Commercial games are made by between 20 and 100 top programmers and artists and have a budget with 6 or 7 figures. The engine does not matter much, they normally buy for 100,000s the best one thats available, because the engine price is negligible compared to the team salaries.
I totally agree... the quality of the game usually depends on the quality of the team.
But I have read threads on this forum and other forums by graphics guys complaining that the architecture of the independent game engines does not allow them to use the same level of graphics as the big engines.
And there must be some benefit to using the more expensive engines. I agree that the cost of the engine is minor compared to the overall budget, but if EA games could save 20-30 thousand dollars by using 3DGS or torque I am sure they would jump at it.
