Tim Sweeney heeft op de Unreal Tech Page zijn reactie geplaatst over het interview van MSNBC met John Carmack en John Romero. In dat interview maakte John Carmack een opmerking over engine licensing (id Software is erg sterk op dat gebied). Check it:
In this MSNBC interview, I think John Carmack hit the nail on the head on the "build vs. buy" decision that goes into licensing an engine:"If you want to aim for something that’s 100 percent proprietary and you’re willing to take 18 months longer on the project to develop the technology while running a significant risk of abject failure, you make your own game engine. If you’ve been to a few E3’s, you’ve probably seen a dozen instances of somebody making a really, really cool demo that’s showing off some new technical direction — then the game never comes out."
Though game engine licensing was occuring over two years ago, we're still very much in the early days of this rapidly growing and evolving market: Game developers are learning what an engine can and can't do for them, and engine developers are still learning the ropes of the business models, engine modularity, support, and version management.
I'm happy to see the press treating engines level-headedly: everyone seem to recognize that an engine is a useful tool that can speed development and enable a developer to focus on game development rather than technology; but also that an engine is just a tool and isn't a miracle solution for game development. When an exciting new technology is evolving, there's always a danger of it being massively overhyped and pushed as a cure-all solution (see Java), but engines seem to have received a fair showing, not unrealistically positive or negative.
