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It's time to stop hating on Unity

Caronte

Member
Bad optimization is very much a thing. Downright dismissing a game only because it runs on Unity is stupid though, especially on PC.

I actually like the engine. Its portability has helped in bringing lots of games to the Mac so that's a big plus for me.
 

FyreWulff

Member
Yep. I remember some people would say they wouldn't pay for a Flash game. Bruh that's like saying you wouldn't pay for a C++ game, only C games.
 

Arkage

Banned
I'm fine with games running on Unity as long as they're optimized.

Telltale's engine on the other hand...
 

FyreWulff

Member
Gaffers also seem completely oblivious to the fact that using Unreal is expensive, and they get a percentage of the game's profits.

Because licensing engine makers intentionally market directly at non-engine-users to try and get the base to pressure devs into licensing their engine.
 

dogen

Member
I have developed for both, and made/sold assets for both.

UE4 blows unity out of the water. There really is no comparison. Not sure why anyone would use unity other than c# and ue4's blueprint is even easier than it.

Pretty sure blueprint isn't particularly fast lol.
 
I dont have a problem buying a Unity game. But I know that when I buy a Unity game, most of the time, it'll get my GPD Win suffer. Even simple looking games make it suffer.
 
I disagree. Talk about engines. And get nuanced about it. Is it just stock engine with little alterations? Is this an engine that has been modified heavily to fit the game?

The thing is, engines often share the same issues, so to white wash that and pretend it's not worth discussing? No, fuck off. Sorry but engine is a discussion point pertinent to a game. Game devs need to put their big pants on and own up to the decisions, good or bad, they've made.
 

Nanashrew

Banned
Yet to play a console game that runs on Untiy that isnt kinda of a mess or so basic it could run on a PSP.


The engine earned its shitty reputation. It should earn peoples trust too.

Enter the Gungeon
Night In the Woods
Hollow Knight
Ori and the Blind Forest
Superhot

None of those?
 

Woo-Fu

Banned
Is it really hate for Unity or is it hate for the very low average quality of games developed on Unity? Sure, there are exceptions but they're just that: Exceptions.

Somebody early tried to make a comparison to hating on Frostbite due to Andromeda but that person completely missed that again it is an exception, but this time the exception is the crappy game.

Hating on the majority of Unity games is just fine.
 
I've dabbled a bit in unity development and it's not bad for people wanting to make a few smaller games. However when you start to really push the engine the seams really start to appear.

Poor performance is an endless issue and Unity has some quirks that makes it awful for 2d development. I think the reputation it has is well-earned and people would be better served learning UE4 instead.

Well this is kind of new, I haven't seen a lot of people recommend UE4 for 2D development. In fact I'm having trouble finding examples of well-known 2D games developed with it, anyone know some? This is relevant to me as I'm making a 2D game.
 

depths20XX

Member
I've dabbled a bit in unity development and it's not bad for people wanting to make a few smaller games. However when you start to really push the engine the seams really start to appear.

Poor performance is an endless issue and Unity has some quirks that makes it awful for 2d development. I think the reputation it has is well-earned and people would be better served learning UE4 instead.

Thanks for the advice, dabbler dude.

If a game runs like shit, it runs like shit. Triple A games still have issues so it's fucking hilarious that Unity gets picked out as some problem when it's already been proven some of the best games of this gen have been created with it.
 
From my experience with it....i hate fucking coding so i rely on visual based scripting commands and utilise the endless resources of other people banging their head against the wall to get my ideas to work


Or
I can simply import my shit into ue4 and have some of the same basic functionality up and running in minutes and can pretty much view or play concepts on multiple devices with little fuckaround....i dont sell my shit so its great for me.
 

ghostjoke

Banned
It's not a deal breaker, but I play certain games and there's that first stutter and I realise I'm going to have to deal with it for the duration. Not to pretend other engines don't have issues, but there's a very consistent feel to the issues in Unity games over a certain scale.
 

FyreWulff

Member
Well this is kind of new, I haven't seen a lot of people recommend UE4 for 2D development. In fact I'm having trouble finding examples of well-known 2D games developed with it, anyone know some? This is relevant to me as I'm making a 2D game.

if you're doing 2D i'd look into Game Maker instead.
 

TheRed

Member
I thought this was about AC Unity and I was ready to go to bat for you. I don't really have any input on this though.

I may have to make the thread defending AC Unity myself someday :p
 

Isurus

Member
Came in thinking this would be about AC: Unity and was going to agree. Ah well. Regarding the topic at hand, kinda depends. It's works for some types of games, but seems like an unoptimized mess for others. Simpler 2D games seem to be where it works out.
 

TAJ

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Almost every example in this thread of why it allegedly doesn't suck is a side-scroller, top-down, very basic graphically, or some combination of those.
 

