Just to throw a little spanner in the works where we compare games written in assembler and games written in high level languages, in the early 80s there were computers that had high-level interpreted languages which included inline assemblers.

BBC BASIC for example allowed a programmer to enter assembly by simply enclosing it in [ and ], and using a global variable P% to indicate the memory address to start placing machine code instructions.

It was quite common to see a game written in BBC BASIC, an interpreted language, where that interpreted language then would output machine code and call it directly.

Other platforms of the day did something similar with a huge array which it would then write to memory using POKE, but this was much less maintainable.

Once the machine code was written to memory a second program would he launched via CHAIN, and that program contained only gameplay code in the BASIC as a set of CALL instructions and branches, loops etc, therefore the assembler was an engine and the BASIC was the gameplay code that uses said engine...

I've seen such games with a date earlier than 1984.

"Games were written by programmers who actually knew how to code their way out of a wet paper bag" was the first thing that came to my mind, as only a weak programmer would completely rely on an pre existing engine. What if Unity and UE4 suddenly disappeared? Many of you would simply be f**ked.

I can't tell if you're trying to be funny, or you genuinely believe that bullshit, so apologies if you were just being sarcastic.

First, Unity and UE4 aren't going to suddenly disappear and if they did, something else would replace them.

Second, who gives a damn? The idea that you need to be able to be an amazing engine programmer to write a good game is patently false. Most people don't give a crap what your programming skills are, they care about the game mechanics, story, graphics, etc.

Being a great programmer != creating a great game. Shigeru Miyamoto was an industrial designer.

This concept is ridiculously flawed. It's like saying you have to be a farmer or a knife maker to be a great chef. You need to understand how to use your ingredients and tools, but you certainly don't need to make them.

For starters, of course I was being sarcastic (mostly). I had a feeling that you were going to miss it as I was typing it tbh.

Second, Oberon already said most of what I was going to say already. Although you took it a step beyond what I was saying, I never said that being a great programmer means you don't use a middleware engine. Nor did I claim that gamedev is what separates good decks from bad ones. And no s**t those engines aren't going to magically disappear just like that, I was definitely being sarcastic there, however I was kinda serious when I said that there's some people that can't do anything without a middleware engine. This I know by experience. I've had one ignorantly say that those who write their own are inexperienced. I beat his argument to a bloody pulp as his game and steam campaign was nothing but an empty level plus his entire team utterly failed to write their own while I did it with ease by myself. Like everyone else said, even though your engine choice doesn't determine your skill level as a dev of any software, you do have those that are completely dependent on the middleware engine where as back in the day this would break you in most cases.

Personally I don't care what your game uses, unless your game engine is so unoptimally bad that it crashes my machine and/or makes the game unplayable. Hey, one of my favourite mobile titles from 2009-ish, Save Toshi, used Unity. I don't go "this game uses unity, it must be crap", no. That's ridiculous.

Edit: btw I forgive you. (Darn iPhone doesn't like this forum layout.). I don't take anything personal and nothing I say should be either.

Also, the engine dev biz is quite lucrative so even if Unity or Epic went belly up, someone else will take their place.