Game development career thread:

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tyen

tyen

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Unity3d just got 185 million dollars of funding.

Should move to Bellevue if you want in on that.

I'm still pushing on with EQBrowser, it's fucking nice as hell atm.
 
Control

Control

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Not sure how much it should affect their valuation, but Unity has a far more content available in their assets store, making it potentially easier for small teams to get up and running.

Also, I haven't tried looking at either of their financials, but when you say Epic is more profitable, how much of that comes from their games versus their engine royalties? Profit from the engine would likely be considered much more stable/reliable than game-based profit, which is a massive, multi-year gamble for every release.

Also, I would expect some (much?/most?) of Unity's valuation hinges on it's attractiveness as an acquisition target.
 
Control

Control

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I didn't mean that either of the companies actually made money from their asset stores, just that a more robust asset store could be an incentive to a small studio. It's really all about saving developer man hours for a highly cash-limited company, and dropping a few k in plugins is nothing if it saves you a couple of man-months of programmer time. I would be very surprised if almost all Unity game releases didn't have something from the asset store. Also keep in mind that, since they don't charge revenue-based royalties, Unity is the cheaper option, assuming that a game sells a non-trivial number of copies.

I'm sure that Epic is in good shape financially. Their games sell well, and their tech gets used in a ton of AAA games, though I have no idea what the revenue mix would be between game and tech. I just meant that their game revenue would be less predictive of value than ongoing tech revenue since, well, games are expensive and can flop. Giant game companies put themselves out of business every year since each release is pretty much do or die.
 
tyen

tyen

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unity3d DOMINATES game engine market share. Unreal doesnt even come close.

When people create a game, 45% of the time they will use unity. 17% of the time then will use unreal.

Unity is the best game engine, period.
 
tyen

tyen

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also, lumberyard is a piece of shit. has like 5 years until it can even be called a "competitor."

tried it out when it released, felt like an alpha test.
 
Control

Control

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tyen said:
When people create a game, 45% of the time they will use unity. 17% of the time then will use unreal.
Click to expand...

Even though I'm defending Unity above, what's the % for AAA games? or for revenue generated? Those are probably more reasonable metrics since Unity has definitely powered a LOT of worthless shovelware.
 
tyen

tyen

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the metrics can be subjective to the point of splitting hairs.

how much money a game has made thats based on unity, or how much money unity has made from developers.
 
Control

Control

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I meant the revenue generated by the games. The point was just that the games generating serious revenue (and thus that gamers are more likely to care about) are more likely to be made with Unreal. This might be changing as Unity is moving its way up the dev food chain, but I would guess that the rev ratio is still hugely in Unreal's favor.
 
tyen

tyen

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Control said:
I meant the revenue generated by the games. The point was just that the games generating serious revenue (and thus that gamers are more likely to care about) are more likely to be made with Unreal. This might be changing as Unity is moving its way up the dev food chain, but I would guess that the rev ratio is still hugely in Unreal's favor.
Click to expand...

there are too many variables to consider when making an assumption that a game made more money because it is using unreal rather than unity.

it would be more likely to say that large development studios that are able to afford herds of development staff choose a more customizable engine. thus their product is backed by much more than an indie studio who chose unity. thus making their revenues different from eachother.
 
Control

Control

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tyen said:
there are too many variables to consider when making an assumption that a game made more money because it is using unreal rather than unity.

it would be more likely to say that large development studios that are able to afford herds of development staff choose a more customizable engine. thus their product is backed by much more than an indie studio who chose unity. thus making their revenues different from eachother.
Click to expand...

I didn't assume that games made more money because they used Unreal. I assumed that games with significant budgets were more likely both to use Unreal and to make more money. Dominating market share isn't quite as big of a bonus if that share excludes most significant games. Either way, I still think Unity is a great option for small teams that don't have huge budgets. Despite the shovelware, it has gone a long way to things possible for super indie studios.
 
tyen

tyen

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If you want the title of this thread to be your future, you will purchase this right now. You have until Aug 14th.

Pass the Unity Certified Developer Exam - Lifetime Access

I definitely am, hella cheap, why not, get a cert, and obtain some knowledge that I didn't get while teaching myself to build eqbrowser.

It's 30-40hr commitment involved.
 
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Big_w_powah

Big_w_powah

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Maybe I need to make the jump from SysAdmin to Game Developer--Anyone else made that jump? Any advice? Is it something I should complete a few basic games solo, to have proof of concept?
 
Big_w_powah

Big_w_powah

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Sounds like being a sysadmin...

Ass pay and no job security..I at least love video games.

Just sayin'--I'd love to work at a game company, in whatever role--I'm a pretty badass sysadmin.
 
Control

Control

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It's probably true for most jobs, but generally speaking you want to be able to show that you can already pretty much do the job that they want you to do. Game companies typically care less about your credentials or experience unless it's experience at another game company (though that may be less true for things like sysadmin). Go hit up one of the game industry job boards (like on gamasutra) and take a read through all of the positions and their requirements to get a feel for what's out there.

Once you've picked a general direction, people can probably give you better advice. I can mostly only talk usefully about design positions, but its almost universally true that you'll have a much easier time going with a technical position. Either way, you can do it if you're willing to put in the time and effort.

Note that unless you already live in a game industry hub, you'll probably need to relocate (and you may also need to relocate every couple of years when your companies close or do layoffs).

Game industry jobs are really for people who don't care much about their time, money, or location. That sounds like sarcasm, but it really isn't. Making games has to be enough.
 
Sir Funk

Sir Funk

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