126 - Unity

[matt]

I got a few people asking why I don't like Unity, so I tried to put together the least rant-y video possible about it:


I could have gone on for a lot longer, and I think I forgot to mention the crazy CPU inefficiencies, but oh well. hahah I think I said enough.

[gagaplex]

I don't know much about the workings of Unity or anything (and I must admit a lot of the stuff you talked about meant nothing to me as a non-IT-guy), but I've noticed that a ton of Unity games are poorly optimized, like that Slender: The Arrival game for example. I wasn't sure whether that's an issue with the engine, but considering the engine is mostly used by indie developers, I thought it might also be an issue with the devs not having the time, money and/or know-how to properly optimize it...? But that bit about "garbage collection" makes it sound like it's an issue with the engine itself.

[matt]

Well, it's probably both. It is basically impossible to do a really good job optimizing games using Unity because the engine itself is very unoptimal. That being said, you can optimize games for Unity, but it is very, very, very hard. You basically have to figure out what Unity is doing poorly, and work around it.

I think the fact that it is hard and you get diminishing returns given the limitation means that no one bothers to optimize. :-/