I went to a game dev meetup in Seoul last year. Everyone was using Unity.
I went again last month. Half the people were using Godot.
For a bit more context, I used to work in the gaming industry. We used Unity because it was great for making money - drop in ads and tracking, you’re good to go. The Godot ecosystem isn’t as mature for that yet. However, even we were considering switching to Godot. It wasn’t worth switching for a number of reasons (besides the above mentioned ones, Godot is also “laggier” and we have some heavier games), but had we started shop yesterday, it’s safe to say we would have used Godot too.
Unity just laid off 25% of their workforce. That is not a small number. Their days are numbered.
Yep, I started my own game dev journey a year ago after a decade in the tech industry.
My gamer friends: Use Unity Bro its so easy to learn!
Hrm but uh what about cost structure, licensing, all that kind of stuff?
Doesnt matter bro, you can just port it all if it doesnt work!
Well uh, porting is actually a lot of work and burnout is a serious concern so wouldnt it make more sense to-
Youre making this too complicated, what you need to do first is-
…
And that conversation was obviously useless.
Anyway yeah, I picked Godot after doing, you know actual research on all the benefits and limitations of various engines.
See, Godot, being open source, and myself, not having a huge amount of money to throw at this, and also not just knowing any reasonable or reliable people that could contribute… I can afford to work with Godot at a comfortable pace and not be driven insane by budgetary concerns and a timetable, and Godot is likely to only improve, and I can improve with it, expand the scope or add new features as they become added.
Also at this point I am planning on really only supporting linux users, as I am again looking to do this as a hobbyist that isnt really concerned about making a ton of money, and also at this point I just literally despise every technically incompetent person non FOSS user I have ever known, so Godot suits that well.
Oh and linux gaming marketshare is growing rather rapidly.
I just literally despise every technically incompetent person
Those are strong words for people that just didn’t dedicate 90% of their lives to tech like we did. Some people actually do have other interests you know.
Is it okay to hate you simply for not knowing what a flyback diode, colpitts oscillator, phase-locked loop, or regenerative receiver is? That’s my hobby. And there are not as many of us as there are software devs. There are not many here who I can discuss electronics engineering with. But I don’t despise people because of that.
You gotta realize, WE are the weirdos, not them. A very high interest and obsession over tech is not an average human quality.
You conveniently left out the qualifier of my statement.
That I have ever known.
Probably unlike the field of electrical engineering, every /single/ person I have known in my life has relied on me to provide free expertise in software related issues of all possible kinds, and also simultaneously mocked my expertise and ability any time I suggest they do something or use something that will actually work, but they do not think it will because -insert utterly nonsensical concern about issue they do not even know how to use basic vocabulary to describe-.
This is apparently a rather unique phenomenon that happens to those who are programmers and know software.
Software and programming is in every modern computerized device, but an astounding amount of people who use such devices both realize they are not experts and will seek the help of a software expert for assistance, but will also feel as if they are better able to solve a problem when -literally any random thing they do not like for any random reason is different in any other way-.
If you attempt to explain anything to these people at this point it does not matter if you are correct, they will be angry and abuse you quite often.
I do not hate the tech illiterate people I have known because they are ignorant.
I hate them because they are abusive.
Finally, when it comes to the kind of game I want to make?
I want to make something I would enjoy playing.
And I have found that I enjoy games that offer a mix of skill based challenge in the sense of being able to quickly execute exact commands to the controller rapidly and with precision, but also with a larger sense of strategy, and also with multiple possible ways to solve a problem, some that are obvious, and some that are non obvious and encourage thinking outside the box.
And I have also found that every technically incompetent person I have known is utterly incapable of enjoying this kind of gameplay.
And that is fine. As I said, I want to make a game for myself and people with similar game preferences, and mental capacities.
I have been surrounded by abusive morons my whole life and I have no interest in making a game that appeals to such people.
This is the key thing IMO. If they ever do anything like try to make it a paid framework with huge fees, or just move in a direction the community disagrees with, the existing open source code remains open source and someone can just fork it.
Sure if you are a bigger entity and have more money to throw around, there are other engines that’ll probably be a much better fit.
If youre a broke ass indie dev, I am not really seeing a better choice than Godot right now, as youre not gonna be able to afford a more expensive engine without /usually/ pulling some kind of asset flip scam type thing.
Sure there are some very good more niche 2D only development engines, but even with a lot of them youve still got some kind of liscensing to deal with.
That basically leaves Unity and … OGRE, as far as I am aware for possibly good choices for a 3D game.
Unity is currently self destructing, and OGRE, at least as far as I have tried, is pretty hard to get a native dev environment working on linux. Maybe I missed something or got confused, but I kept running into error after error trying to set up its more advanced features, which seem to require windows specific dependencies.
I guess you could run it in a VM but that seems basically insane, and even if I was to set up a dedicated Windows machine just to develop on OGRE, it is far more clumsy to work with than Godot.
I went to a game dev meetup in Seoul last year. Everyone was using Unity.
I went again last month. Half the people were using Godot.
