To foster a democratization of game development, Atari's Phil Harrison believes that publishers and developers should turn to low-cost development tools, specifically referring to the Unity game engine.
Unity is a game development tool created by Unity Technologies, which provides a relatively simple platform for developing robust 3-D games. Games developed with Unity are designed to run on both Windows and Mac operating systems, as well as on the Wii, iPhones, and in most browsers. Some of the titles developed with Unity include Velociraptor Safari, or Cartoon Network's upcoming MMO FusionFall.
Hearkening back to Sony's own Net Yaroze program, which put debug Playstation consoles into the hands of hobbyist developers for $750, Harrison tells Gamasutra that the key to managing the cost of training and educating game creators could be mitigated if hobbyists were offered low-cost game development tools.
Developing games with Unity is currently limited to the Mac, though a
Windows version of the tool is in the works. And there's one more rather important caveat (for hobbyist game developers, at least): Unity isn't open-source. That means the small, indie developers that Harrison seems to be referring to will need to buy a license, and they'll be beholden to Unity Technologies should they require software updates.
While Atari's choice of the Unity engine might not be the absolute best fit for curious amateurs, lowering that barrier to entry for established indie developers is an important step in the right direction.
Atari's Harrison: Democratizing Development Is An Industry Must [Gamasutra]
