Hello everyone, it’s been a while! I hope you’ve all been well. The last time we uploaded a video was over 3 years ago, and I think it’s safe to say that a lot has happened since then, both in the world and in the game development industry. Personally, I’ve been taking a break from video games, and to be honest, I wasn’t really planning on making any new videos anytime soon.
The Challenges of Game Development and the Joy of Creation
I think for a while, some of the harsh realities of the video game industry had taken away some of the joy that I used to feel when making games. From the lack of unionization to the real challenge of keeping an indie game studio afloat, I think there’s an ever-increasing pressure on developers. As someone who started in the game dev space very young with simple and probably naive ideas of what it means to make video games, these realities simply took it out of me for a while.
The Power of Open-Source and the Excitement of Making Games Again
But recently, that changed a bit. Not because I discovered some cure that will magically make these issues disappear – unfortunately, I haven’t, and they won’t – but simply because I saw something that made me excited about making games again. In fact, you could say that it’s been a game-changer (pun intended). I know that a lot of you feel the same. I’m of course talking about open-source. Let me explain…
The Rise of Blender and the Potential of Free and Open-Source Software
I’ve long been a huge fan of Blender. If you don’t know, Blender is an incredibly powerful and now very popular 3D graphics tool. It has capabilities in modeling, sculpting, UV mapping, hugely powerful rendering, and the list just goes on. And the thing about Blender is that it’s 100% free. When I started using Blender, it was still pretty small and not even close to comparing to the mighty industry standard Autodesk Suite. But since then, it has become a huge contender in the world of 3D graphics, preferred by many professionals as well.
Please let me know when you’re ready for the second half of the blog post!
The Benefits of Open-Source and Community-Driven Development
But how can something that is free ever compete with a hugely complicated software suite that costs thousands of dollars in subscription fees? Well, at least part of the answer is that Blender is what we call free and open-source software, also known as FOSS. This means that instead of a company owning and controlling the software with a private codebase, the software is publicly owned and has a public and open code base that anyone can access and contribute to.
The Impact of Open-Source on the Game Development Industry
If you don’t like something about the software or you would like to add a feature to it, you can simply download a copy of it and modify it to suit your needs. And then, if you like the result, you can re-upload it to see if other people would find it useful too, perhaps merging your changes into the main program. One of the great benefits of this is that it helps ensure that the software development is driven by the needs of the people who use it. It’s a hugely democratic way of organizing development.
The Rise of Godot and the Future of Game Engines
On top of this, open-source makes it possible to utilize volunteer work and donations to fund development. This means that the software is free from ties to any single entity and makes it possible for anyone to use it without having to pay subscription fees or owing a part of their revenue. And open-source is actually not as niche as you might think. Linux, for example, went from a small hobbyist tool in the early ’90s to powering enterprise server systems. Also, so many of the completely mainstream products of our time are built on top of Linux, such as software for cars, televisions, and all Android phones. It also powers most of the internet and the world stock exchanges. So open-source is already an integral part of the digital world we live in today.
Embracing the Future of Game Development
Now, I mentioned that I started making games when I was still very young, but looking back, it feels like the industry was as well. In just the past decade, third-party engines like Unity and Unreal have become huge and industry-standard. A big difference from before, where game studios would develop and use their own in-house engines. Also, indie development has gone from something that very few people even knew about to a huge community where hobbyists and professionals alike publish successful game titles, largely because of how accessible these third-party engines have become. And the game industry as a whole has become the largest entertainment industry in the world, far surpassing music and movies put together.
The Potential of Godot and Open-Source Game Engines
Now, this is a lot of change and not in a lot of time, and while huge growth like this, of course, creates issues, I think it’s important to remember that it also brings a lot of positives. Perhaps most importantly, making games has never been more accessible than it is now. And also, large open-source projects like a modern game engine require a lot of manpower to develop, something that wouldn’t have been possible with the small game dev communities of just 10 years ago. In fact, just before taking a break from game dev, I was aware of a few open-source initiatives, but I didn’t think that they were viable alternatives to commercial engines. But holy wow, a lot has happened since to convince me otherwise. And huge props to the game dev community for making that happen!
Conclusion and the Future of Game Development
First of all, a bunch of new engines have popped up, and just like with Blender previously, niche software is starting to gain massive followings, with many contributing their time and donating to hire full-time developers. The largest example of this is Godot, a free and fully open-source game engine that a lot of developers have recently turned to. And the timing really couldn’t be better for this. Godot has actually been around for a while, but in March last year, Godot 4 was released, which was a huge rewrite of the engine, in my eyes, making it a great choice for a lot of game projects. And of course, Godot is now riding on a wave of new users, developers, and a huge influx of donations to the Godot Development Fund. I’ve been turning around with it for the past few months, and I’ve been well loving it. While many parts of the engine, of course, have a ways to go, it is overall much further than I was expecting, and perhaps more importantly for me, it forced me to learn new things and reminded me of why I fell in love with making games in the first place.
