There are two issues with UE3 in that sense. One, it doesn't mesh well with all (or even most) projects right off the bat, and two when problems arise there is a protracted process of dealing with Epic to get support. The support teams at Epic are dedicated to this, however, so their being a game company has nothing to do with it. They emphasize support that reflects their internal project(s) at the time, as this is what they are generally focused on. But with an internal monolith engine at EA, no matter the improvements in support, you will still introduce an inherent support latency into the equation via needing to make a call or send an email to someone external to the direct team, bring said person up to speed on the problem, and expect that said person might have other projects he is supporting at any given time... thus reducing his focus/attention to the problem at hand.
Where it might (or might not) be better than Epic's own support situation, I am saying that the inherent negatives of said situation still exist, it's simply a matter of degrees.
Honestly, I'd rather not discuss UE3 too deeply. I just think that saying 'UE3 doesn't work, so others won't either' is a pitfall. I highly doubt it's true. Support problems exist everywhere; true enough. Support also often helps.
And again, I'm not saying: 'my way is necessarily better'. I'm questioning a) the notion that tech-wise, game development is so different from other disciplines in software development that lessons can't be shared b) why redesigning the same thing multiple times is beneficial. The answer to both of these is somewhat vague, and revolves around game developers being creative.
Not sure what you mean by architectural problem. If an engine is geared towards certain strengths, it is almost by nature going to be weaker in certain areas because those areas are not built around explicitly. If a game is focused on mechanics featuring said 'weaknesses,' well... then the engine is going to look a lot different at the end of the process than it did at the beginning anyway.
By architectural, I mean: can't the engine/framework/library's architecture take such things into account? Make some modules optional while others not? Make it relatively easy to modify, if modification is necessary (it always will be). Make it possible for these modifications to be merged into the trunk after development is done.
Designing a robust architecture that does this is far, far, far, far more difficult than it sounds, but again, not outside the realm of possibility.
I don't think you're crazy Obonicus, indeed I understand what you're going for. But I really feel you over-emphasize the gains that can be made from further centralization on engine work. We're talking about financial gains here, right? You're just approaching it too Fortune 500 IMO, viewing the IP and the tools as more valuable than the individuals. In fact it seems to me that your ideal has a model where the team members become devalued to commodity level, easily shifted from product to product, familiar with 'the tools,' and uniform in practices and standards. It's macro, but too macro. As has been pointed out here already, this is a creative medium. The studios/titles that shine do so because of their teams much moreso than do to any tools or technology they've been given access to. When you force these guys to conform to an externally imposed straightjacket approach, you are most likely going to lose them, and development times will either increase and/or product quality will suffer. A lot of the top guys on the top teams like approaching the problems on their own terms, feeling they are contributing to the greater dialog in the development community, and building tools around the needs of the in-house artists/programmers that they have personal relationships with.
This I already agreed is a problem, to ERP. It's the one thing that may actually be insurmountable.
I have my doubts, though. Because, well, there's a similar sentiment among the 'geek-power' crowd, this mystique that writing code is akin to doing magic. And it's not. It's just hard work. So I'm not sure product quality will suffer if things become more standardized, more methodical.
What I'm hoping for is a standardization of technology and greater focus on content. I do believe this is possible. I think there's a misguided focus on technology; game studios' main line of business is
games, not tech.
We constantly hear stories about how studios are always one flop away from bankruptcy, and high-profile gaming is filled with stories of studios that just couldn't make it. The sentiment you hear repeated is: either you knock it out of the park, you may as well not swing at all. Over the years I've enjoyed games that were solid 7s, sometimes even 6s. Many of which didn't sell well either. Should studios be crushed because of one moderate failure? With HD costs, it seems like you can't target a niche audience anymore, unless you do it on portables (or sometimes weaker systems), or go for some low-tech HD stuff (see Disgaea 3). Are we better off that whole niche genres don't exist anymore for most intents and purposes?
If I can be perfectly frank, though HD is essentially the reason I switched from PCs to consoles, I think the move to HD may have been premature, at least as far as the publishers are concerned. But HD is here to stay, almost certainly, so I think budgets have to be scaled down somehow. Maybe I
am misguided; maybe the tech expenses aren't quite so high, maybe all the cost is on the content itself. I have heard reports in this very thread, though, that engineering is as big as content these days. So maybe I'm not.
And it's not like not being able to roll your own engine would make game-making any less a labor of love.
Cookie cutter games shines through, whether the technology is up to par or not, and that's what I feel you'll get with a heavy top-down approach. Hell even EA themselves has recently said they've been micro-managing too much, at the expense of disaffecting some of the developers that made their acquired dev houses what they were pre-acquisition... to say nothing of what a Politburo-style technology 'efficiency' imposition would do.
But you can have cookie cutter games with very polished engines. Content is the key differentiator. It's unfair to assume that one engine would lead to all games being the same, because what defines what a game is is content. We know this well enough. I think Sturgeon's law applies no matter the degree of polish you're forced to apply.
This is an industry of fixed costs - the costs pre-release are primarily head count. If your title launch is delayed, as has been indicated already in this thread as a frequent effect of external sourcing, than more likely than not you have ended up losing more money supporting said fixed cost structure than you have on the gains you achieved on 'fast-tracking' engine development. To say nothing of the compounded effects from potentially missing a certain launch window that was viewed as previously advantageous...
Delays can also be the effect of in-house development. Again, I think you're looking at things through a very skewed, even Office Space-like perspective. Okay, so, say, Mass Effect was delayed. But so was Mercenaries 2. What does that say? Nothing. Delays are more likely due to poor planning than anything else.
Now, you're saying that you would like to see the wages increased and game prices raised. I love all the developers of the world, but those wage increases would start adding the millions to title expenses real quick, far far exceeding any hypothetical gains from even an utopian technology situation. When you're thinking game development... it's been said before but it really does apply... think Hollywood rather than Microsoft (OS/Office). You are going to do a lot more damage than good by moving teams that are creative not just on a story/gameplay level but on a technology level as well to a super-centralized structure such as exists in the enterprise software space. The industry being hit-driven, such as with Hollywood or other 'artistic' mediums, is not new.
I'm not talking about wage increases. Greater QoL doesn't mean more money. It means less crunch time, more sane hours, better job stability. I don't see why this couldn't be achieved with proper planning. I don't think game prices should be increased, either. I just think games should be cheaper to make, not more expensive.
Movies, like games, are hit-driven, true. But that doesn't mean that less ambitious films aren't released. They are, and many actually make profits. Film still has quite a bit of life in its niche genres and arthouse films. HD gaming, meanwhile, seems to be strictly for the 'blockbusters' -- all that other stuff targets other systems. And, er, I don't think that's a good thing. It doesn't mean some games can't strive to be blockbusters.
