Does the engine a game uses factor into your decision to buy it or not?

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Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨justdaveisfine@piefed.social⁩ to ⁨games@lemmy.world⁩

Have you ever found yourself deciding against a game you would otherwise check out because of what game engine it uses?

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ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
No. You can make just about any engine do just about anything, especially if you’ve got low-level access to it. If this question is implying something about Unreal, just level set your expectations for the performance things that usually come along with that, but it’s not a foregone conclusion either.

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- justdaveisfine@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  I agree - An engine at the end of the day is just a tool.
  
  This isn’t intended to be a bash a specific engine thing. I recently had a discussion with a friend who noted they very specifically avoided specific engines and I was wondering if that was a common sentiment or if he’s just odd.
  
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  - ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    Certain engines form certain reputations, but those people need to see enough counter examples to realize that the engine is just a contributing factor to what the resulting game is. Unity had “a look” for years, because so many devs used the default lighting, but then you realize that stuff like Cuphead, Hollow Knight, and Subnautica all run on Unity, and that reputation fades.
    
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thingsiplay@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
The game engine should not be a factor in my opinion, but sometimes I have some feelings. In the end ultimately the game itself and how fun it is is the most important factor.

Unreal Engine 5: This engine has such a poor reception for me, that whenever I see it I dislike the game before even having a chance to play. Its not fair I know, but its also not my fault that I think like that. Often games with this engine have stutter issues, require lot of resources and for whatever reason, most AAA games launching with this engine are in a bad state. In the end I will buy a game if its good, obviously, but the engine has a little deciding factor to look deeper or not… even if its just a little factor.

Unity: I personally don’t like Unity anymore for the bullshit they did. But if I am honest, if the game is good then I do not care if its in Unity.

Godot: I really want to like games made with this Open Source engine. But if I am honest again, I would not buy a bad game even if its made with this engine.

RPG Maker: I am a fan of oldschool RPG Maker, so I don’t mind that. But whenever I see made with RPG Maker (or suspect it), the value of the game goes dramatically down for me.

any custom engine: I highly respect good custom engines, made specifically for the game or company. They often feel and look different, so its actually a factor. Or at least it will make me curious and look deeper into the game.
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- TacticalToothbrush@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  Honest question, what’s wrong with Godot? Haven’t play anything built on it yet. Will try Dog Walk sooner or later.
  
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  - thingsiplay@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    Nothing wrong with Godot. It’s just not the industry standard. Godot competes against Unity, but does not cost any money and its Open Source (so you know a company can’t do whatever they want). I’m not a game developer, so cannot go deeper than that I guess. :D
    
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- zo0@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  I’d argue it doesn’t influence the decision making process, but is a good indicator of your taste in video games
  
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- brucethemoose@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  There some some very efficient games using UE5, like Satisfactory.
  
  On the contrary, I’m afraid of custom engine games. Even if they ultimately turn out okay, the dev hell required to get them there often sinks the game. See: ME: Andromeda, Cyberpunk 2077. And Distant Worlds 2 (even though it wasn’t technically fully custom).
  
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  - MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    I’m surprised about the satisfactory reference, that game never ran particularly well for me once I was a ways in with lots of stuff built up.
    
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  - Melonpoly@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    I’ve had consistent treversal stuttering with satisfactory after one of their recent updatesend of last year to the point were I uninstalled.
    
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- shweddy@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  Custom engines are my kryptonite when you end up with games like animal well and balatro
  
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  - thingsiplay@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    Wait, Balatro doesn’t have a “custom engine”. They use love2d.org . On itch.io you can even search games made with this engine: itch.io/games/made-with-love2d
    
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- timestatic@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  You seem to dislike most game engines. Interesting
  
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Tim_Bisley@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
If it’s anything other than unreal engine then no. If it’s UE then I will wait and then read about issues. If I see the same lazy bs then I’ll pass.

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BananaOnionJuice@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
I would say indirectly, if the game engine does not work on Linux then I’m not interested.

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Chesckers@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Personally yes, but I have a good reason I think. I am a Godot gamedev, so I feel a sort of kinship towards other Godot games. Like I really want to support them for whatever reason haha.

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- kureta@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  I was about to say “no” but saw your comment. If I am not sure about buying a game, seeing it was made with Godot makes me want to buy it. I am not a game developer but I support Foss and just love how good and clean Godot is.
  
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- Danitos@reddthat.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  I have huge respect to Mega Crit for this. After the Unreal Engine controversy 2 years ago, they re-made all of Slay the Spire 2 (StS2) that was currently on the work to Godot and becamse sponsors of the project.
  
  Currently I’m loving StS 2. The changes are mainly content and a bit of QOL, so it’s clear that changing engines represented a huge effort for them with respect to the noticeable impact to the players, and yet they still did it.
  
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SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
If a games is made in UE5 I will definitely double check if the game can even run on low end hardware. And even if a game can run they often look like dogshit on low settings. Like I tried Exit 8 and it ran like shit on my low end PC. And that is a game that’s just takes place in a hallway.

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- anakin78z@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  Same for Steam Deck. UE5 games can ‘technically’ run, but they look a lot better worse than other games. It’s the only game engine I check for.
  
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ms_lane@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Increasingly yes, Unity is spyware and UE5 games all play, look and feel the same.

