if these were just mere tools of not great importance , I doubt anyone would shell out close to a million dollars for an engine.
I asked this question on GameDev.net some time ago
I was replied by a guy who claimed to work for one of the most important software house
He said that it is not a matter of features and / or tools
Low cost game engine are not suitable to develop true AAA games
Sooner or later you come across a lot of bugs which are not so evident as long as you make simple stuff
In other words you can design a fragment of game or even a simple level which look like a top quality commercial product on your PC but designing a complete game capable of running on hundreds different platform is an other matter
It made sense to me
