I'll support GameStudio. In my books, it's the best engine that works with good quality works-out-of-the-box-and-ready-to-go templates that just work, even if it's something being recycled.
And that's great, 3DGS is for you.
It's just that the ones that want to make full games without using the 'out of the box' stuff will choose an engine like Unity or T3D because of the ability to build 'out of the boundaries of said box'. When it comes down to it, T3D are for the ones who want T3D, 3DGS is more for people who want to learn programming, and want to make some simpler games.
The point is that T3D is still a bargain even at 1k.
People buy what they can afford, or what they want to spend on a hobby, and that's what they work with. If you can afford a bazillion dollars to buy a whiz bang engine that's great, but it seems there are a few people arguing for an engine being a great deal when they can't even afford it themselves.
I think it also comes down to if it's a hobby or a job. For people like me, it's a job. I'm a coder so I want the best bang for my buck, and I don't really consider A7, or any other Acknex that 'bang'.
I think it is completely fair to consider what others pay for models and resources, the point is how much people will pay for models when said money could be spent on a better engine. Say you spent $500 on an....meh, ok modelling program, when you could've gotten something like blender or TrueSpace(which is now dying) and spent $500 on a great engine to run your models for whatever purpose. It'd be a better deal to get a better program for free and spend the 500 you have on an engine. It's still a valid example.
It just comes down to if you're making games, or small projects. For someone who is payed to make presentations for a company, and the presentation doesn't require many models or anything extra to run and said person is getting paid decently by said company, a simple DX9 engine would do. For someone who wants to make good games that require some rendering power and are more than a simple shooter or casual game, they'd need something with more power than a simple DX9 engine. For someone who is a modeller/artist/level designer, an engine that does most code for you is good.
I wouldn't say it's a matter of budget (because most people will spend a decent amount on multiple things just to play around with it) but a matter of what you want to do. I have seen plenty of people around here that have bought multiple game engines and never did anything with them. They bought em, played around with them, and found out that the engine(s) doesn't have a "make game" button and give up. Most of those people will buy an engine that does most of it for them, not that it's a bad thing, but after spending ALL that money (which could amount to well over 1k) they settle with the engine that does the code for them.
The point is that most people will spend alot of money to "test".
edit: anyway, hopefully this will be my last off-topic post.
