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There are fine and fast growing alternatives at the moment. The engine landscape is very exciting right now.

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And for that reason, volatile. How many new engines come on the scene, garner great support, and then become vaporware? How many engines have a robust enough business model to actually survive the 1 to 2 year development timeline of most games today? How many engines have all the features that 3DGS or Torque have in terms of networking, particles, GUI, graphics, sound, etc?

I agree that there are several solutions out there and several are free and better than 3DGS in one way or another.

But you have to admit that the one thing 3DGS (or to a lesser extent Torque) has that others don't is longevity. 3DGS has been around for a decade and there is no indication that it will not be around for another decade. You can't say the same about the great majority of the new engines that pop up each month.

The other thing it has is completeness... you can in fact make any game you want. Most of the engines that pop up on the "tools" forum are nothing more than a great new graphics rendered...they are in fact like cheerleaders... real pretty and you'd love to "hit that" but when you do you find out that that is all they are and you are left empty.

So yes, the engine landscape is very exciting IF you aren't planning on making a game. If you are, you better hitch your horse to a solution that has the greatest chance of seeing your project through. 3DGS is not the only one that falls in this category, but there are damn few out there in the 1000 buck range that do.