Is this actually true about Unity? - Much hate!

Hi,

I am very new to the Unity Engine but I really enjoy to do things with it (just basic learning stuff).

- I like it's simplicity
- I like C# or JavaScript (I dont have to bother with C++)
- Tons of assets to start with
- A lot of tutorials
- Big Community

on the other hand it seems that other engines look way better but I can't judge because maybe its just an Artist thing.

So but today I was browsing youtube and I searched something like "unity 5 vs unreal engine 4" just for fun to get some details about both engines.

And then the following video came up:

Is this actually true what he says about Unity? I am a beginner I cant judge if this is true or just hate!

 

Care to summarize it? So people won't need to waste 15 minutes watching this.

 

Go to 0:35 - 1:30 or/and to 14:30 - 15:20

Summary of the video is: Unity is crap, Unity is S***, Unity is 2D Pixel Art Crap, People are not smart who use Unity.

It seems to be a Game-Dev which has experience but why is he saying that? Is he a hater? Is he a troll? Or is there a little truth in these statements?

 

*facepalm*
Alright, now I definitely won't be watching this.

Either a fanboy of another engine, some sort of elitsits with weird ideas (like "all games must be written in assembler"), or someone trying to gather more views/comments on his video by making people angry.

The engine does have some issues/weak sides, but no engine is perfect.

Do you have specific questions about the engine?

 

Yeah, the description of Unity in that video is literally full of expletives.

By coincidence, so is my own personal review of that video. Unfair, I know, having only listened to a few seconds of it, but that's how it goes.

 

Download and see for yourself. It's free and can tell you a lot more about it than any silly video.

 

That's as far as I got in the video before before closing it. Either his only experience with Unity is from nothing but asset flips or he was fooled into thinking Unity is Torque circa 2002.


Wait, his comments are disabled. Nope, this F***er's just a S***poster.

 

I stopped watching when he said "C number score enabled" for Cryengine...confirmed he was just an idiot and NOT a developer.

what are you trying to do? EVERY engine has pros and cons...

 

So... ignore that video.

Unity has issues, all engines have issues, depending on what game you are making, those issues might affect you more or less and it's perfectly understandable that one can try Unity and have very valid reasons for disliking it.

But that video is garbage. The guy has a beef with Unity and doesn't make one single argument as of why. I think he did it on purpose to raise the views on his video (and I guess he succeeded).

 

Blizzard Entertainment must not be very smart then.

https://unity3d.com/showcase/case-stories/hearthstone

The majority of the difference is just better defaults and post processing effects on from the start.

 

Wow his video is so stupid someone has to do a video response

 

Unity is probably the easiest engine to get into. Plus it requires the splash screen on cheap low budget games. Not many high budget games display the Unity logo. So a lot of gamers associate Unity with crappy low budget games made by high school kids.

However if you look at the high budget games made in Unity, you'll see a very different picture. Unity is used by a wide number of AAA studios. And it's used pretty much universally by small studios and indies.

 

I remember watching this a while back. He used to have comments enabled but he was torn apart because he lacks knowledge on what he is talking about and is just spouting nonsense.

Edit: To elaborate a bit, he's regurgitating the "feature list" essentially and using that as a basis for what is better.

 

It's obvious from the video that the guy never used unity and doesn't know anything about it, he even thinks you have to pay a tax to use it, so who even cares about what he says? That would be like getting medical advice from a car mechanic.

 

No point. People who want to condemn the engine will do so and the smart people will just come here and ask us.

 

Doesn't seem that way at all. Didn't see any reference to his work if he has actually done any.

Everyone has an opinion. People's opinions only have value in context. It's no different from gamasutra or any other site. Before you pay any attention to some random person on the internet, check the context. If he hasn't made any games or has any real experience, his opinion is completely worthless. His only demonstrated skill or experience is the ability to create a youtube channel. Basically you wasted time watching some moron drone on, when you could have been actually been working on making a game. Attention-whores only goal is to waste your time, he is succeeding in that respect. I watched 10secs of the video, and feel that I should send him a bill for my time.

