[SXX]

I will just add a note about publishers: if your project is not using Unreal / Unity most huge publishers just wont be interested. It has nothing to do with Godot console support or anything else about Godot itself.

Basically all big publishers have their own pipeline and in-house teams for porting / QA / certification and it's all built around Unity or Unreal. So it's all about market share.

So yeah choosing Godot will certainly limit your options in terms of what publishers might fund your project.

[georgeecollins]

I think all the reservations about Godot are valid, but let me offer my perspective. In 1996-1997 I remember meeting with Epic to evaluate their engine in develop for a game a AAA game at Activision. I remember in the late aughts (like 09?) being asked to evaluate Unity for a VC that was considering investments and wondering how much commercial developers would actually use it.

These engines are all risky until they aren't. And Godot certainly seems at the tipping point of adoption. Also, all game engines have strengths and weaknesses so that you would want to use Unity or Unreal in many particular cases for a long time. But Godot also has some strengths, not the least of which is that it is open source.

The key thing I would watch is the transition to 4.0 and Vulkan. That seems like a point at which they can either pick up momentum or lose it. The SDK problem for consoles can easily be solved by contractors / middleware if there is enough good games to make it worth the time to bother.

[boredtofears]

What is it about the 4.0/vulkan transition that you view as being important?

[georgeecollins]

I like the engine but I don't think it is super competitive in 3d. For example, to use it on Quest you have to use GLES2, which is missing a number of features. Quest 2 is a mobile GPU, so you aren't going to be state of the art but I have seen more games that seem to squeeze more performance out using Unreal on that platform. Hopefully the switch to Vulkan will help them get better 3d performance on mobile gpus.

There are a ton of changes in the works from Godot 3. to 4. One of the biggest problems with Unity, in my experience is compatibility as the engine moves forward in versions. You always see projects that are stuck on older versions of Unity because the team doesn't have the time to make the changes so it works with the new version. In general I haven't seen that as a big issue for Godot. Code for old versions seems to run on new versions. But I have never seen a jump as big as the one to 4.0. The question I am wondering is will they be able to make that many changes to the engine and have it be reasonable to transition projects.

[boredtofears]

Interesting, thanks for responding.

[boredtofears]

They can't be universally true can it? I know Hades is built on a basically in-house engine, and I think it released on all platforms simultaneously... then again that studio might not even qualify as "indie" especially now... are custom engines like that really that rare nowadays?

[Jensson]

Supergiant games doesn't have a publisher, they publish it themselves so they can do whatever they want. I don't really consider them indie, to me "indie" is when the people developing it are also the people funding development, meaning people make choices without worrying about what others opinions.

As for self made engines, if you make it yourself then that is a risk. If you make it in unity or unreal then the publisher knows they can easily find people to help you ship it if there are problems, but for a self made engine it could be unsalvageable.

[pmoriarty]

Please forgive this ignorant question, but what value do publishers provide when developers can release their games directly on Steam?

[SXX]

I guess it's depend on your goals and what kind of game you are buidling:

* Funding. Making games is hard and while some of them can be finished using limited resources and free time. Having even small salary is better than living off kebabs and ramen (depend on location). Also artist dont usually work for free.

* Expertise in limiting your creativity. If you actually want to finish and release something then having deadlines and feature cuts is actually a good thing. Yeah most of these 1000 cards on "Ideas" list wont be implemented, but you'll get something done.

* Marketing. Making a good game is not enough nowadays to get any return on time and money invested. Bare minimum to launch on Steam is to collect 10,000 real wishlists before release since otherwise your game wont be features. Wishlists alone is a difficult task that require deep know how in traffic arbitrage since otherwise you'll spend 5x more money. Also making good marketing

* PR. Even in a team of 10 project management and coordination take a lot of effort. Dealing with press, youtubers, streamers and possible future community is a hard work that might require more capacity than you have.

Yes you can be self-funded and everything like marketing and PR can be done in-house, but it's cheaper for publisher since they usually have dedicated people working on each area full-time. It's doable to make it all yourself, but every unique role will distract you from actually making fun game.

Also publisher that invested money into your project will also be motivated to at least get that money back.