Talk:Unity (game engine)/Archive 1

External links sections

Two Unity's youtube channels listed, the official is https://www.youtube.com/user/unity3d , the information for unity insider channel is just self promotion.

There are also others links unrelevant being promoted there, like unity insider site, Unity 3D Games, both unrelevant as long there are lots of unity3d fan sites. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.19.16.6 (talk) 13:58, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Unfair treatment towards Unity 3D

Just throwing in my little two cents on this page, I don't believe it's fair to have a whole section of the article dedicated to 'Shortfalls' when clearly every other engine it competes with, which has no section dedicated to just shortfalls. I believe it is unfair to throw that up in a sense like a highway billboard when other engines just make small mentions of it, it's either have a shortfalls section for every engine, or remove this one.

Also, DirectX 11 to my knowledge is not 'a rising technology' as stated. It's not like it's implementation is similar to rabbits multiplying, barely any games worth mentioning use DirectX 11 as it's predecessor DirectX 10 which is just now slowly becoming the standard as we crawl into the next generation of consoles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.51.132.85 (talk) 23:17, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Disagree - No need to use consoles as a baseline for modern graphics. Look to PC games, CryEngine, UDK, etc... DX10 has been standard on PCs for a couple of years now and DX11 has been available for at least as long 217.37.166.142 (talk) 16:07, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

I agree. Plus, the use of OpenGL is part of what makes it cross platform. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.67.243.1 (talk) 10:27, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Actually that section is just non sense, why list the lack of support to XYZ? A engine doesn't need to support all existing devices, this is not a shortfall, does unreal support 3ds, vita, wii, flash, linux, chrome nacl???? it's just non sense point lack of support to certain platforms. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.19.16.6 (talk) 14:06, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

I also agree. I think there is consensus here, I've removed the 'shortfalls' section. Davedx (talk) 19:18, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Consensus? Really? 3 unsigned comments from IPs that have edited almost nothing but this particular article? Looks to me more like Unity is editing this doc and eliminating all negative comments. 67.171.211.245 (talk) 02:45, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

I think the increased amount of criticism is due to the increased amount of self promotional opinions. Put side-by-side with other engine pages this page doesn't simply state characteristics, it exclaims them. Using opinionated terms like "new and exciting ways", and "It's easy to make extremely high-end visuals" is clearly self promotional. I tried to make a few minor changes to keep content whilst removing opinions, there is just so much blatant opinion there. Some sections would likely be entirely necessary. Any one that mentions specific benefits of a specific technology, which many other engines share (such as DirectX versions), are likely necessary fluff, and should be removed entirely. QuidProDeus (talk) 23:02, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

There is another Unity game engine

The page should mention that "Unity 3D" is a US trademark name used by Cornered Rat Software/Playnet Incorporated, used for their proprietary 3D engine in World War II Online. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lutorm (talk • contribs) 22:12, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Unity Technologies bought the Unity 3D trademark from Playnet Inc a while ago, so this should not be an issue anymore. I don't have sources on this at the moment, but anyone who wants to add anything to the article about the Unity 3D trademark should of course check up the facts and provide sources when doing so. 90.184.147.105 (talk) 08:25, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

No, I think it's still an issue. This isn't about your company's ownership of the name. The article should focus on the WWII game and engine, and perhaps have a small aside about the minor web based game thing, and also perhaps a section on how the company relies on wikipedia for viral marketting. Right now, the article is a cheesy investor guide, and basically spam.74.192.163.136 (talk) 17:16, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Reads like promotional material

My impression when reading the article is that it is overtly positive and full of jargon, as if it is aimed at a game developer audience. Also, there are no criticisms, problems or shortfalls mentioned. LittleOldMe 11:45, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

In response to LittleOldMe, it would seem that at least one of the current criticisms is barely applicable. It says that without a source code licence... er... developers can't change the source code. In other words, 'it's not open source'. How exactly is this a valid criticism, precisely...? - Anonymous Wikipedia non-member. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.133.32.253 (talk) 09:37, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

In response to myself (immediately above), after reading the aforementioned criticism a couple more times, I can't really tell what it DOES mean - it seems a little unclear. Does it mean that Unity developers need updates so that their installations of Unity will make better games? Or does it mean that Unity games can only receive updates from Unity Technologies? Or... what? Could do with rewording at least. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.133.32.253 (talk) 09:45, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, this was probably written by someone who uses Unity a lot and (as a part of the Unity community myself) Unity is something that's not easy to describe without sounding "overtly positive". the best I could do was to add a (short) list of drawbacks. StarManta 02:10, 9 March 2007 (UTC)StarManta