Knox

Member
Unity makes it easy for less skilled programmers to make games, so lots of stuff gets made that's poorly optimized. It's not because it's a bad engine, it's because there's a lower barrier to entry for developers. As a former shitty programmer, I've made several shitty games in Unity that I probably wouldn't have been able to figure out how to make in other engines.
 

SapientWolf

Trucker Sexologist
Almost every example in this thread of why it allegedly doesn't suck is a side-scroller, top-down, very basic graphically, or some combination of those.

Most indie games aren't going to win graphics awards, but I've seen some neat first person stuff in Unity.
title_screenjpg.jpg


Manifold Garden
manifoldgarden_screenshot_12.jpg

Unity performance is less of an issue on the PC than it is on the consoles.
 
Gk3yk3l.pnghttp:


I understand his feelings on this, but this just isn't their job and I hope no game journalist actually thinks this is something they should do.

If a game is using a particular engine, and someone feels it's relevant enough to what they're saying to bring it up, then that person has no reason not to, even if they lack full understanding on the technical aspects of the engine. If a game has problems that are often seen in other games running the same engine, that is also worth raising. Helping developers just isn't what a journalist should be considering first.

Like it or not but Unity has developed a reputation, probably an unfair one but it's key to keep in mind that games are consumer products, people tend not to be forgiving when they feel they paid for something that isn't living up to what it should be in some way. I'm sorry but deal with it - either prove people wrong and sales should follow (Inside, Ori, etc) or change engines if it's such a big problem, which I honestly doubt it is.
 
I thought this was about AC Unity and I was ready to go to bat for you. I don't really have any input on this though.

I may have to make the thread defending AC Unity myself someday :p

Haha, I was exactly the same

anyway, the fact that Moon Studios made Ori and the Blind Forest using Unity is enough is more than enough for me,

That game is too pleasing to look at and so darn fun to play
 

dogen

Member
I don't hate it but it isn't very optimized. Rust runs like shit.

Don't you mean rust isn't very well optimized? The game runs better with almost every single update (and probably runs 2x as well as it did a year or two ago) and somehow it's the engine that's entirely responsible for it's performance?
 

Ritzboof

Member
i have never understood the hate on unity. its one of the best engines ever made, and the fact that incompetent weirdos can make anything on it should be a testament to that. there are a ton of really stunning, amazing games out there that are made using the unity engine, as well

it gives a lot of indie devs the power to make extremely high quality games, and we wouldnt have stuff like grow home or distance or a ton of other shit if it werent for how amazing of an engine unity is. peeps that think unity = garbage literally dont know anything
 

phant0m

Member
Why do I need to stop criticizing something that has had continuously poor performance across multiple platforms and studios?

Oh, because it's easy for devs to use and doesn't take a cut?

giphy.gif


It's fine for side-scrollers and isometric stuff but straight up awful for first/third person 3D. I can't believe there's a crusade to "stop hating". You guys just always looking for a cause, eh?
 

Magypsy

Member
Like others have posted in this thread, the problem is somewhere in the middle. Yes, a lot of games are made by inexperienced developers and they don't know/understand the intricacies of optimising (for Unity). Game development is hard.

Yes, Unity has some issues that they have to address themselves. Namely the garbage collector and less then stellar performance on consoles. Game engine development is hard.

Unity has enabled plenty of people to get into game/creative application development, so in my opinion the net result is that Unity Is Good.

Not buying a game outright because it's made in Unity is just asinine, though. Being concerned because it's made in Unity is fine.

source: am (Unity) game developer
 

LordRaptor

Member
This is the response I got when I asked why Micro Machines runs at 30fps on the PS4 Pro

iAdMmAW.png


Unity ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I mean... What are they gonna say?
That even the PS4 "Pro" has ass single threaded performance?

"Bu-bu-but The Order 1886!
POWAH of PLAYSTATION is a BEAST!
Just multithread everything lazy devs!"
 

wwm0nkey

Member
Like others have posted in this thread, the problem is somewhere in the middle. Yes, a lot of games are made by inexperienced developers and they don't know/understand the intricacies of optimising (for Unity). Game development is hard.

Yes, Unity has some issues that they have to address themselves. Namely the garbage collector and less then stellar performance on consoles. Game engine development is hard.

Unity has enabled plenty of people to get into game/creative application development, so in my opinion the net result is that Unity Is Good.

Not buying a game outright because it's made in Unity is just asinine, though. Being concerned because it's made in Unity is fine.

source: am (Unity) game developer
Yeah I do think this is one of those rare cases where the issue is somewhere in the middle.

Really hope the new job system and compiler solve some of these console issues though.
 
There have been updates on pushing console performance, and once the new Mono stuff is in, it should help a lot - especially with garbage collection. I mean, hell, until recently, there was no proper LoD system, and it was a few years ago we finally got culling - thankfully that's been improved massively.