 

He states at the beginning that he has a day job and is spending his free time working towards a AAA game, as it sounds like he can only work with AAA tools.

His point seems to be Unity does not do AAA out of the box, you open up Unreal or Cryengine and ta da it's AAA already.

He does seem to like or prefer game engines that provide visual programming so you don't have to code?!

How many developers especially part time ones can produce or purchase their way to a good quality AAA game?

 

Which is all meaningless drivel, and illustrates my point. No one spends their "free time" working on a AAA game, that is an oxymoron. He has little to no understanding of game development if that is what he said, so everything after that has no value.

What someone is "working on" means nothing, until they have something to show for it. Being able to make quality games is very easily demonstrable. Anyone can say they are writing the next best-selling novel, or that they are spending their free time making a summer movie blockbuster. Doesn't mean you listen to them or that they have any valuable advice on the topic.

 

Dude's full of it, he's being intentionally inflamatory just to get views (notice how comments are disabled). There really isn't much else to say. Hell, footage of P.A.M.E.L.A. even plays in the background while he talks.

 

Not even that nowadays.
Unity's new effects stack is pretty awesome, even in beta.

And I've seen a lot horrible-looking UE4 games too. People tend to forget, that carefully thought-out art direction is more important than dozens of post-effects slapped onto a game with cheap standard assets.

It's pretty obvious, that the dude in this video has no clue. Unfortunately, this seems a common perception among Unreal Engine users. You find such comments a lot at the Unreal Engine forums.

The thing is, the most beautiful, creative and successful indie games were made with Unity so far. Firewatch, Subnautica, Slime Rancher, The Forest, Cities: Skylines, Prey for Gods are just a couple ones on top of my head.
Even the highly anticipated Little Devil Inside, was initially made with Unity, until they decided to use Unreal Engine (for whatever reasons, since the game already looked fantastic) and now face tons of issues, which lead to a huge delay that leaves a lot angry Kickstarter backers.

 

By making a video response to that nonsense, you'll be promoting original video. It may be exactly what the dude would want, especially if his channel is monetized. Ignore it. Do not comment, do not video respond, and do not share the link.

At least, that's the way I see it.

 

People say many things. Doesn't mean those things are true.

 

If you judge any tool by the ratio good to bad output from its user base, photoshop, Maya , zbrush, flash, blender, unity, unreal and the pencil are the worst tools ever made. Frostbite and naughty dog's internal engine are the best game engines ever by that measurement, because crappy developers can't use them. It's a comparison that has no meaning.

 

Well, I watched the video. Guy has some anger issues he needs to work through with a trained professional.

 

I haven't watched the video, but going by the OPs initial post, if there's no coherent point to the video, then this thread has no point. Surely you're not re-considering Unity simply because you heard someone swear and curse online?

Unity has some shortcomings, just like everything else, but posting a thread like this is hardly going to stimulate any sort of constructive discussion.

 

Yes, but my point is that Unreal has them all enabled out of the box whereas you have to manually add them in Unity. A new developer won't necessarily realize this though and may just assume that Unity isn't capable of it.

 

Thank you to all to give me some opinions about the video.
-------------
Keep in mind that my post was not intended to bash the unity engine.
My skills and knowledge about engines is just that low that I needed some clarification from some people with more knowledge about engines.

 

Just watch the end of the video, when he shows Unity's Showcase and calls garbage Ori and a lot of great games. He is just an ignorant kid and or a troll. I doubt he knows much about game development.

 

I watched that video. Dude is an idiot. He said so many stupid things in 15 minutes I lost count.

It's especially funny when he says that "Lumberyard" is the "future engine". IMO Lumberyard is the and will always be total crap, since it's a spinoff of CryEngine modified by some book sellers who want to make games.

 

That's not any more intelligent than the statements in the video.

 

1999 is calling and telling you you're misinformed.

