The main reasons for me to use unity are the supported platforms and because there are a lot job offerings, because unity is some sort of industry standard for small to mid-sized games.

But then you have to go with C#, because most studios are working with it.

I`m learning Unity, too, at the moment. The job market is one of the minuses of Gamestudio, although it`s a nice game development system.

Out of curiosity, what would make any of you switch from the Unity bandwagon to another engine? (Doesn't have to be Gamestudio, I really just want to know what your Unity sweet spot is)

Compared to Gamestudio the job market and the supported platforms are my sweet spots. There`re a lot more perspectives if you`re a good Unity developer or designer. It`s kind of an indutry standard and many (also German) companies are working with it. On the technical side the editor seems to be very powerful because of many advanced features and drag and drop capabilities. The programming part is a bit "crude" because of the component-based scripting system, but I`m not really into this at the moment.

I preferred Unity3D over Unreal Engine, because of the license trouble and the fact that I`d have to learn UnrealScript, which is useless in my eyes. C4 would have been an option if the community was bigger (TML seems to be the only German developer working with it).

Some lonewolf making a game in the Unity WIP section forum just states that switching from CryTeck to Unity editing editor allow him to just produce instantly what he really want ot make.

Here is it's reply to a user question about that :


@Ocid: The ultimate reason that made me switch to Unity 4 after I tried it for a couple of weeks is the sheer ease of use. Everything makes sense and is very well integrated with Maya. No need for any file converters, peculiar material restrictions or jumping through unnecessary hoops. Great documentation, drag-and drop simplicity, FBX and Photoshop support right out of the box, on-the-fly compilation without having to close and then restart the editor... It is obvious that the engine is geared at helping people achieve their vision, whichever it may be.

Oh, and the Mecanim system is absolutely fantastic. Since my professional background is in feature animation, that was really important.
(Original Unity discussion thread :Ghost of a Tale game )



Another discussion on his blog :
But even more than the stunning DX 11 visuals (and don’t forget I’m used to the mighty CryEngine), it’s the ease of use that shocks me most. The user-friendliness. The fact that everything is simple and makes sense. Anyway, I’ll probably post some more about Unity in the very near future…



It only shows and confirms Unity easyness with the editor , drag and drop features, import formats features, and others things are just here to help people work as smooth as possible.
for example instead of restricting you to some formats, tehy have auto converters when you import Blender models direclty for example

The last Mecanism feature and DX 11 in Unity 4 are just pushing indie limits further more !

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Why coding each time redundant animation character features when you have to adjust them only (instead of thousand of code tries , compilation , running/stop to find the good values ?

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It's site and blog about the game and working with Unity :
Seith Blog






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No need to post more about Unity 4 , and the price for Pro version, yes i think this is the BIG ANNOYING thing for all lonewolves ...
Not all perhaps , but for lot of hobbists also.
I will never pay so much, and would pay only having some solid game made with the free version first !

Why? Do you think the price for the Pro version isn't justified? Is there something elementary missing that is a must have for that price?

Since two years I concentrate my work in painting adventures. I think I am one of the panel hardcore users of gs. And of course - I am using wmv-formats.
The thing what I deeply missed in the free version was
"Movie Textures (Pro only) are textures onto which movies are played back."
This was the reason for me to switch to the pro version of unity.

No, that`s some question of saving money. You have to have the money first. And for me personally it`s not possible to spend 1.5k Euro into "some features that I don`t really need for prototyping". That`s why I worked with A5 Extra, A6/A7/A8 Commercial and not with the pro edition for years. And that`s why I`ll work with Unity free until there`s some job that requires me to upgrade. The features of Unity Pro are awesome, of course. As well as Gamestudio A8 Pro is awesome compared to A8 Free / Extra. Its price is justified.

@JustSid:
This... http://tinyurl.com/bgyec9k

But - and this is the big BUT:
No engine is the holy grail!

Here are my thoughts about Unity so far:

-Very powerful
-Used by a lot of companies
-Solid track record
-Damn cheap for its power
-Manual is cluttered and not consistent
-C# is more powerful compared to Unityscript (Javasript) but most examples are written in Unityscript.
-No simple step by step Tutorial for Unityscript and C#
-Lot of overhead for small projects
-Some strange and overcomplicated conventions
-I find it rather unflexible (!)

Compared to other engines I think A8 pro is too high priced atm. It should be something about 600,- usd.

Programmers are lazy. They don´t want to fiddle around with redundant drag and drop and adjusting values for every animation. Insteat of that, they write a tool which automates the whole shebang.

Drag and drop and adjusting values scares me, actually.
I´ve noticed that I barely use the Unity Editor. For the most time I use C# to build the levels on the fly. Of course it depends, for a platformer or an ego shooter I would use the editor. Mainly I want to know exactly what´s going on, so I don´t rely on character controllers and template scripts. Of course I have to make compromises, because when I want to have 100% control over everything I need to write my own engine.