For a bit more context, I used to work in the gaming industry. We used Unity because it was great for making money - drop in ads and tracking, you’re good to go. The Godot ecosystem isn’t as mature for that yet. However, even we were considering switching to Godot. It wasn’t worth switching for a number of reasons (besides the above mentioned ones, Godot is also “laggier” and we have some heavier games), but had we started shop yesterday, it’s safe to say we would have used Godot too.
Unity just laid off 25% of their workforce. That is not a small number. Their days are numbered.
Small correction they haven’t fired 25% of us yet, it is a work in progress
Good luck. It’s a stressful time. I hope you get yourself sorted in whatever you plan to do.
It’s 25% of their swelled up post COVID workforce it’s not that bad.
x * 1.25 = 1.25x
1.25x - (1.25x * 0.25) = 0.9375x
(I know you’re memeing, but growing 25% then cutting 25% is actually a significant net-cut)
You tell those people who left good jobs and now need this to put food on their table and pay the bills. You have the empathy of a CEO.
Yep, I started my own game dev journey a year ago after a decade in the tech industry.
My gamer friends: Use Unity Bro its so easy to learn!
Hrm but uh what about cost structure, licensing, all that kind of stuff?
Doesnt matter bro, you can just port it all if it doesnt work!
Well uh, porting is actually a lot of work and burnout is a serious concern so wouldnt it make more sense to-
Youre making this too complicated, what you need to do first is-
…
And that conversation was obviously useless.
Anyway yeah, I picked Godot after doing, you know actual research on all the benefits and limitations of various engines.
See, Godot, being open source, and myself, not having a huge amount of money to throw at this, and also not just knowing any reasonable or reliable people that could contribute… I can afford to work with Godot at a comfortable pace and not be driven insane by budgetary concerns and a timetable, and Godot is likely to only improve, and I can improve with it, expand the scope or add new features as they become added.
Also at this point I am planning on really only supporting linux users, as I am again looking to do this as a hobbyist that isnt really concerned about making a ton of money, and also at this point I just literally despise every technically incompetent person non FOSS user I have ever known, so Godot suits that well.
Oh and linux gaming marketshare is growing rather rapidly.
Those are strong words for people that just didn’t dedicate 90% of their lives to tech like we did. Some people actually do have other interests you know.
Is it okay to hate you simply for not knowing what a flyback diode, colpitts oscillator, phase-locked loop, or regenerative receiver is? That’s my hobby. And there are not as many of us as there are software devs. There are not many here who I can discuss electronics engineering with. But I don’t despise people because of that.
You gotta realize, WE are the weirdos, not them. A very high interest and obsession over tech is not an average human quality.
You conveniently left out the qualifier of my statement.
That I have ever known.
Probably unlike the field of electrical engineering, every /single/ person I have known in my life has relied on me to provide free expertise in software related issues of all possible kinds, and also simultaneously mocked my expertise and ability any time I suggest they do something or use something that will actually work, but they do not think it will because -insert utterly nonsensical concern about issue they do not even know how to use basic vocabulary to describe-.
This is apparently a rather unique phenomenon that happens to those who are programmers and know software.
Software and programming is in every modern computerized device, but an astounding amount of people who use such devices both realize they are not experts and will seek the help of a software expert for assistance, but will also feel as if they are better able to solve a problem when -literally any random thing they do not like for any random reason is different in any other way-.
If you attempt to explain anything to these people at this point it does not matter if you are correct, they will be angry and abuse you quite often.
I do not hate the tech illiterate people I have known because they are ignorant.
I hate them because they are abusive.
Finally, when it comes to the kind of game I want to make?
I want to make something I would enjoy playing.
And I have found that I enjoy games that offer a mix of skill based challenge in the sense of being able to quickly execute exact commands to the controller rapidly and with precision, but also with a larger sense of strategy, and also with multiple possible ways to solve a problem, some that are obvious, and some that are non obvious and encourage thinking outside the box.
And I have also found that every technically incompetent person I have known is utterly incapable of enjoying this kind of gameplay.
And that is fine. As I said, I want to make a game for myself and people with similar game preferences, and mental capacities.
I have been surrounded by abusive morons my whole life and I have no interest in making a game that appeals to such people.
This is the key thing IMO. If they ever do anything like try to make it a paid framework with huge fees, or just move in a direction the community disagrees with, the existing open source code remains open source and someone can just fork it.
Ding ding ding, winner winner chicken dinner.
Sure if you are a bigger entity and have more money to throw around, there are other engines that’ll probably be a much better fit.
If youre a broke ass indie dev, I am not really seeing a better choice than Godot right now, as youre not gonna be able to afford a more expensive engine without /usually/ pulling some kind of asset flip scam type thing.
Sure there are some very good more niche 2D only development engines, but even with a lot of them youve still got some kind of liscensing to deal with.
That basically leaves Unity and … OGRE, as far as I am aware for possibly good choices for a 3D game.
Unity is currently self destructing, and OGRE, at least as far as I have tried, is pretty hard to get a native dev environment working on linux. Maybe I missed something or got confused, but I kept running into error after error trying to set up its more advanced features, which seem to require windows specific dependencies.
I guess you could run it in a VM but that seems basically insane, and even if I was to set up a dedicated Windows machine just to develop on OGRE, it is far more clumsy to work with than Godot.