Comment by groundzeros2015
19 hours ago
GitHub is filled with these because it’s always easier to make an engine than a game. You play with the fun tech and make the graphics engine. You never make any tough tradeoffs because you don’t have a target to aim at.
When an engine becomes useful is when it has to make a game. All your abstractions tend to get rearranged and hard decisions are made.
> it’s always easier to make an engine than a game.
It could just be different interests. The kind of person who makes a game engine is a technical optimization-focused tech-focused person, sort of like a mechanic. In order to make a game, you have to deal with softer concepts like "is this fun" which is more like a designer/artist. Game studios need to bring these people together, but in the FOSS world the mechanics are happy to spend their time building an engine that runs beautifully without concerning themselves with the art side of things.
In so far as comparing levels of complexity, you're correct. But that's not the salient part of the the parent comment.
A tool with a vaguely defined goals and no stakeholders is easier to make than a tool that must meet certain goals as defined by stakeholders.
I'd disagree. Just like how no one needs to find an engine usable, no one needs to find a game fun. My personal itch.io account is full of games no one finds fun :)
Why assume that a game has to be made? Making a handful of tech demos doesn't come with that baggage and deflects criticism of making an empty shell of an engine with nothing to speak of.
In the real industry the very technical people are focused on very concrete problems like level 3 is causing too much overdraw on Xbox. What can we do without breaking X,Y, and Z.
Yes and no. It’s true that some people really only care about a slice of the process, but if you’ve been around the gamedev scene long enough you’ll also see people working on very technically ambitious projects while they’re fooling themselves thinking they’re making a game.
I just need a few more years working on my 4D non-euclidian voxel MMO engine before I can make my game!
Having spent a couple decades making engines that did ship games, now I spend a fair bit of free time helping noobs make engines even though statistically nearly none of them end up shipping games.
Making a game engine is a fun and highly-engaging means to learning high-performance programming. Yes, it would be better if you also were able to invest enough to ship a game. But, don't let the infeasibility of that goal stop you from learning and having fun.
I think it’s very hard to learn high performance programming for real without facing real performance problems.
I agree there is fun and learning to be had, but just note they are very different activities.
At what point of optimization does it turn into 'real' high performance programming?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
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Its a nice portfolio project. A toy renderer (at least, when the job market wasn't so dearth) leading to a thesis or an engine programmer position at some AAA studio is a very worthwhile tradeoff.
The skillset and ontent is also just different. You don't see games on github (publicly) because they are being made for sale. Very few engine projects are serious commercial projects. I think I'd be safe to say that a commercial engine is harder than making a commercial game. Especially since Unity and Unreal have mindshare and are free to start and learn with.
In order of difficulty: 1. Making an engine with no game 2. Making an engine that ships one game 3. Making an engine that ships multiple games
It's easier to throw yourself into a programming project as a programmer than learn completely new skills: art, design, music. Instead the fantasy is that either the game engine is so great people will come make games, or the game engine will support something so radically different the programmer art gets ignored (see simulation games like Minecraft or Factorio). I'm convinced that's why there are so many engines with no games.
It's true. Code-hosting sites generally do host more coding projects than artwork, asset, and design projects.
I usually look for games on websites like Itch.io. You might want to try that if you're having trouble finding websites that have games on them.
Making a game with Godot or Unity is much easier than making an engine.
I think they are referring to the game engine developers in both cases.
Why would game engine developers want to make a game though? Plenty of devs prefer building the underlying frameworks and tools over the products those tools create.