I had never heard of Unity before (I have written OpenGL stuff but not for games) and it seems fairly balanced to me (ie not promotional material). One thing is that it is described as a "game engine" - even in the title - which is a bit misleading. I am not sure if Unity wrote their own engine (but for one thing the Physics part is not theirs but from Ageia). Perhaps a better description is "game engine and IDE"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.171.37.167 (talk) 00:34, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I've added a short section on some of the downfalls of the Unity 3d Game engine, with references for each. -MilesOkeefe — Preceding unsigned comment added by Milesokeefe (talk • contribs) 08:21, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

This article is too close to a repring of the developer's web site, which has obvious neutrality concerns. Other game engines do not have a line-by-line feature listing in their Wikipedia pages since it can change frequently and can easily degrade into a commercial. The entire feature list should be reconsidered. I removed some of the biased wording, but the article is still a mess. Piggysan (talk) 22:08, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I kind of see where you're coming from Piggysan, but I read the id Tech 3 page and compared the two, and I couldn't really figure out a way to change it significantly for the better. All I can really think of doing is maybe merging the bulletpoint lists into sections that give broad overviews of the key technology areas, like in the Tech 3 page. What do you think? Davedx (talk) 19:20, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

It's worth noting that despite disagreement by Unity supporters, there's a feeling that the graphics quality available through Unity is inferior to other engines. There may be valid reasons for this (Experience of average developer, budget, level of out-of-the-box functionality, etc) but it's definitely widely discussed... http://create3dgames.wordpress.com/2012/07/03/unity-vs-udk/ it also has other drawbacks when compared to other engines... http://giacomovaccari.tumblr.com/post/18380022743/what-game-engine-to-use-a-beginner-game-developer http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/8118/what-are-the-pro-cons-of-unity3d-as-a-choice-to-make-games 217.37.166.142 (talk) 16:22, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

The new entries for Unity 5 sounds very promotional. 50.76.91.81 (talk) 20:05, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

My experience with unity

I downloaded the unity demo, after playing it my computer's graphics drivers were messed up. I had to uninstall unity and reinstall my drivers. Can I add this to the criticism section? Bobicmon (talk) 22:34, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I removed the video issue from the criticism section. You can add it back if you can provide a valid citation. The other issues in the criticism section should also provide citations, but they are somewhat self-evident so I didn't remove them. HyperCapitalist (talk) 01:59, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't know how installing an application like Unity can mess with graphics drivers - would imagine that Unity uses whatever drivers were available. Maybe Bobicmon could add some details about how the drivers got messed up and put the criticism back in? Dendrophile (talk) 11:52, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

It also messed up the graphics output on my computer. It didn't actually alter my drivers, and perhaps the other commenter was simply explaining what happened imprecisely. Regardless, Unity's software is very low quality, but that was already clear by the quality of the games. There's almost no point trying to get criticisms of the software onto this wiki, which the company seems to spend more time working on and controlling than they do working on their software. 74.192.163.136 (talk) 17:18, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Unity is not "very low quality" because you had a bad experience with it. I've used a number of engines and IDEs, and apart from instability with Mono Develop I've found it to be pretty consistently stable on different hardware configurations and platforms. Davedx (talk) 19:24, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Expert request

I added an {{expert-subject}} request with the following reason:

• It's still too close to a blurb;
• please remove or source all uncited stuff;
• find more third party sources, not just news media; an independent technical review would be very informative;
• describe what the various products are, such as the Unity web player plugin, in terms relevant to the end end user, not just the game developer.

