This post was originally published on Patreon, as a bit of an experiment to see if I can write actual blog posts. This is a touched up version of the original post.

This whole Unity situation has been somewhat stressful to say the least. Not because I'm a hardcore Unity user, but because it has huge implications for the gaming industry and the indie gaming community as a whole, and I find the way people are reacting to it to be somewhat concerning.

The Backstory

Actually okay, let's just go through everything that has happened so far for those who don't know. Unity used to offer three pricing options: Personal, Plus, and Pro. The Personal tier was free with a forced Unity logo at the start of each game, and the Plus and Pro tiers were paid with additional features. People were generally happy with these, though it famously didn't make Unity much money.

So Unity rebranded the Personal tier as "Free" and raised the prices of Plus and Pro a ton. This was already a shitty change, but oh no, it gets so much worse.

They also introduced a brand new fee based on game downloads, and wanted to include a DRM sorta thing that kept track of those game downloads. I won't even explain why this is such a terrible idea, because a ton of people already did so. It genuinely is a really, REALLY bad idea.

To make the matters worse, they kept doubling down until very recently. This doesn't give us much confidence in the future of Unity, does it?

Because of all this mess, I've been seeing a lot of developers jumping ship or wanting to jump ship to other engines such as Godot. And I've been seeing even more developers trying to convince others to do the same.

But here's the thing... I'm not entirely sold on this whole thing.

I actually like Godot!

Don't get me wrong, Godot is cool. It's got its own strengths, its own charm, and it's gaining popularity for a reason. But trying to sell it as a perfect Unity replacement feels a bit like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole...when you don't really need to fit anything into any hole.

Unity's success over the years has been driven by its widespread adoption, a vast library of assets and resources, tons of tutorials for beginners, and a vibrant community. It's an engine that has powered more games than you could ever comprehend, from small indie gems to massive AAA titles.

This track record is not something you can easily replicate. The support and infrastructure around Unity have been built up over the course of many years, over a decade in fact!

Godot, on the other hand, is a relatively new engine that's still on its journey to reach maturity. It being free and open-source helped it gain some traction, especially among indie developers, but it's still not the juggernaut Unity is. It has seen SOME commercial use, that's true, but the only significant non-indie Godot game I can think of is an absolutely dogshit port of a Wii game that's riddled with technical issues, and that's not exactly a good sign.

The truth is that Godot is also just straight up lacking many things many Unity developers take for granted. Things like proper console support, which might not matter to small indie developers, but if you're serious about your craft, it's an absolute dealbreaker.

But as I said earlier... Godot has its own strengths too! From what I've seen, making 2D games in Godot is actually a far less janky experience compared to Unity, and Godot's open source nature makes it possible for you to extend the engine in many different ways. Plus it's free! Like, completely free. Libre! No pricing bullshit. And nobody can take that away from you.

But see, that's the thing. While it has good things going for it, this does not make it a perfect replacement. While for a hobbyist Godot might be the better choice, for someone who does game development for a living, Unity is undeniably the safer bet, even after these recent events.

And before anyone says "But Godot is making progress! It will surpass Unity in no time!", no, you cannot just put all your trust in the words of one engine's developers. Clickteam Fusion is a good example of this. They promised that Fusion 3 would come out in 2017 and it would change everything. Spoiler alert: 2.5 is still the latest version. I think we are way past 2017 by now.

So, where does that leave us? Well, I just don't think that we should be trying to replace one giant with another. Instead, we should be trying to push for more diversity in the game engine market as a whole.

What if...

Like imagine a future where there are multiple different engines for different purposes. Some engines would be suited more towards pixel art-y 2D games, some engines would be for realistic 3D games, and some would be for more stylized stuff. Some engines would prioritize ease of use, while others would offer more control for the programmers.

This idea is that just like how there are different tools for different purposes in a toolbox, there can be multiple game engines filling various different niches within the industry.

To add on top, by embracing a multitude of game engines, we would encourage healthy competition, and innovation would emerge as a result of that. These engines would be pushed to continuously improve, offer better features and whatnot.

Or you know what? Fuck it. Let's go even further. What if instead of just relying on game engines we did things the old way and made games using a combination of different frameworks and tools. Like, imagine having level editors, asset managers, entity systems, graphics libraries and more that you can seamlessly integrate into your games.

Say the developers of one of those components fucked up. Well, replacing your level editor of choice is much easier than switching a whole engine, that's for sure!

This isn't a very unrealistic future to dream of. In fact, there already are tons of game engines out there with more specific focuses, like Defold, Buildbox, RPG Maker, and I guess in a way, GameMaker. We also already have frameworks that offer flexibility and freedom like no big monolithic engine ever could, like MonoGame, LÖVE, and Pygame. There are even engine-agnostic tools that game developers can use in conjunction with one another, like Tiled, LDtk... you get the point.

Yet right now, a good 40% of the games are still made with Unity, and I'm sure Unreal and GameMaker also hold a good another 40% of the market. Those other specific engines and more flexible frameworks simply aren't that widely used, and they are always lacking in some way.

The sad thing is that the market heavily favors these big monolithic engines where you're at the mercy of a single company. And once the downfall of one of those is confirmed, everyone tries to push another engine into its spot instead. Why can't we just have multiple engines to fill the same void instead of one? Or why can't we use this as an excuse to rethink our approach to game engines as a whole?

In conclusion...

I'm thinking about this topic because I saw the news about Re-Logic donating $100k to Godot, FNA, and MonoGame. And that's HUGE. I love MonoGame (and FNA by extension). I think it's a great framework, and while it's a bit more on the niche side, seeing it get more widespread adoption would be an awesome thing for the industry. For that it just needs more attention, both from the framework developers and the gamedevs, and I'm hoping that this additional funding would be enough for it to accomplish that.

As for Unity, I don't think it will die out instantly after this. I think many people will keep sticking to it, and I bet many of those who say they would switch engines will just go back to it as well. Switching engines is hard, it's inconvenient, and most people would never go through something of this nature when their whole livelihood depends on it. We all want to see Unity's downfall and the rise of the underdogs, but if that's going to happen, it's not going to be instant.

Still, seeing FNA and MonoGame get some attention, it feels like we're getting one step closer to the future I want. So, maybe there's some hope. Maybe...