I''ve been reading about game engines in the various areas of the forums. People sometimes float the idea of teaming with others to build them and them sell them. I''ve read how the Quake engine was sold and reused in HalfLife. Is this realistic avenue for a student or hobby programmer? If you do build one, it competes with those that are built by professionals, and you would think that the pros'' engines tend to be superior. What are the barriers to entry for the engine marktet? Do people want technically inferior engines? Is there are comparable market (ie televisions?: a wide range and differing prices but they all get bought. or computers?: people want the latest)?

I am in the middle of writing an engine, I do not intend to sell it. I am making it so when I write games I will already have a set of easy to use 3D/2D, sound and basic AI functions. I am almost sure that no one would like to buy my engine. If somone, or a group of people are profesionaly making a game they would buy the Quake 3/Lithtech/Unreal Warfare engine. These engines offer 3D effects that no hobbist could spit out without years of work, keep in mind that an engine like Q3 or Unreal Warfare had teams of 10-20 profesionals working on them. So technicaly engines are only bought when they ARE superior, not when the dev team could just make one themselves. Hope this answers your question, somone tell me if i''m off to lunch on this one...

No it is not a realistic plan. Companies buy engines to speed up developement. They want something that is of a high quality and has proven reliability.

The only way to prove your engine is worth money is to develop a game using it. That means you need to make a cutting edge engine and then a cutting edge game - certainly not within the scope of a hobby programmer. All the companies that license engines (Q3, UT, Renderware) had to develop games first to show that the engine was good.

You could just develop a hobby engine and then give it away to hobby developers to help them develop games. You wouldn''t earn any money but you might get the satisfaction of seeing your hobby project grow into a game of some sort.

Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions

To answer some of your questions, it is not realistic to see a hobby programmer use a extremely powerful engine like Quake/Doom/Unreal Tournaments Engines. Why? Check the prices! Quake III engine costs either 250,000$ or 5% of all profits! Doom III will definantly be more when it is available for licencing, and i havent checked if you can get UT Engine.

Also, companies tend to use engines that were already proven in a awesome game like Half-life or QuakeIII so they can print on the back of their box:


" Created with cutting edge technology that powered the awesome Doom III "


This would give a feel to the buyer that this has awesome graphics...

ok thanks for the info.

the reason I asked was because someone in the Help Wanted forum was talking about making an engine and selling it. So I volunteered to help out. but there were only five guys and it hadn''t even started yet.

and from what you guys are saying, it sounds like a full time job, plus you actually need a game for the engine first, to prove how well it works.

I guess you''d need to pay each programmer handsomely.

oh well......

just out of interest, was the mario 64 engine used for n64 games as well as the zelda games?