Unity was Overrated

posted in Master of None
Published October 04, 2023
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With the recent changes of Unity pricing and billing, it appears that the number of users will go down … immensely. To be honest, I’m kind of glad. I’m not glad in a glee-filled way. I don’t like seeing things fail. I just was never a Unity guy.

When Unity started off, it seemed to have this unnatural buzz around it. I was unsure why everyone migrated so quickly to it. For what? It took years for the first AAA studio to use it for an actual product. Up until then, it produced things that mostly looked like advanced student projects.

If you look a Godot now, it is more advanced than Unity was on its 9th birthday. Granted technology has advanced, but it is not like Godot is going to be ordained Prince (behind Unreal) like Unity was around that time.

On the topic of Godot, if you are looking for a place to escape from Unity, look there. That’s not a plug for Godot. They just design a game in similar fashion. To be honest, I don’t like the way either has you construct a game. I call it the Apple principal. If you think like a Mac, it feels totally intuitive. If you don’t, it can be frustrating.

I am not talking from personal experience, but as a Professor who taught Unity. Students were often flustered. Like Unreal, you spend a lot of time understanding the engine in order to make it work correctly. So much so, that it takes a long time to make something worthwhile. People jumped on the Unity bandwagon too early and maybe too vigorously. In the end, we created a monster in which many feel addicted.

Now, as Unity squeezes creators away from it, it will be hard for many to make the leap to other engines … at first. After all, Unity had some things going for it. Two of the best of which were: 1) It was free to try to make games, and 2) It had a great asset store. Even though, I won’t miss being pushed to use or teach Unity, the end product did bear fruit. Hopefully, future game engine developers will take note. It’s time to de-seat the prince.

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