 

The Deadlinger comes to mind aswel, was a Unity engine game, switched to UE late 2014/start 2015 (http://www.thedeadlinger.com/page/9) .. the progress they made on UE was promising towards the last update they did before caving in and calling it quits.. was actually really disappointing as alot of what they were doing in UE was starting to take shape...could have been really good had they kept going. Or had they not switched engine mid production they might have made it post dark ages of Unity 4 I don't think I'd want to use Unity pre 5 which is when they had started. You can read back in the devlogs why they switched.. I think had they started the project and funding with UE in 2014/2015 it would have gone better, switching engine half way through doesn't do much good. At that point better off finishing on the engine you started with working around its problems and hoping better improvements come out probably by asset developers, while limiting your creative goals to what its capable of.

 

The beauty of where we are now, is that there are several professional grade engines that are basically free to download and get started with. If you are just beginning, you don't have a enough knowledge yet to pick the one that will best suit your needs eventually. But being free means there is no risk for you. You can try them all. Or you can just randomly pick one and get started. It's all practice and and skill building when you are starting out.

Once you gain the skills and knowledge to get serious about making a game, you will know much better what you want and can pick the engine that is best suited for your needs. Once you build the skills to create a game, switching to another engine is fairly trivial. The challenge is learning the concepts and methods, once you have those down, they apply to any tool.

Grab a tool, start building and have fun. The rest will work itself out.

 

Honestly insulting game devs, engine devs and the engine itself, considering how many are using it and putting out blatant lies about it, is not speaking for any professionality on his part. I wouldn't give his words any kind of importance, if he can't actually list arguments in a calm and professional manner.....
besides...looking further into it, he is not really saying much of actual useful information...it's like he looked at websites and games and just decided if he likes it or not without ever trying out any of those engines.
and yes, whenever I hear that someone gives engine the fault for not making good graphics, then they really have no clue what they are talking about. Graphics are made by artists, the better the artist, the better the graphics. The engine can only "help" to provide tools to implement those graphics and it just happens that Unity is highly "focused" on wideranged usage, which means, if you want to have something, the engine doesn't support you have to program it yourself. But it also allows unity to not be specialized on any genre, it's like an universal engine, a starting point, no matter what game you want to make, you can make it with unity, while other engines like unreal and cryengine were or maybe still are focused on shooters (although they adapted). Not to mention that unity is more specialized on Indies, while unreal and cryengine were supposed to be for AAA workflow.
BUT in those last few years all the engines were coming closer together, especially with unity 5. You just need to look at latest trailers from unity (the blacksmith and I think it was called Adam or so, about a robot) which are as far as I know real-time rendered inside the engine.
Oh and something else....it's unity 3D!!! where the heck is he getting the idea from it would have crappy 3D and mostly pixel graphics?
and then...since unity is so easy accessable to a wide demographic, of course you will also find alot of crappy games. Because it's relatively easy to develop with unity, in my opinion it has a very intuitive Interface and a good amount of tutorials, the engine developers are very passionate about unity becoming better etc.
And I think the same goes for any other engine....you wouldn't make an engine if you wouldn't be somewhat passionate about it.

 

I just watched the video. After all I am in a lazy holiday mode so why not.

I think obviously what he says in the video is certainly true. For him and even others we have heard saying the same things around here. My impression from the video is he hates stylistic / cartoony graphics. Realistic graphics are just the end all be all for him. And it also has to be in 3D. He doesn't like 2D at all.

Some of what he says is basically the same as what others around here have said when critiquing Unity's graphics. These folks are focused on uber realistic graphics. They want like the latest COD and Witcher 3 graphics... or better. With better being even better lighting & shadows, higher texture quality, etc.

So in the end... sure the video is correct. If you value uber realistic graphics above all else. On the other hand, if you just want to make a great game then no it is not correct. Remember this video is just this guy's opinion. And for him it is true. Doesn't mean it needs to be true for you.

