Again, whether this is an issue is entirely down to your needs. If you're approaching it just as a shrink-wrapped tool to make your content (note how this argument also applies directly to every productised tool, 3DS, MS Office, everything), and it's extensible enough to do what you want, then you understandably won't care about source. And actually, 'source' is a euphemism for 'long term control'. When you use a packaged product which is binary only (even just at the core), you give up control of a certain part of your production pipeline in return for something that is probably slicker (simply because when you commercialise something you have more resources to polish it). But you are giving something up - whether you care or not in the situation you're in is the deciding factor.Vectrex wrote:As for Unity source, no believes people when they say this but lack of source code in Unity is no where near the problem of other game engines. Unity itself is actually a light component framework with a kick arse editor. All the 'built in' stuff (even the terrain engine) is an external component. Most of the editor tools are external scripts. Your components/code runs at the same level as theirs. So basically it's a bit like complaining that you don't have the source code to 3dsmax
If you're interested in simply shipping the next product in a 6-18 month window, this is fine and I would blame no-one for choosing Unity in that scenario if they can afford the license, it's great.
If your time horizon is longer than that, if you're trying to create something more strategic with a lot of your own investment, most of the time it's not ok to be so dependent on something you can't control in a pinch. Companies get acquired, fold, decide to change priorities, or change licensing options, and end-of-lines old products regardless of whether your business is reliant on them. I've been caught in this trap before. Unity is really, really great, but it's highly likely that they're aiming firmly for IPO or acquisition in the next year or two - the fact that they received $5.5M from Sequoia Capital last year (which no doubt helped fund the growth in their dev team and buying in tech from Beast/Umbra) pretty much guarantees that - VC's don't invest this much in an organic growth model. So who knows what the situation will be in 3 years - remember what happened to Project Offset, Renderware and several others when they were acquired? Again, if you're looking to deliver product in the shorter term this is absolutely no issue and it shouldn't concern you, but what I'm saying is that there are plenty of people with a longer term view than 'What can I make my next game in fastest'. Those are the people I'm personally focussed on, and really have always been focussed on, because they're the best fit for our model.
Open source works best as an infrastructure component, not a shrink-wrapped product - the business model for giving away a finished game creator tool just doesn't stack up. There are lots of people with strategic goals of their own involving a 3D render component though - that's where collaboration and open source works, a give-and-take, sharing of resources approach. People looking for short-term quick-fixes probably shouldn't be using open source, it's always focussed on the long rather than short term.