So, is Gamebryo dead?

Between Unity, Unreal, and Crytek it doesn't seem like Gamebryo has much of a niche to offer developers.

Sure, it's been used to develope piles of games in the past.

But these days it's line up of showcase titles is looking pretty thin. This started right about the same time that Elder Scrolls and GTA started using in house engines.

Also, isn't their price tag pretty hefty compared to the competition?

Or am I mistaken?

 

Judging by the list of featured games on their website, it's a dying tech.

If you're a new developer, Unity and Unreal have more features. And if you're already established, you already have your own pipelines in place. So Gamebryo doesn't really have a purpose anymore.

Maybe it works if you have a lot of investment capital behind you, and you plan on turning it into your own custom engine ... but I'm guessing this doesn't happen as much nowadays.

 

Dying if not dead already. The niches it used to fill have been taken by much more capable tech.

 

Not just the tech either
Isn't the "contact us for licensing..." approach a little dated?

"
Gamebryo Licensing
...
To find out more, please contact our sales team: sales@gamebryo.com.
"

 

To be fair, it's probably a source license.

 

Okay, so according to gamasutra the gamebryo team has moved on to a new engine called reach3dx.

Poking around the site (which is a WIP) the engine is a lot like unity, but focused webgames using flash, html5,and webgl. Personally I don't see why someome would choose it over unity with a $1500 price tag.

 

The source license.

 

Having worked on a Gamebryo game as an artist a few years ago ... yes it is.
That was 2007 and from what I could see there was no fancy User Interface anywhere in sight. More like the old (now open source) idTech engines only.

Maybe it has changed. I haven't had to work with it ever since.

 

I often sound like I'm giving a loaded question, but I promise I was sincere when asked what they're offering. I think Hippo nailed it, although I don't fully understand the impact of of the source code.

 

It incorporates about ... everything from how I understand it. I only worked on the artist side of it all so I can only tell from my perspective: In terms of source code think: Unreal Engine 4 source code. So if you know enough about the inner workings of the engine and have enough time and manpower you could change to your hearts desire. It also means you can tailor the whole thing to your project.

Though I am pretty sure that when I was working at said company who created projects on Gamebryo it was simply more common than today that complex engines did not have a nice user interface and frontend. I think sometimes people are not really aware just how much Unity has helped shape the accessibility of the Indie games market over the last few years. Only 7 years ago the flexible tools were pretty inaccessible to someone who was not able to code. And I mean actual coding not "just" scripting. Either that or you had to settle for an engine that was pretty much genre specific like the FPS creator.

One of the most early 3D game engines I remember I wanted to learn was around 1997. It was a DOS engine that you had to program with C++. The resulting games looked similar to Duke Nukem 3D - just that it did not come with a level editor like Build but you had to lay out the level on paper and program the coordinates and sector heights manually. I never got farther than 2 connected rooms and settlet for the artist route, BTW.

As I said earlier, though - I have no idea how the most recent interations of Gamebryo look like.
Also almost everything in detail about Gamebryo was (or still is?) handled only under NDAs.

 

I freaking LOVE 2.5d engines.

I have spent thousands of hours on the build engine.

Got really good at making neat lighting effects too.