Browsing by Subject "game developers"

The rapid growth and increased requirements within the game development process have made it largely dependent on time, effort and complexity. Game engines were developed to reduce these constraints, by providing game developers with useful features and tools. However, there also lies a deep problem, which is the dependency formed between game developers and the engine administration, the upper management who controls the engine. This dependency relies on the engine administration to maintain their engine without causing harm towards their users. A major conflict happened in the autumn of 2023 between the indie development community and Unity Technologies. Motivated by this conflict we set goals within this thesis to assess the relationship and dependency between game developers and engine administration, and to provide awareness towards trust issues and the impact towards the game industry. In this thesis, we approach this problem with three methods: survey, interviews, and a case study. Development teams participated in the survey, from which three developers were selected for interviews. The game developers described multiple events that formed the basis for the case study, which focused on the past events within Unity Engine. The results show that Unity has considerable value for game developers, but trust in Unity has been significantly impacted by the recent actions of its administration. Developers were met with serious considerations to change their game engine, whether the administration would not regain their lost trust. Despite this, the developers still hope that the engine recovers and the administration takes action to regain their trust. As a conclusion, we emphasize the interaction between game developers and engine administration, what would lead to their mutual interest, in other words creating games.