Re:Unreal Engine 4 is now available to everyone for free
by cpitman on Monday March 02, 2015 @04:55PM
(#9134612)
I think what may be missing that this is more than just a "graphics" library, and that by taking over the event loop and overall structure of the app they make it so that you can get a running game (as opposed to rendering a quad) far faster.
Game development forums are full of skeletons of people that tried to roll their own "game engine", forgetting that their goal was to make a game[1]. Unity (haven't used Unreal yet) makes it so that you can get a prototype done in less than a day. I probably looked like a kid waving my phone around like a joystick to steer my sub around a 3D ocean, changing the handling, etc. Starting with a graphics library would make that a multi-day task.
[1]: No really, when I was younger I essentially stopped working on my game and developed a fully compositing GUI/Window manager. Fun, but totally besides the point.
Game development forums are full of skeletons of people that tried to roll their own "game engine", forgetting that their goal was to make a game[1]. Unity (haven't used Unreal yet) makes it so that you can get a prototype done in less than a day. I probably looked like a kid waving my phone around like a joystick to steer my sub around a 3D ocean, changing the handling, etc. Starting with a graphics library would make that a multi-day task.
[1]: No really, when I was younger I essentially stopped working on my game and developed a fully compositing GUI/Window manager. Fun, but totally besides the point.