Why is Unity the most popular engine?

I’ve been studying UE4 for a while now, getting to know it’s features and the blueprint system as well. In this time I realized just how many features are built in and it’s all provided for free. I read about that Unity (being the most popular engine nowadays) is missing a lot of these features and if you want to develop a serious project with it you’ll have to spend money on assets to extend the functionality of the editor. So I just can’t get this right in my head… Why is Unity the most popular engine (and hence has more job offers)? Can someone explain it to me objectively?

1 Like

I would say a part of it is probably because a lot of people want to make decent amounts of money as fast as possible and as a result they want to make a game for mobile because they are usually smaller/easier to make and unity runs better on mobile then UE4, also unity runs better on older/lower spec hardware as well.

I’m not sure if my answer is accurate, but, Unity won the race of releasing a free engine first.

Around 2010, when Unity started gaining traction, the only real alternative to it was Epic’s UDK. UDK was basically a fork of Unreal Tournament 3 ; there was some middleware and tools upgrades over UT3’s modding SDK, but having used both, it was still limited in scope - nothing near what UE4 is today. The licensing terms made it impossible for indie or amateurs to work with - 25% of gross revenue, almost as much as a digital retailer would make. Epic was mostly focusing on big-time developers at the time. So Unity became the engine of the indie wave, while the recent UE4 still carries the reputation of UDK - hard, poorly documented, dedicated to shooters, etc.

Aside from history, Unity is still leading in terms of platform support, the JS/C# combination seems more attractive to indies than the C++/Blueprint combination, Unity runs on lower hardware, etc.

  1. Easy enough for most people to learn
  2. Powerful enough to make most kinds of games
  3. Runs well enough on most hardware (both editor and games)

Probably the biggest things–it was cheap/free for longer, and since it lacks a lot of graphical features it’s very easy to develop for low-end hardware.

I want to learn how to utilize both engines in the long run. However i must say that unity is good for begineers to get a feel into the process of how to make a video game. Its not too hard and one can easily learn basic c# to script with it.

in short unity is good for begineers

Just Unity is easy to learn. A lot of unity developers was flash developers at first, but c# looks like as2-as3, also it has similar ways is developing. and there are no pawns and other strange things for newcomers.

Unity has also got a more mature marketplace, with fewer of the backwards compatibility issues you see with UE4. Many of the games you see released use marketplace content to some extent.

This helps newbies feel less intimidated, but if you’ve ever seen Jim Sterling’s channel you can see how it can be a double edged sword, with tonnes of fodder games comprising of little more than repackaged marketplace items.

Not to forget the fact that even though UE4 does have more features than Unity. UE4 ain’t complete.

I don’t know this for a fact, but it seems to me that many issues that ARK: Survival Evolves has, is not because the game devs, but because of UE4. I’m referring to the performance problems with the ARK game.

Also, ins’t UE4 only two years old? Because for that short time, actually there already many AAA and indies that use this engine. Like ARK, Flames in the Flood, EVERSPACE. And AAA game the Street Fighter thing.

Its used a lot more becouse its simpler than UE4 for small games, and also, pretty much ALL training is done on unity instead of unreal engine.
In my country, Spain, i think the ratio its like 99% to 1% from unity users to unreal engine users. Becouse most do mobile games, 8bit style indie games. And all the big gamedev schools use unity.

Unity just has been accessible to new users for longer- UE4 is still brand new, and more and more people are discovering the power and ease of use with blueprints it has to offer! (UDK wasn’t built with the same target audience that UE4 has been) In a few years things will look different as UE4 will have had time to mature and be well known for the rich featureset. Unity is currently used more as it has been free for longer and the thing people used to gravitate toward when starting to learn making games- that’s why many courses and tutorials flock to use it, however you’d be crazy to use it nowadays with things like the material editor and robust AI systems built into UE4 far outclassing anything Unity currently has to offer. There are still people who haven’t properly looked at UE4 trying to argue that it has “poor documentation” when it’s probably the most informative and consistent I’ve seen in any software, and that blueprints are “prototype only” when they actually can easily be used to make full finished games without having to touch C++. Give it time and see the tides change! Perhaps Unity gets the upper edge with mobile content, but I see UE4 as a tool to make cinematic and beautiful gaming experiences, not necessarily watered down mobile apps (though you can if you want).

Hey guys,

I used Unity3D before and now I’m learning UE4 (for one year). I wrote about that before many times but I will write again.

I agree with you: Unity3D is easier, simpler, more friendly and perfect for mobile. However, it’s not a professional tool for me. If you really want to make something big and complex, Unity3D sucks. Therefore, I chose UE4 for developing. UE4 is a true game engine and to use it you need to be a professional. Not all game developers are professionals; most of them are just kids dreaming of making their own games. Such young people won’t be using UE4 because it’s too difficult to them. You need to be an experienced programmer and have a big knowledge of 3D graphics to do something with UE4. But it’s OK - I like it. Kids and beginners should stick to Unity3D and professionals to UE4.

However, there are some Unity3D things UE4 should include. I wrote about that on a different forum. I received a very good feedback from Epic Team and other people, but then it was dropped by UE4 developers. There were good features that can attract more people from Unity3D. And we are waiting for the Linux launcher of course :).

Nah, it is because they are working off of 4.5 I think with massive changes to the rendering code base. They re-wrote large sections of the engine and added their own Global Illumination solution.

UE4 by itself gets pretty **** good frames considering the quality it can output.

Thank you all for the answers. I think I do see it more clearly now. :slight_smile: Seems like starting to learn UE4 was a good choice.

I am a huge fan of Unreal. Really.

But I am sad to see how Unreal Engine loosing the race against Unity in VR area, mediaframework, camera pipeline.

Especially for Playstation VR. This situation is clearly visible after yesterday VR seminar here, in London.

Unity supporting all VR features like a reprojection etc where Unreal, unfortunately, is very limited.

Today I can see Unreal as 3D Max. Or After Effect. Wit very linear and “baked” structure.

What I am dreaming about:

  • “modular” engine, like Nuke or Houdini etc.
  • real separation of runtime from Editor, with chance to run Editor on PC and runtime - on console with connection to Editor.
  • forget about Slate UI and go to PyQt, like Maya do from 2011.
  • normal camera module.

I am understand, what I am asking about completely new Engine. But…

Just take a look on the “new” Sequencer for instance. What you can see? After Effect like linear editor.

absolute nonsense.

dont dismiss it too quickly, its not just for kids or whatever.
having worked with ue3 for years (personally and professionally) i was exited about ue4. during the beta tests it seemed like it would be a winner given enough time.
imho enough time has passed since then and its still in that kind of ‘fingers crossed for the future’ area.
i can no longer tolerate to use ue4 and have switched to unity just recently and, what a breath of fresh air it is. sure it doesnt have pulsating wiggly lines under the hood but at least it runs properly.
just ask if hes enjoying developing for android with ue4 to get an idea where im coming from.

people who want to make a game in the near future should use unity.
people who want to develop a game for years and years wasting a lot of that time with bugs and implementing basic features themselves should use ue4.

being forced to write my own car physics was the last straw for me with ue4, i was battling with crazy physics maths (for the third week) and it just struck me how ridiculous the situation with ue4 is and how much development time was being thrown at things that really should be working already. one might conclude its better to spend that time developing a game.

Nonsense…

Why do you keep going to the same restaurant if you don’t like its food?