_tuerto]

OK, what about a helicopter? I think that better conveys parent's point...

[lostmsu]

Same? If helicopters and fuel would be free, I bet everyone would fly one to store. Safety is the only concern here, and it is irrelevant for the topic.