As I understood, T3D is not that different. It is just some kind of TGEA2.0. It still is best suited for FPS. If you want to make a 2d game then TGB is better. For anything else Unity might be a better choice.

Professional game devs will spend whatever it takes to get the tools that work best for them - within some kind of budget determined by the amount of money available to them.

After all this back and forth in this thread, then, the real question would be how many professional developers are there in this thread? Because if that's the case, then I agree that you'd want to spend every penny you can get your hands on for the best tool set.

So, how many people here in this thread develop games professionally as their sole source of income in their own business? Not working for someone else. And how many have had a successful commercial title (successful meaning that you can at least make a living from it)?

That would be an interesting bit of information and make certain points in this thread much more valid...

"So, how many people here in this thread develop games professionally as their sole source of income in their own business?"

I would say not many , but that's the goal.

hmm, well me and mpdev, frank uses the engine for testing purposes for his models (but i beleive he also has a dayjob), so thats like 2.5

I agree that may be the goal for some, but that's why it's called a goal. Smaller steps have to be taken along the way to achieve that goal, and for many people GS may be one of those necessary steps.

There would also be many people here who do not have that goal, and for them GS may be everything they need.

I can see this thread being started as a "Hey, take a look at the cool new T3D engine over at GarageGames" just for an FYI, but the ongoing argument that people should be buying it instead of GS just seems counter intuitive.

As someone mentioned a few pages back, this engine against engine argument goes on endlessly across multiple forums because it's a pointless argument. People either buy what they need, or what they want. Informational posts about new or different technology are nice, but posts trying to convince people to buy something they're not interested in don't generally accomplish much, except for the people who like to endlessly argue about something.

Instead of spending hours arguing about why your engine of choice is better, spend the time making a game with it to prove your point...

It's great seeing people be able to do that, wish I could, and I hope the people that are doing it make a fortune. But that still leaves quite a few thousand hobby devs out there who may not feel it necessary to lay out big dollars to pursue that hobby.

I definitely don't want to slight anyone who has made this their career, as I said I think that's great. My only point earlier was that there are very few people buying GS who are going to make game dev their career...

That's precisely my point. As for me, I plan on Game Development as only one source of income, but for now it's my full time job.

"but the ongoing argument that people should be buying it instead of GS just seems counter intuitive"

Well I have never said people shouldn't be buying gamestudio , as I myself have a copy. I have compared them both and have stated that the way things are going gamestudio is being far surpassed by engines like Unity and T3D , with the MAIN reason for my argument being cross platform deployment , and not the plug and play shaders(which I also do love btw) . And one of the reasons I post the comparisons is in hope Conitec will see how it's customers are feeling towards it's engine in comparison with the competition's engine. I would assume it's in conitec's interest to be aware of this issues , as this is their business , and I'm almost certain that they've realized the mistake they've don with A7 , hence I keep saying I'm not buying A7 but waiting till A8 to buy , if A8 delivers all the features everyone wanted for A7.

Still , gamestudio is a good engine , but there is no doubt in my mind that it is no longer the number 1 indie engine as it was a couple of years ago , but it is now somewhere around number 3 or 4, which is still decent.

But in any case , I never said people shouldn't buy A7 , I said you should check out T3d as it's looking very impressive , and thought I should give a heads up to my fellow GameStudio game developers about this new iteration of the Torque Engine soon to be released.I still love gamestudio , but I do wish some of our requests would have been payed some more attention to in the development of A7 , hence my disappointment with it and constant comparison to the competitor engines.

I cannot remember that somebody in this thread told you that. I constantly always tell to buy the right tool for the right job and the right platform. There are situations where Unity3d is the best and there are situations where TGB fits best. And T3D can be a very interesting option as well when finished and available. C4 is the best option in some areas (optimizations, scene management, terrain with steep rocks and caves).

And if you really dont have the goal to finish a game then you can also learn and play around with Irrlicht and Ogre3d for free. They are both very good and well documented. I followed the tutorials and understood them easily.

So it indeed depends on your point of view and your projects. Nobody forces you to do something you dont want to do.

Sorry if I'm coming across the wrong way here, Frank, and though it may or may not have been specifically stated that was the implication in many posts. I've seen these types of arguments since there have been game engines available to the public, and they always turn from informative threads into a "this engine is great and that engine sucks" kind of thing. I usually never get drawn into them because they always seem to be perpetuated by a few people who (usually) don't even own the engine their arguing for. I shouldn't have gotten into this one, it's always a no win argument. My only point in this was to try to relate the fact that some people just like GS and want to use it, and shouldn't be made to feel bad for that. So, I'll back out now.




Actually, I've made a pretty good living off my own computer consulting business for over 30 years now, raised a family on the income, and taught computer science at university for 10 of those years in addition to my own business. And though game dev is not my specialty or my business, I've made a lot more money on developing business apps than most will ever see in game dev. So yes, I have some idea of software tools, what they cost, and what different levels of business can spend on those tools. People pay me a lot of money for advice in those areas, and have been pretty happy with that advice over the last 30+ years.

And one thing I've learned (though apparently not very well) is that arguing with kids and people with little to no experience is definitely a no win situation. This place is like any other, there are people here who are experienced and very good at what they do, and there are also people who just aren't but want to talk a lot anyway.

It's been quite a while since I've gotten into one of these, and I appreciate the reminder for why I shouldn't...