The economy is always a divisive topic, but we can all agree that monopolies and ripoffs are both detrimental to companies. However, in the video game scene, the market is abundant with them. Let's begin with ripoff games. Games that are carbon copies of existing popular ones - except much worse. If you've watched a second of YouTube, you've probably seen ads trying to get you to click on images of Among Us and Minecraft, but redirect you to a ripoff site. The Among Us games are offline and obviously fake. The countless Minecraft frauds are terrible and ugly. These are objectively bad for both the consumer, who loses sanity, and the company, which loses customers. One obvious alternative to ripoffs is monopolies. It sounds great: no one is stealing a company's ideas and taking away their customers, who are happy with the product. But that becomes irrelevant when looking at real-life examples. NBA 2K holds a death grip on basketball video games, meaning they pack in as many in-game purchases as possible and barely improve the game each year because they know that anyone who wants a basketball video game has to buy their game. Without rivals, companies can price gauge and lower quality of their games without punishment. So, what's the solution? Competition. Pro Evolution Soccer has for years been a rival to FIFA, the more mainstream soccer video game. It wasn't good enough to take away all of FIFA's audience, but encouraged EA to improve their game. Nowadays, although all annual sports video games are pretty repetitive, FIFA is a game of decent quality. Crackdowns on ripoffs and new games made to be competitive with mainstream ones are direly needed to improve games for everyone. Hopefully these things will happen soon so that we all can enjoy video games. Summary
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Right now, I'm beginning to work with Unity, a simple and popular game engine. However, it's not the only one. There are countless game engines right now. But which are the biggest and what do they mean?
For a long time, games were made from scratch. In the 1980s, the first game engines were being used, but it wasn't until the 90s that they'd become mainstream. Epic Games - the same company that made Fortnite - released Unreal Engine in 1998. That was a big moment for game development, as companies really turned to game engines. These days, virtually all games have been built in game engines. I've played games on the Frostbite engine like FIFA and Star Wars: Battlefront. Source is a PC engine that Half-Life 2 was made in. IW Engine was used to make Call of Duty. Ubisoft uses Anvil game engine. There are lots of other options too, and many are free and downloadable for anyone to make their own games in. Programs like Unity have made game design very accessible. Game engines are easier to get and more diverse than ever before. If you're passionate about games, you don't have to go to an elite university for eight years - just open up your computer and do a couple Google searches. There are so many different choices and so many different opportunities for anyone to make their very own video game thanks to game engines like Unity. So, the next time that you're angry at software, even something like Google Chrome, just remember: you're using revolutionary technology. Enjoy your unique opportunity, especially in a game engine. Because technology is fascinating and game engines are cool. Buttle, Paul. “The Power Behind Video Games: A Look at Game Engines.” Medium, We The Players, 29 Apr. 2020, medium.com/wetheplayers/the-power-behind-video-games-a-look-at-game-engines-2731315086e0. Summary
Early this week, I finished the Unity Essentials pathway, which gave me an introduction to Unity Game Engine. It was amazing to see the things possible in the software, but it's not a super complex program where any game can be made in. I really liked the Asset Store, where I can find prefabs, many of which are free, to use in projects. The 3d design interface is very similar to 3DS Max, which gave me an early head start, but it's refreshingly unique enough to feel adventurous. However, the 3d modeling aspect that I did was probably the easiest part of the Unity Essentials pathway. That being said, it's an introductory pathway, which may mean that it will become more complex later. The Essentials pathway definitely gave me a pretty good foundation in the Unity Game Engine.
On the other hand, my experiences with the Unity Game Engine haven't been perfect. The Inspector window is complex and hard to read. Locating Unity files on my computer is hard and there are always a few technical issues which take a while to deal with. Additionally, the Unity Essentials tutorials aren't great. Sometimes the directions are confusing. Other times they're outdated or don't work on a Mac (which I have). It seems like Unity doesn't care about its tutorials, but that doesn't mean it's a terrible program. It's free and works on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS. Unity is a useful tool to create games that, although far from amazing, it's at least pretty good. |
AuthorHI! I'm a 12th grader and on this page, I will blog about me and what I'm going through, both in Game Design class and in life. There are a mix of required blog posts and personal reflections, which you can sort, among other things, below the disclaimer and archives. DISCLAIMER
The views and opinions expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not represent those of Durham School of the Arts or Durham Public Schools. Archives
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