This topic has come up in various forms a number of times before in alternate threads, but the themes/discussions of late in particular seem to have been driving for a focused topic on the matter as to the pros/cons of licensing engine technology vs in-house development.
Browsing the Internet a couple of days ago I came to some DICE coverage and was surprised to find a presentation/discussion centered on just that theme; not only that, but at the center of the debate were (surpisingly/unsurprisingly) Epic and Insomniac.
There's no unified coverage of the event that I can think of, so I invite users to search out there own articles - I've read several and they all color in different aspects - but from some of the ones I've found I would throw up these quotes as encapsulating the arguments on either side:
(The above are from here: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/conferences/dice/2920-DICE-2008-Epic-on-the-Hot-Seat)
This is a topic that has come up oftentimes before in limited form, but I was just wondering what peoples thoughts on the matter were. Personally on a philosophical level I do prefer the idea of investing Unreal 3's $500k license (for example) on internal hiring/training to get the job done and increase technology competitiveness over the long-run, but at the same time it can't be denied that different dev houses have different strengths/weaknesses, and for some it might make more sense to go the licensing route if the skills of the team favor that outcome.
With high-profile cases like Silicon Knights as a sort of 'fallout' example, it's hard to know whether it was an overly reliant view of Unreal as a solve-all that led to their dilemmas, or just a general ineptitude on the part of their team as a whole. If the later, could the situation have been corrected if the investment had been made internally, or are some houses simply sick/broken in areas (technology, management, coordination, etc...) that would see them struggle regardless of the path chosen?
Browsing the Internet a couple of days ago I came to some DICE coverage and was surprised to find a presentation/discussion centered on just that theme; not only that, but at the center of the debate were (surpisingly/unsurprisingly) Epic and Insomniac.
There's no unified coverage of the event that I can think of, so I invite users to search out there own articles - I've read several and they all color in different aspects - but from some of the ones I've found I would throw up these quotes as encapsulating the arguments on either side:
Insomniac said:You should invest and build your own engine," said Insomniac's Engine Director, Mike Acton. "It's an investment in your own people."
Acton opened by citing the No. 1 reason most developers choose middleware, that purchasing middleware instead of devoting programmer time to develop engine technology internally allows resources to be devoted strictly to gameplay, and then torpedoed it.
"...[Instead] you concentrate on learning how to use other people's tech."
According to Acton and Andy Burke, Insomniac's Tools Group Lead, developing technology in-house actually saves time and money, eliminates the learning curve of having to decipher someone else's code, and enables engineers to develop exactly what they want - and what the designers want - without being straight-jacketed into someone else's idea of what works and what doesn't.
"Isn't this just wanting to build it yourself because you think you can do it better than anyone else?" Acton asked, citing the No. 1 criticism of engineers who insist on developing technology in-house. "It's not. It's about responsibility." When the game doesn't ship, or ships in a bad state, the middleware vendor won't get blamed, "you will. … The only real way to take that core responsibility is to make sure it's done right and that your people are doing it."
Epic said:"I want to give a shout out to Mass Effect, BioShock and all the games who used our tech to do great things at the awards last night," he said. BioShock won four awards, and Mass Effect brought home RPG of the year.
Capps went on to debunk the suggestion that in-house technology is easier to implement than licensed middleware, pointing to the fact that most in-house tech isn't developed from scratch, rather cobbled together from pre-existing technology. But the reason to license middleware isn't just for the cost savings. It's about testing, stability and the "ooh" factor.
It's also, according to Capps, about documentation. He says with internal tech, the long lead time between establishing technology and shipping the game isn't spent on writing documentation. It's spent on adding new features or tweaking the existing ones, all of which add more complexity, not less, increasing the need for the documentation that isn't being written. Not so with middleware.
(The above are from here: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/conferences/dice/2920-DICE-2008-Epic-on-the-Hot-Seat)
This is a topic that has come up oftentimes before in limited form, but I was just wondering what peoples thoughts on the matter were. Personally on a philosophical level I do prefer the idea of investing Unreal 3's $500k license (for example) on internal hiring/training to get the job done and increase technology competitiveness over the long-run, but at the same time it can't be denied that different dev houses have different strengths/weaknesses, and for some it might make more sense to go the licensing route if the skills of the team favor that outcome.
With high-profile cases like Silicon Knights as a sort of 'fallout' example, it's hard to know whether it was an overly reliant view of Unreal as a solve-all that led to their dilemmas, or just a general ineptitude on the part of their team as a whole. If the later, could the situation have been corrected if the investment had been made internally, or are some houses simply sick/broken in areas (technology, management, coordination, etc...) that would see them struggle regardless of the path chosen?
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