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ICastFist@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
If I see it’s Unreal 5, I fully expect it to look like shit and perform weird, so it has some weight on my decision.

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paris@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
At this point I almost entirely write off UE5 games. I assume they’re smudgy upscaled underperforming dogshit until proven otherwise. Unreal Engine 4? Cool, no problems. Unreal Engine 5? Fuuuuuuckkkk no.

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teft@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Nah. Good games can be made on any engine. So can bad games.

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TabbsTheBat@pawb.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
I found that games I don’t like often use a particular engine, however I haven’t been in a position where I thought the game looked awesome but didn’t get it specifically because of the engine

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- SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  Which engine?
  
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  - TabbsTheBat@pawb.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    UE5 as of recent :3 though the engines will switch around every so often I feel like
    
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arcine@jlai.lu ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Yes, sort of. I absolutely hate the visual artifacts from TAA and from upscaling, which are both much more commonly used in UE5 games.

I’m also much more likely to try custom-engine games, just because I think people making their own engines is pretty cool ! I have only implemented very basic stuff myself, but it was very interesting to do !

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Assassassin@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
UE isn’t a deal breaker, but so many games built on it just look like wet plastic and run like shit that I’m immediately suspicious. I’d rather play a game that has flat shading and less detailed textures with some actual personality and performance.

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captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Yes, because of some shit the company pulled I’m no longer interested in games made in Unity.

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warmaster@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Kinda, if it uses an open source game engine then it’s a plus.

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- mr_pip@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  what notable FOSS engines are there?
  
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  - 2ncs@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    Godot, plus there are plenty of frameworks (love2d, raylib)
    
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  - warmaster@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    bobeff/open-source-engines: A list of open source game engines. github.com/bobeff/open-source-engines
    
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Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
After getting burned by the Dead Space Remake shader stutter i am very wary of UE games and check the reviews.

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fum@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Yes. I heavily favour Godot.

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Ghostie@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
UE5 for me. There was only a brief time that I couldn’t play those games. It was when intel was having that degradation issue on their i9 processors. UE5 games crashed so much if you had the degradation (I did). I had to hold off on any of those games until I got a new CPU. Now I only am mildly suspicious of UE5 games because they tend to either run flawlessly or be terribly optimized, no real inbetween. I check reviews first on them.

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Hadriscus@jlai.lu ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
From a political standpoint, yes, it does, to an extent. I strive to use free software, but most games are made using proprietary engines, which is just a consequence of the state of that industry. Blender changed the landscape of animation production, there is no reason Godot can’t do the same for game development.
A second reason would be the concentration of wealth and power we see in big game engine developers such as Unity and Godot. Millionaire CEOs, anti-consumer terms of use, and so on. These are good reasons to lobby in favor of FOSS alternatives, and to pirate games published by dipshits (such as, I don’t know, Krafton).

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_haha_oh_wow_@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
It can if the engine makes the game run poorly (I wouldn’t buy it) or not at all or if the engine is exceptionally well regarded and runs great it might make me a bit more inclined to buy the game.

If it’s an engine famous for being janky, it might also make me delay buying the game until devs or modders fix it.

Also, if the engine is known for being mod friendly, that would probably make me more inclined to consider buying the game.

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MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
It has a huge impact for me, most notably unreal engine because of how poorly most games made with it run, and it visually looking very soft or blurry in some games. So it’s something I check before looking at buying a game.

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lazycouchpotato@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
I don’t think that has ever been a purchasing factor for me.

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Kolanaki@pawb.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Nope.

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tal@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
In the indirect sense that an engine might impact a game’s visual appearance, hardware compatibility, or performance, sure. But I don’t care about the engine specifically as an engine. That’s just an implementation detail.

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THE_GR8_MIKE@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
No. Although Unity seems to be run by scumfucks who want to be evil but had to backtrack due to the massive backlash they got. Which means they’re just waiting to try again.

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steel_for_humans@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
UE5 on handhelds is a red flag, but I will check some reviews and performance tests before buying.

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brucethemoose@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
No.

But it certainly has some strong indirect effects on my buying decisions.

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mojofrododojo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
I only buy games made with foss stuff like Godot, pyrite, babylon, haxe and sdl and these days.

I don’t need timmy getting more money for his bullshit, and after Unity went full on fuckwit with their idiotic ideas for runtime fees they have zero trust, even though they eventually canned Riccitello and rolled back that crazy, I simply don’t have faith in them to do the right thing when presented with moral quandaries.

I only have limited resources, so I’m not going to throw money at applications supporting bullshit.

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detren@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
No, I couldn’t care less what engine devs use. This is like choosing to not buy a cake because the baker used a Le Crueset spatula instead of a Tefal one. Literally doesn’t matter as long as the game (and cake) is good.

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AnimalsDream@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Sometimes I won’t buy a game made in Unity. Sometimes I will. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

There’s a whole number of THQ games I never bother to get, because most THQ games feel too similiar to each other.

Probably the closest thing would be Rockstar games. GTA 5 feels alright, but in so many of their other games I do not like the feel of the physics and mechanics. Hated Manhunt, terrible game. Was forgiving of the older GTA games growing up because they were pioneering and fun despite the broken mechanics. But they have not aged well.

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