CRITICS
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2017-10-25T17:41:20-07:00
Getting popular with the alternative crew can be a challenge for an engine trying to keep itself competitive and there are plenty of "game snobs" in the specialized media - not to mention the odd twitter troll- ready to jump at the chance of criticizing Unity.
The most common claims revolve around the engine's supposed inferiority in terms of graphics, which according to the critics, leads to a pasteurized and unfinished look in the vast majority of Unity games.
Although the argument is not exactly true, there is a veritable source for the notion and it is a direct consequence of two main features of the engine: its Asset Store and user-friendliness. Both of those resources, though deserving of praise, have been overly exploited by unskilled beginners and "pseudo-developers".
The first group is enthusiastic and well-intended but tends to put out games that are still in need of work. They heavily rely on what is found for free on the Asset Store due to their inexperience, which in its turn makes their games "look the same".
The second group, on the other hand, simply abuses the privilege by taking free assets and sewing them together into a sort of "Frankenstein game" to sell at Steam - or other game distribution hub - and make an easy profit.
When we remember the sheer amount of video games being developed with Unity, it becomes clear that the actions of such users are what lead people to think that Unity is graphically inferior.
The company's answers to how they intend to fix the problems were dismissive in most cases. There was, however, an acknowledgment of the Asset Store's being used in ways that are less than ideal, but no clear strategies have been proposed so far, which might allow the prejudice to grow.
On the other hand, Unity produced GDCs like:
and
that are both testaments to the engine's capabilities when operated by experts. Hopefully, they will be enough to discredit the critics, but the company itself seems to adopt a laissez-faire attitude to the inevitable hater-rhetoric that surrounds relevance inside the game industry.
Based on what we've learned researching Unity and its context, we feel confident in expressing our opinion regarding the value of the engine in the form of a Conclusion.