So a few years ago I started watching an emerging game engine, they were doing amazing things, started by a rag tag team of visionaries. I was excited to see they were breaking out of the corporate structure and forging ahead with imagination and skill. They had an engine that was not only different but making amazing art at an indie level…even doing things some of the big engines weren’t doing yet. I was poised to watch as amazing worlds would unfold… but… that was Project Offset. On the other hand there were a couple of jokers that started a game engine on the mac? and would go on to crush… I have been watching them too. I’m so excited to see where this platform is going (developed our last product on it bedtimebunnytales.com). A couple of years ago I was teaching a class at Gnomon…after class I was sitting with another instructor, and he mentioned that the company he works for (wont mention the name but they have a mouse for a mascot) was trying to figure out what platform to start developing on… I said “unity” trust me. I was right. …
So here is my question. Why did a bunch of super smart guys with a great product, funding and Khang Le for crying out loud not make it and well Unity is kicking everyone’s ass???
I think its about community… it’s fun to be part of this tribe… even when I see what some of the other guys are doing Im like… " I bet I could get Unity to do that" …
Being the scrappy underdog has advantages. When you really, really need to be lean and innovative to compete… You do. You have no choice. But when you’re fat and happy and have virtually unlimited funding, you tend to just work on whatever you want and ignore the really important stuff.
And I’m not just talking about this situation. The above exactly describes a company I worked for. I’d love to say I’m the reason they succeeded, but that’s not true. They succeeded because the owners were really good at being scrappy underdogs. Competitors threw tens of millions of dollars into creating a competing platform and failed. They could have done exactly what we did, and did it in 1/10th of the time (by spending 100x as much) but they didn’t understand how to be scrappy. And in the end, they had an inferior product that cost them 1000s of times as much to build. To this day, that remains the balance in that industry.
This is a good indicator. Humans need to use the software, and also are the only ones with who pay. Usability and consistency will topple any feature set.
I agree… about being scrappy… I think another term might be nimble and hungy… I think when you have so much money…or confidence or clout things become cumbersome to fast…its hard you can’treally see very well. Perfect example…look at what Gates and Jobs were doing in the 80’s they could move with agility and IBM thought they were invincible. The only problem about being the underdog is that when you do need money VCs or Angels are like "who are you? " you don’t have any numbers.
Jessy, absolutely! You can’t sell a bad game just because it has a programmable shader set… well maybe for a little while until people start talking.
They didn’t make it for one simple reason: Intel bought them.
Their company got bought, they worked on the project, Intel decides to make a change in their lineup, and the project got shelved. Since Intel now owned that company, that project, and that engine, well… that becomes the end of it.
According to their new company website, they did attempt to get back the IP and Engine, but to no avail.
You can’t tell where/how their engine would be today if they had remained an independent company.
I don’t. Intel made them some serious cash. Look, people aren’t stupid. They knew there was a chance of this happening.
You don’t have the brains to make something as cool as project offset then be so naive and stupid to believe that there’s not a high chance it’ll get canned for the tech. ESPECIALLY since intel doesn’t deal with making games.
I couldn’t care less about a million users, particularly since as a customer zero of my support requests were assigned to anybody who can answer a basic question and none of my questions about Unity have been answered.
Wow, that’s guite odd. Everytime I’ve asked for support from Unity3D, they’ve been happy to respond quickly, and have been able to asnwer every question I’ve thrown at them, on any subject in the bounds of Unity.
I would have loved this game to be released. The trailer was amazing, better and more fantasy-like in epic battles and environments than Skyrim, Dragon Age etc.
Not sure why you’ve had that experience. I’ve had great support.
It’s not the quickest, but they do give pretty good answers/suggestions/alternatives to issues.