-84user (talk) 01:44, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I think that some of the criticisms of this article are valid, such as the over-the-top feature list and too much focus on commercial licensing, but I'm not sure what value there is in describing what a web plugin does in an article about development software. Could you also elaborate on why an 'independent technical review' would be so useful? Could you maybe show me such a reference on another game engine page, like id Tech 3? Davedx (talk) 19:30, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

File:Unity3d-thumb.png Nominated for speedy Deletion

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Customers, and their products

Wikipedia articles for comparable technologies like id Tech 4 and Unreal Engine 3 list the game studios that use those products, and the games they've published which contain their technology. This article lists neither. Both for the simple assertion that Unity is notable, and to illustrate to the user what it has been used for, examples of both really are vital. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 18:49, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

List of games & studios using Unity could be listed, but you also have to keep in mind that Unity is very different from idtech4 or UE3 in this area (those cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per game to license; whereas Unity is much much cheaper). In other words, Unity is more like "a tool". Does a page for Photoshop contain a list of notable users or works done with it? 78.62.141.189 (talk) 20:05, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

All articles in Wikipedia, without exception, must show that their subject is notable. The Photoshop article achieves this with plenty of coverage from reliable sources. This article doesn't; it's got a few scraps of coverage, but mostly it uses unreliable sources like forum posts and the maker's own website. It was nominated for deletion before - the nomination was withdrawn with people claiming they were going to improve the referencing, but it's still very poor, and in its current form I doubt it would survive another deletion nomination. What we need to do is to both find more and better coverage in reliable news sources, and in particular we need to find games and game makers who use it, and (again with reliable references) list those in the article. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 20:48, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi there, the games company I work for has been using Unity since v1. I don't think a list of companies using the technology are that relevant though, especially in the case of a tech that's used by lots of indies who may never see a single title published. Sometimes I really despair of Wikipedia's "noteworthiness" criteria. 87.208.217.136 (talk) 18:59, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

OK, to stop the article being nuked I spent 10 minutes Googling to find some games that were made using Unity. There is also a massive list on Unity's own website but I do agree that there are already too many references to UT as a source, so I've avoided using that even though it completely validates the "noteworthiness" of the engine by demonstrating how many commercially viable companies are using it. Davedx (talk) 19:50, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

I have since moved this list to List of Unity Engine games so that it matches other game engines like List of Unreal Engine games on Wikipedia because I felt that Unity game engine has become popular enough now. BlitzGreg (talk) 12:21, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Games vs. Simulations

Do we really need a separate section for this? Kerbal Space Program is arguably a game, and it would be cleaner to merge the two into a single 'games' section.--Rhotoscopic (talk) 00:39, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

It's not really "arguable" it is a game. It doesn't simulate any real thing, the values of the kerbal system, the engines and everything else is set for game balance, not realism. It simulates certain physics, but it's not a simulation any more than any other game, for example an FPS that happens to simulate a bullet's flight path or any game that happens to use any kind of physics system within. With this in mind I'm going to move it into the games section. I agree with the idea of simply merging the two completely though. The distinction between "game" and "simulation" is blurry nowadays.84.246.201.101 (talk) 22:47, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Shortfalls

The section 'License' looks very commercerial as well— Preceding unsigned comment added by TheOuterOne (talk) 14:02, 26 February 2013 (UTC +01:00)

AI section needs to be removed, looks like self promo for a developer plus unity released path finding http://unity3d.com/unity/engine/pathfinding — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.19.16.6 (talk) 14:13, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Dynamic Destruction - looks like self promotion to an asset store item. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.19.16.6 (talk) 14:16, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Worst possible name for a new development environment. Why not just call it "It". (That's a joke.)Wjhonson (talk) 17:32, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

The article doesn't mention how the Unity devs silently added the requirement for SSE2 support to the web player and cut all workarounds, leading to many frustrated users. [1] Currently, more than a year later, they still haven't updated the system requirements page to reflect this. RainyShadow (talk) 21:58, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Looks like a common software issue - developers dropping support for old/rare systems as they improve/upgrade it for everyone else. Some affected users inevitable become angry. This however is routine happening and not really encyclopedia-worthy unless reliable third party sources have covered this specific case, which they don't see to have. Especially for controversial claims like "cut all workarounds". Their sys reqs page [2] is very bare (unless I'm looking at some other one) and doesn't list a lot of stuff, it's very stretched to say not listing no SSE support is any different to not listing hundreds of other unsupported specs. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 23:29, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Game List Move

I decided to move the game list to List of Unity Engine games so that it matches other game engines like List of Unreal Engine games on Wikipedia because I felt that Unity game engine has become popular enough now that it can really have its own article to create a sortable wikitable and its own category, most of its games already have articles on Wikipedia. BlitzGreg (talk) 12:23, 11 January 2014 (UTC)