 

but we know we can make super realistic games with unity aswell

 

From what I understand... people cannot do it. At least not out of the box to the same quality as CryEngine and UE. I have no idea because I don't care about such things. If I want uber realistic graphics I simply look around the house or walk outside.

You are right though people can make super realistic games in Unity. Maybe not super realistic graphics but definitely super realistic games. This guy is focusing on raw realistic graphics capability. Like he almost seems to be in love when he looks at the near photograph looking screenshots in the UE showcase.

It's just a matter of preference in the end. Some people like realistic graphics. Some like stylistic graphics. Some hate 2D. Some hate 3D. I don't think any choice is right or wrong. It's like I just changed my avatar to a low color kind of 90s digitized photograph of me. For me it is stylistic and works. Others may hate such a thing. You can never please everyone and it is a waste of time to even try to do such a thing. IMO.

 

I "sort of" watched the video...I was curious if there was any reason behind the opinions or what. This person comes across as if graphics are all that matter....I'd wonder if this person actually has made a game, actually finished it...and done so in Cryengine 5(considering that is what the chosen engine is for him).

On the other hand....it was actually worth the watch...I discovered 99 sounds and Dimensiva as places to source sounds and models, so I guess it isn't all bad.

And I agree with the part about gametextures.com and the Substance LIVE thing being great....but that's about all I can agree with.

 

That is the same impression I had. Not simply graphics are all that matter but uber realistic graphics are all that matter. Because there are a lot of superb looking Unity games IMO. But he discounts them if they don't look like someone took a video camera and walked around in the woods or down a city street recording video. It has to look like that or it looks like crap. In his opinion.

Saying that it makes me wonder what he would think if someone actually made a game like that. Like say I took a camera and truly digitized all of the imagery in HD best I could. Then people like him may think Oh WOW! I guess Unity is not crap after all. This actually looks like real life!!

... um yeah it is a series of high-speed photographs of the tree outside my house with a squirrel climbing up and down you are attempting to shoot.

 

Actually, there's important thing you briefly mentioned. It is possible to kill an indie project by switching from unity to urneal 4. Unreal 4 has tougher learning curve. So after initial excitement over graphical quality out of the box, it is easy to get bogged down with issues and unforseen consequences. I think I saw couple of projects disappear this way. "We switched to unreal, everything is cool!" and then silence. That's not an engine's fault, but it is something that is worth keeping in mind.

 

I don't understand how people can switch engines. Switching engines is SO MUCH work its almost like starting from scratch.

 

There are many reasons but I believe it's when you get beyond the the 'indie' one man tag. A great example would be the game 'little nightmares.' It originally started inside unity but the developers decided to switch to unreal engine to do the heavy lifting in terms of better graphics and optimisation.

For most indies the graphical fidelity doesn't make much difference. You'll never be able to prototype gameplay as fast as you do in unity, mainly because c# is the quickest for just getting stuff done. You could make an argument for blueprints but I can't honestly see any logical person making entire game made in such a abstract noodle/ confused way LOL.

Unity is perfect for indie developers, where gameplay trumps everything else. It's not AAA, but who cares when you're making a 2D puzzle platform or rogue like game. That's all we need.

Where cryengine and unreal excels is when you want to dip into the AAA genre, but guess what, you'll need a big team and great execution to pull it off.

 

I think it all comes down to how much a person is connecting with the game engine, api, programming language.

For example, I spent a lot of time testing different apis and so forth last year and came back to Unity. Made a few more tiny games in it then took a break from game dev. Then a couple of weeks ago I came across AGK (App Game Kit) again. It is something I had seen many times when I searched for other options but always passed it by because the name made me think it was some kind of GUI-based push button game creator (Kit) for mobile games (App).

I came across it on Steam on sale 2 to 3 weeks ago and reading the reviews I found it was actually a very straightforward API that could be used with a BASIC like programming language or with C++. For both 2D and 3D. And for me that is exactly what I had been searching for previously and given up.

