Moving to Unity Game Engine

Game Development Progress

So the game we’re developing is being remade on Unity. Developing in Unity will be faster since it provides a suite of tools that helps out a lot in every game development project such as ProBuilder (one of the big reasons why Unity is amazing). Albeit being slightly different from Godot, it’s quite easy to bridge the gap of knowledge with the vast amount of tutorials all over the internet. I also prefer C# over GDScript as C# is a much more mature language and is applicable beyond game development unlike the latter.

I haven’t updated the journal much but I’ve been doing my best to manage my time: It’s a mix of academics, social interactions, work, personal projects, and leisure.

Okay, tangent, let’s talk about compulsive behaviours.

Live-Service Tangent

The mainstream games today are live-service games. Games that are constantly being updated, requires internet connectivity, and most of the time revolves around a multiplayer aspect. Well you know the titles, we have Valorant, Apex Legends, CS:GO and more. These games are fine and their appeal can be found on the gameplay and its competitive nature. Most of their revenue probably come from cosmetics, which doesn’t provide much advantage overall, it makes you “cooler” though as other players would see that amazing animated gun skin you have with its own kill effects. Other than that, well that’s basically it. A pro player would still have the same skillset and skill level gameplay-wise with or without their cosmetics.

So what’s my point? Actually I wanted to talk about gacha games. These are also live-service games but their gameplay is strongly tied, not just on the cosmetics, but to the “skill” that’s going to be paywalled. Think of it this way, if there are competitive gacha games, and there are, the ones who would dominate are the ones who spend the most on said game.

Our society is revolving around all these things and kids who are well-versed with using all sorts of devices are becoming younger and younger. The very first things a kid would want from these devices are games. The fact that there are a lot of games structured this way means exposure to such things would be commonplace. The problem with that is “compulsive behaviour.”

You see, kids would actually want to spend money on said games to get this character or item (without guarantee) to be able to play or use them in the game (some sort of gambling basically). Now, as they are young, they do not actually know the value of money, and this curiousity or drive to spend money on the game won’t be sated as easily.

Admittedly, in the past, I’ve been hooked on these kinds of games, and I remember spending my Christmas money on them. I was happy at first, but you know, eventually, the fact that it’s been a waste sinks in. I don’t even play those games anymore and I don’t have any intention to do so. Sure, they made me “happy” at the time but there could’ve been a lot more ways I could’ve been happy without spending money that way.

It’s partly my fault. But it’s also how deliberately these games were designed to be spent money on that’s wrong. That the experience is intentionally behind a paywall which can only be overcome by some sort of “gambling.”

So what’s gonna happen?

Seeing how those kinds of games make a ton of money, as much as I hate to admit it, they’re here to stay. But one day, who knows, people might get tired of them. Elden Ring became a massive success with one of the sentiments being that it is an RPG where the experience is amazing and is not behind any sort of microtransaction, so you buy the game and get to dive in an amazing and vast world with a ton of possibilities, cosmetics, weapons, magic, without having to spend any more. I’d like to do the same for the game we’re developing.