Unity Ludum Dare Type Event

The Unity Engine over the past few years has developed a pretty bad image because of asset flippers, and bad developers that get their games on Steam. This has even gone to the point of game reviewers and possible players refusing to play the game because it's made in Unity. Pondering this, I thought "what if Unity had an event every 6 months to promote great developers and titles?" So, what if this was the case? Everyone would be given 48 to 72 hours to develop a game only in Unity, without the asset store. Games would be built off of a theme (similar to Ludum Dare) and the winner(s) would be provided with a one year pro license and maybe something else to really get people wanting to participate. I love Unity, and I've seen the games that have come out of it. I think anyone who enjoys this engine wants their games to be judged by the work they put in, not the Unity logo at the start.

 

I certainly wouldn't knock anyone performing in a game jam (I kind of sort of am right now - whatever happened to that community manager-moderated thread?), but a bunch of half-finished, tiny games being promoted are really not going to change gamer perception at all--certainly not in a positive way, in any case.

 

I'd never take part in a jam like that, especially because of the "no asset store" rule. I use so many assets to streamline my development process that I could never go back to not using them. Things like enhanced hierarchy, advanced player prefs, textmesh pro, behavior designer and similar all fill massive holes in my workflow that save me literal hours of time.

Plus, like @EternalAmbiguity said, the results of such a jam wouldn't fulfill your end goal in the first place.

 

"unity doesn't have a crysis"
- Jim Sterling 2017

The game that run poorly on most computers.

 

It's more to promote developers that can do a whole lot with the engine in a little time. Just look at other game jam events. People create amazing things in little time because they are talented. It would show off how much can be accomplished if you learn the engine.

I should clarify: Art assets should not be allowed. Assets such as Rewired, text mesh pro, etc. would be allowed. But the art must come from the developer(s) themselves.

 

This would also help smaller developers promote their talents if they won. Perhaps a small development team that couldn't get off the ground would win and be promoted. This may bring traction to previous games they have made that should of had traction in the first place. Could be a very good thing for Unity and devs.

 

In all honesty, I don't really see any of that happening. What I do see is some vocal minority trying to convince people that a unity apocalypse is happening. So such concerns can be ignored.

There's already LudumDare, and half of its games is made in unity. I also participated there in the past.

Pure cash prize would've been better, but odds of winning in such contest is not good. LD37 had at least 2 thousand games in it.

I think that realisitc approach would be to stop expecting something like that. The general rule in life is that no matter what someone did (and how), there will be at least one person on the globe that will hate them for it.

 

It sounds like a participation "for exposure". I'm not a fan of those kind of events.

This kind of competition could be used for building freelance portoflio, but I don't see how it could "bring traction to previous games".

 

No. The attitude towards Unity from the dev community is pretty positive. The gaming population at large doesn't care.

Not a real issue.

Not a real issue.

Citation? Last I saw all the big reviewers cared more about the game. I've not heard of a single game being turned down for review based on the engine. I've heard of plenty being turned down for being general garbage.

Players are weird creatures, but in general they will go for good games over garbage, regardless of the engine.

Logical fallacy. You cannot produce a game worth showing off in 48 to 72 hours. Believe me, I've done it, and seen some other talented people do it. Any game you can make in jam time is garbage. Producing more garbage games will not change the perception on Unity's ability to produce good games.

Logical fallacy. The asset store is one of Unity's biggest strengths. Ignoring it is not going to allow the engine to produce better games.

Why not just participate in the Global Game Jam or Ludum Dare? A large majority of these use Unity anyway. From memory there were maybe three teams of a hundred that didn't use Unity at the last GGJ I participated in.

Um... Okay. I love my wife. I love my kids. Unity is just a tool. It currently happens to be a better tool for me then the alternatives.

So remove the logo. If your game is any good, its a trivial expense.

 

is it really needed the last 3 Global Game Jams i went to had 90% unity usage. With like 1 Unreal user and a few 2 or 3 people using web technologies filling the last 10%.

In game industry Unity is regarded very well, and among the gamers and reviewers, why should they care about the engine its the quality of the game that matters.

Was your experience with "Ori and the Blind Forest" lessoned because you say the unity logo in the credits? Is Hearthstone a a subpar CCG because of its engine? What about other games made by AAA publishers and studios that use unity, like Hitman Go, or any of the mobile Ubisoft titles as of late? Or is Kerbal Space programing a un creative half assed derivative mess because of Unity? What about Cities Skyline, Superhot, Broforce and Pillars of Eternity?
You get what you put in, but with unity the barrier of entry to get something out is low. You still need to put a lot of work in if you want to get out quality and that is the same no matter what you used to develop the game in.