So basically I have switched and not sure if I will do any more development in Unity just because for me working in Unity adds a lot of extra work to my projects. Mainly setting up things in the Editor. But it is more than that. The command set of the APIs differ quite a lot. I've often found the Unity API to be lacking for my tastes. AGK reminds me of using something like AMOS long ago. Just dead quick & easy to get into and knock out games with. And I can just focus on programming.

I am not saying this to bash Unity in any way. Unity obviously is a very capable game engine but I just don't need all of the stuff it has and the stuff I wish it had it doesn't. But then I am also never striving in any way to make the kind of graphics focused games I think most are. That is where things like Unity come in handy. With it and using the Asset store even beginners can build impressive looking scenes. Nice eye candy.

Anyway, if you're not struggling... like it doesn't feel like you are fighting against the engine it certainly makes no sense to ever switch and instead to dig deeper and deeper into it and master it. If you just don't like the model, the workflow in general and feel like you are always fighting against the engine then yes it makes sense to switch.

For 90% (or maybe even more) of the people using Unity I think it makes no sense to even look elsewhere at all. I am just a weird case in that I am used to developing in a very different way for the past 30 years. And I prefer that way. There are others who also developed that way for the same amount of time but they actually didn't like it from what I understand. So I know I am just an oddball. Because to me even something like Assembler seems more straightforward than working in these modern NASA like WYSIWYG game engines. lol

 

And that's the actual problem here. People like that dude in the video, expect that everything just works with almost no effort.
Someone should tell them, that this is not how game dev works.

I mean if people can't be bothered to download the effects stack and take 5 minutes to read how it works, then honestly game dev is the wrong hobby/profession.

And I'm glad that these effects are not enabled by default. Unity gives you a blank canvas to express your own style. Unreal Engine's default effects also look really garish. The bloom gives you serious eyestrain.

 

This. Thanks.

 

My assumption is that most users who contemplate switching on any level (other than the utmost serious level) are ones who do not have very much experience in game development. That could mean their games have always been very small, they've never made much progress in a game (likely BECAUSE they keep switching), they're new to gamedev, etc. (Nothing wrong with that, btw).

I make this assumption from firsthand experience, being a game developer who switched to every engine in existence. I have a lot of shallow experience in a lot of game engines. I was that person.

But I also have a good amount of experience developing my own 2D game engine (after doing the exact same project in Unity, and comparing the two), and experience working on my current Unity project with over 1300 hours involved.

Which is why I 100% agree with you. It's unimaginable that I would switch engines this late in the project. Or even after just 80 hours in. That's a lot of work to simply throw away. It's so much more important to just pick a tool... ANY tool...and just make a game! And this is coming from someone who detaches nearly all of their code from Unity, exclusively so I can use Unity mostly just for Rendering / Input handling.

Not to mention the fact that most of these game engines are extremely similar, even when they're very different. To me, it's pretty much the same goal with a lot of the same work required in each engine. It's just that some require a slightly different shortcut or a slightly longer path for this feature or that.

I am no seasoned expert, but apparently transcending "Newbie" immediately places you above a large portion of the gamedev internet community. (Which I now assume is in the vast majority very new, inexperienced developers- and A LOT of people who can't even program. It takes very little experience committed to a single project (actually developing it) to surpass the majority of those who post on various forums, reddits, etc.) At least IMO. Shortly after I began serious work on a big project, I found a lot of questions or perspectives on many sites to become so strange (showing they know very little about actually making games).

Not that it is bad to be inexperienced. But it does explain why so many users make such outrageous statements or talk in what seems to us as 'crazy talk', lol.

And GameDev is just plain difficult too, which explains a lot of that. A lot of people have trouble programming, which means they have trouble doing any real gamedev. Even when they program professionally for years at their day job, many still struggle. Scary stuff. Although game programming might just be a unique skill in & of itself. Just like GameDev in general (which is actually hundreds of individual skills, each needing to be refined).