[game_edu] Game Engines

[Ian Schreiber]

After reading Mark's survey results, I think the most relevant points involve:
 
* The prevalent "NIH syndrome" in the game industry, implying students working on their own project are likely to prefer to roll their own (the buy-versus-build tradeoff, and whether you're likely to save more time with an engine than you spend with the documentation, are great discussions to have with student teams).
 
* Right now, rapid prototyping and rapid iteration are in vogue, suggesting that students about to graduate should be encouraged to use a more "agile" approach in their class projects.
 
* You can and should prototype in paper. It's about as cost-effective as you're going to get in a classroom, and it has real industry relevance.
 
The specific game engines being used in this survey are less of an issue for student projects, I think. Some of these engines cost more in licensing fees than the students are likely to have available, and some of them are "heavyweight" enough that learning their ins and outs are not as cost-effective when you're dealing with a ten-student ten-week project. And a lot of lighter engines and tools that are used in class projects (Alice3D, Game Maker, Unity) weren't even included on the survey.
 
Still, very useful to know the use of engines in industry. Thanks for sharing, Susan!
 
- Ian

--- On Fri, 3/6/09, S. Gold <goldfile at gmail.com> wrote:

From: S. Gold <goldfile at gmail.com>
Subject: [game_edu] Game Engines
To: "IGDA Game Education Listserv" <game_edu at igda.org>
Date: Friday, March 6, 2009, 3:39 PM


With Penny’s post this morning I thought I would send out the results of another Game Engine Survey done by one of the SIG’s Advisory Board Members, Mark DeLoura. It is very thorough and even an easy read for those without a lot of Game Engine knowledge. With the proliferation of Game Engines on the market, I think the most interesting question is when do teams decide to use an engine over creating their own tech?

http://www.satori.org/2009/03/the_engine_survey_general_resu.html

Susan
-- 
Susan Gold
Skype: tahoegold

"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all." Oscar Wilde
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