Unity was developed starting in 2001, Shiva 2002/2003 (company created 2003, research started 2002). 3dgamestudio started in 1993.

yes, started in 1993, and dr dobbs journal mentioned that it was one of the best engine at that time - at least for indie. for they to last this long, quite impressive.

the question is, how come a company that start later can leave a company that started a long ago behind - specially in this kind of business. funding? business decision? marketing? it's not like conitec is behaving like the old duke nukem forever developer.

I know people been talking about game sales for a while, platform sales, but I just want to just talk about game engines sales, and usage, what went wrong, what went right.

was unity did the right thing developing on a mac right from the start? so instead of going into a saturated market, they find a niche market? and they keep expanding on the niche market until they are big enough to take over another market.

engine and prove-ability is another beast. Unity not only develop a game engine, but also develop a game with it.

what makes and breaks a game dev company? with UDK is now free/99 (at least for indies and casual user), Unity3D has free version (even for commercial use), Shiva is coming up with unlimited PLE version, compileable (no cummercial use), while current is unlimited PLE, but no compilation.

Do 30 day demos work anymore? Do limited free version (for example, 3dgamestudio,
dxstudio) works anymore?

is the only way to sell 3d game engines now is the long tail style? Instead of forcing user to test it within 30 day (as if they have enough time), or limited feature (oh hai, i want to see if they can load normal mapping and this shared - oh, the free version doesn't allow to! (3dgamestudio) i want to build this game in a week - oh hai, only 10 object per scene (dxstudio).

is game engine developer shooting themself in the foot?

They way I look at it, current engine developer that targets casual user (so CryEngine, etc, etc, are not included in this discussion, except those that also cater to casual user - unity, shiva, etc) prefer to combine the lost sale + long tail technique.

they know if an user doesn't like an engine, they won't buy it. it takes more than 30 day to like an engine. if an engine are used to develop a game they like, or a game in a style they like - so if an engine developer also build game instead of just engines (like garagames games with it early ball game) is a plus. Long tail is a style where free unlimited demo is given so that user can actually develop a full game if they want to - with a catch. with UDK, 99 if they decided to go commercial. free otherwise. with Shiva, currently, cannot compile - but you can run the game.

so, what is your opinion on the engine you're using currently? does you ever used an engine that is now dead? (eg. Jamagic) I've been using game engines for fun since 1995, i've seen a lot that born, live and died.

and what about small time developer, like 3drad.com (I think it's a really small company). i know casual games sell, but casual game engine? i'm not saying engine that capable of making casual games (ala game maker, which is quite powerfull for 2d games), but, you know, engines like 3drad (I hope I'm not insulting anyone).

so, I repeat myself again. what is the engine you currently use. if you are a business man, how would you improve the engine/company. if you used an engine that died before, why it died? what would you do to turn things around? is there any game engine you knew can make it big should they do it the right way, but didn't get off the ground?

does anyone here ever use Q? develop by ex-directx developer, free even back in 2000(?) (but only for games delivered on windows) used by a lot of big names, popular games.

so, keep the conversation going, just to travel down the memory lane while improving our business senses.

yeah, i have free time on my hand now that i'm suffering from writers block, besides, this is how I rest.

A case in point, do you think garagegames will go far in their current way of doing business? or they need to change their business style.

on the other hand, i know that unity3d only support free user as far as forum posting goes - but you get different kind of help if you bought pro, and you can have better help if you willing to pay for it (which is another business income).

the way I see it, UDK is preparing for future user (just like student.autodesk.com). the more people who are good at UDK, the more companies start using UDK instead of another AAA engine.

Unity on the other hand not only do what UDK do, except they limit themself in capabilities, not in commerciality. so maybe you can generate income fisrt, then buy the pro version. but they also do a voting process, so they know what user want. there is no better marketing than asking user what they want, and give them what they want.

ha ha ha. allegro and HGE.

HGE ended in 2008, if their website is correct. it was awesome at it's time, for 2D. But I was a fan of game maker back then (look, no programming!) Ah, yes, Allegro. I used that too. It was popular back in the days. When a lot of elite programmer used Allegro to write emulator, you know it's quite awesome. I think I used it with FreePascal. Back in my day we have to learn Turbo Pascal, knowing that Turbo Pascal wasn't supported anymore, i move on to freepascal.

looking at how people talk about C#, Java, Python, C/C++, I think Pascal can be considered a dead language. Yeah, there are people using it and FreePascal still active, but professionally, it was a dead language, IMHO.

Allegro and HGE does bring me back to the memory lane.