Games and Graphics Engines

July 25, 2006 on 10:51 am | In General Gaming, Technology, Industry

I posted this over at Grimwell the other day, but didn't get a chance to run it here until now.

By way of GameSpot, I have long wondered, in a number of places, about this fascination with creating graphics engines from the ground up for MMOGs. That has felt to me like a big money sink for results that, to the average end user, are more different in aesthetic and style than in any nuance of performance and scalability.

There's good reasons to make an engine of course. That scalability for one, owning it being another and being able to tweak it for your exacting needs a third (not in order).

Yet, SOE is licensing the Unreal Engine 3 from Epic Games for use in the DC Comics MMO.

To me this could be a sign of them wanting a tighter budget, maybe a leaner development schedule. I personally feel it's a good move. I don't know anything about the technical capabilities of the engine, but I imagine they do and deem it good enough for them for this project.

They, of course, are not the first to do this. Neither is this the first time for them. Lum offered up a concise lists of other games and companies that have or are licensing graphics engines, for similar goals in efficiency, and SirBruce offered more depth for those using the Unreal engine by providing the version of the engine.

• Aion: CryENGINE
• Chronicles of Spellborn: Unreal 2.5
• Dark Age of Camelot: Netimmerse/Gamebyro
• DC Comics: Unreal
• Endless Saga (now cancelled): Unreal 3.0
• Fury: Unreal 3.0
• Huxley: Unreal 3.0
• Lineage 2: Unreal 2.0
• Priston Tale 2: Unreal 2.5
• Ragnarok Online 2: Unreal 2.5
• Stargate Worlds: Unreal 3.0
• Ultima X: Unreal 2.0
• Warhammer Online: Netimmerse/Gamebyro
• Vanguard: Unreal 2.5

I say kudos to this. Maybe these companies will save wads of cash and time and be able to focus more on the game system, features and style (particularly important for the licensed games).