But yes, this comes down to a lot of engine utilization - most small, no budget indie games are just thrown together asset bundles that the devs downloaded from the store with jumbled up code they found online. I'm by NO MEANS dissing devs (hey I make games in Unity) but a lot of the "crappy" examples people show are usually this.

You can't just throw all kinds of different ingredients into a blender, turn it on, and expect stuff to taste good.

Be more concerned about the developer, not the engine. Remember, we've seen insanely amazing stuff come out of Game Maker in its early days. I mean, I'm part of a team that's working on Gen 2 Pokemon ROM games, and we're pushing that engine further than it ever has been because we have a good set of devs (and the Gen 2 engine is trash lol).
 

LordRaptor

Member
most small, no budget indie games are just thrown together asset bundles that the devs downloaded from the store with jumbled up code they found online.

No, that is completely untrue.
Why do you think that is the case?

Because certain "journalists" have pushed that narrative.

That is why the quote in the OP is talking about how journalists have fucked things up, and the longer extrapolation of that quote is that if someone doesn't even fucking understand what an engine actually does, maybe they should not even be bringing it up in any discourse surrounding a game, for the same reasons nobody mentions if FMOD is used in a game or not.
 

EVO

Member
Almost every example in this thread of why it allegedly doesn't suck is a side-scroller, top-down, very basic graphically, or some combination of those.

So? I mean, that's kind of what Unity is meant for. Now name 5 high profile games of a similar ilk made with UE4. I bet you can't.
 

Ascheroth

Member
Well this is kind of new, I haven't seen a lot of people recommend UE4 for 2D development. In fact I'm having trouble finding examples of well-known 2D games developed with it, anyone know some? This is relevant to me as I'm making a 2D game.
I'd be interested in this too. 2D in Unity certainly gave us some headaches at times, but the last time I looked into UE4 I haven't found much about 2D with it.
 

jimboton

Member
Should play Ori then. :)

Ori is a great game but at least when I last played, it wasn't smooth even on a powerful pc. Stutters and bad framepacing everywhere.

Like others have posted in this thread, the problem is somewhere in the middle. Yes, a lot of games are made by inexperienced developers and they don't know/understand the intricacies of optimising (for Unity). Game development is hard.

Yes, Unity has some issues that they have to address themselves. Namely the garbage collector and less then stellar performance on consoles. Game engine development is hard.

Unity has enabled plenty of people to get into game/creative application development, so in my opinion the net result is that Unity Is Good.

Not buying a game outright because it's made in Unity is just asinine, though. Being concerned because it's made in Unity is fine.

source: am (Unity) game developer

This sums it up.
 

pfkas

Member
I'm no expert at Unity, but I know it pretty well and work with C# daily. I would suggest a lot of the stuttering issues are due to misuse of the garbage collector. Treat it like you're working with C++ and properly manage your memory use and it should be fine. This is more an issue of C# than of Unity itself.
 
Unity should look into a developer grant system similar to UE4, improve their image by providing a few talented indie devs with more resources to better utilise the engine.

They've done great work over the years making a game engine available & affordable to everyone. But it wouldn't hurt to attract a few higher caliber developers that would otherwise go the UE4 route.
 

KORNdoggy

Member
until it produces more consistent results on consoles it will always get criticism. you could argue that blame should be placed squarely on the developers for choosing that engine in the first place instead of something more easily optimized for the system. but you could also argue the engine shouldn't be such a pain in the arse to get good results out of on consoles.

i mean, yes, ori is a well optimized game, it's also a simple 3D platformer and is platform holder backed as an exclusive so it's hardly a particularly fitting game to bring up when we're talking about unity games on a whole.

i honestly think the main issue is where these games are developed. they're usually made on PC where you can easily brute force your way through shitty optimization and get away with it. at this point, given it's popularity you'd think the engine would be able to run a game like soma or firewatch better than it does on PS4. there isn't really any excuses for the engine or the developers using it. use UE4 or something, save everyone the headache.
 
No, that is completely untrue.
Why do you think that is the case?

Because I constantly see it, and from being a developer with Unity for over 5 years now, It becomes very clear when that's the case.

I'm saying Unity is a good engine, but incompetent developers kill it with practices such as this.
 

LordRaptor

Member
there isn't really any excuses for the engine or the developers using it. use UE4 or something, save everyone the headache.

You and others seem to be under the impression its "Use Unity because you're a fucking idiot or use Unreal like REAL MEN DEVS do".

When the choice is actually "Use Unity or don't make the game in the first place".
I mean, if you console kiddies actually want less games released on your gaming platform to sneer at and say "will wait for PS+", keep up the good work pre-emptively shitting on developer engine choice bros.

e:
Because I constantly see it

Where?
Where do you constantly see a majority of games being "asset flips" and transposed c# tutorials?

I mean, I regularly participate in Ludum Dare which is the roughest of the rough in terms of budget, polish, and optimisations, and I don't see any of this shit.
 
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