There’s a lot of discussion these days about the development of video games and one of the areas that I find most interesting has to be video game engines. These are such intrinsic and essential parts of video game development that can often shape the strengths and limitations of a video game and I think it’s important that we take a look at what these engines are, how they add or subtract from a video game and a concern of mine when it comes to a lack of competition.
Let’s start with the history of video game engines and the purpose that they serve. By the 1980s, video games had become significantly more complicated than they had been in previous decades. This meant that, rather than developing the tools needed to develop games on a game by game basis, some developers began to reuse development tools between games in order to more efficiently develop games. A notable example of this would be the 1985 classic “Super Mario Bros.” which reused the game engine that was developed for Excitebike, a game which had been previously released in 1984, in order to achieve the acceleration of Mario’s runs. However, one of the biggest shifts in the history of video game engines occurred with the release of the 1993 first-shooter classic “Doom”. The engine was very impressive from a technological perspective and many other developers became interested in using it themselves for their own games. As time went on, companies began to make more and more use of engines such as id Tech, Unreal Engine, etc. by buying a license to use the engine in order to develop games more quickly and efficiently. Thus, a new market emerged where some developers would develop game engines with the intention of licensing them out to other developers.