There's a game version of the Whorf hypothesis; the engine limits the kinds of games that are thinkable. Unless you are the kind of person that has shipped your own engine, you probably don't even realize the thousands of little decisions that are forced on you. Which is why so many games look and play exactly the same.
According to my research, Steam success is somewhat correlated with making your own engine. Novelty and standing out from the crowd are the things that sell your game. It's a lot harder to do new things if what you can think is limited by your infrastructure.
Still, don't build your own engine. Build your game; the engine comes out of that.
Where do you put modular engine/framework hybrids like Bevy? It owns the game loop so it's technically an engine but you can swap out just about every part of it, even rendering and window management. Tiny Glade only used the core ECS with every other part being custom.
Still bitterly disappointed that the upcoming sequel to Cyberpunk 2077 will no longer be on their in-house engine. There's something innately charming about the unique brand of jank that comes with doing it all in-house. See also: Skyrim/Creation Engine in general.
Yes a custom engine gives the game a unique look and feel, but it's also expensive. In fact, if Cyberpunk 2077 had used an off the shelf engine, it probably wouldn't have had such a buggy launch.
That graph isn't 13% "make their own game engine." It is 13% as "other." There are a LOT of other game engines out there. Very, very few games roll their own.
It really depends on your needs I guess. Not to undermine them in any fashion but If you just need some generic features and get something out quick, a pre-built engine can take a lot of the head ache out of it. I'm thinking stuff like last years 'Skate Story', built by one guy over a few years and it looks great, all done in Unity. If they were building their own engine it probably would still be another few years back and probably for not much gain.
But then things like Fez as you mentioned, back in 2012 when it came out, it would have been a real struggle to put together with off the shelf engines. I could see it being much easier now but still a product of its time.
One studio I am endlessly impressed with is Enhance games. Tetris Effect (UE4),Rez Infinite (UE4), Humanity (Unity) and Lumines Arise (Unity). When you fire them up, you would be really hard pressed to know what engine they are running as they have made the end results so unique that the base engines traits are almost completely gone. That is a real talent.
But if you have some unique tech that just needs to see the light of day or a work p=flow that just doesn't fit what everyone else is providing, go with your own engine. There will never be a one size fits all.
> It really depends on your needs I guess. Not to undermine them in any fashion but If you just need some generic features and get something out quick, a pre-built engine can take a lot of the head ache out of it. I'm thinking stuff like last years 'Skate Story', built by one guy over a few years and it looks great, all done in Unity. If they were building their own engine it probably would still be another few years back and probably for not much gain.
I'm not necessarily making any judgement about what someone should do. Rolling your own engine for a story based game is probably a bad use of time. But the idea that few successful indies have rolled their own is false.
I agree - if you're just doing something that needs some assets placed, some interactions, rendering, some physics, use an off the shelf engine. But the idea that it's impossible or not worthwhile to roll your own is repeated too much.
There is a valuable point in what you are saying, but I don't think it is as strong as you are making it. Game engines do have a certain 'style' that is recognizable, especially if you use default settings and cookie cutter stuff from the asset store. The most successful indie games often have their own unique aesthetic, and rolling their own game engine, while not strictly necessary, does make that uniqueness the default outcome rather than something you have to strive hard to achieve.
But most indie games do not roll their own engine. Even this widely shared post aiming to show off games with custom engines, ends up listing a ton of games with notes like "OGRE-based" or "MonoGame-based." I'm sorry, but that's not a custom engine. That's an atypical engine choice (OGRE or MonoGame) with tweaks. Maybe I'm being a pedant, but I think the difference matters.
Unfortunately I don't think there are good numbers on how many truly original / custom / no-engine games are out there, in absolute or market terms. 13% is the ceiling, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was much smaller (e.g. <5%).
You compared a full-on 3D renderer to something that's basically the same as SDL or Raylib. Ogre could be considered a game engine but XNA/Monogame definitely isn't (nor is SDL or Raylib).
> But most indie games do not roll their own engine.
Most indie games are slop that are barely more than a template with pre-purchased assets and sell zero copies. There's no point talking about most of something when 99% gets thrown straight into the garbage.
> The most successful indie games often have their own unique aesthetic, and rolling their own game engine, while not strictly necessary, does make that uniqueness the default outcome rather than something you have to strive hard to achieve.
Yup and that's the point. Code is art as much as art is art. Sure, you can get a basic game made in a couple hours with Godot, but what's the value or uniqueness when anyone can do the same?
How is MonoGame not a game engine? It handles graphics, input, main loop, etc. You can write simple games in a few hundred lines of code, just loading and game logic. Perhaps we're taking past each other.
Game engines typically provide a LOT more than Monogame. For example, an editor, 3D renderer, scenegraph, etc... Monogame and Raylib do a tiny bit more than, say, SDL, but neither does anywhere close to as much as Unity, Unreal, Ogre, Filament, JMonkey, etc...
A lot of those games definitely get some of their unique game feel from their engine, but The Witness in particular is a type of game that really wouldn't need it in 2026. It's a product of both it's time and it's creator's unique strong feelings for programming languages, game engines, and game development.
Isn't this survivorship bias? How many were successful in contrast that just used an off the shelf engine?
Regarding Source, Unreal, etc, that was back in the day when making an engine was much easier than today, due to lower player and graphics demands, which they then iterated on.
> How many were successful in contrast that just used an off the shelf engine?
Yeah there's successful games that used an off the shelf engine but saying very few roll there own is plainly wrong when a bunch have. And that's without mentioning the whole flash era...
Around 18k indie games are released on steam per year.
Around 300 of those are successful, making over $1 million [1]. VERY few of those successes are using custom engines. Your list is probably close to complete, being far less than 1%.
Well, to be pedantic, Stardew Valley + others used MonoGame which is technically a framework but realistically does a huge amount of the work needed to develop a game engine.
According to my research, Steam success is somewhat correlated with making your own engine. Novelty and standing out from the crowd are the things that sell your game. It's a lot harder to do new things if what you can think is limited by your infrastructure.
Still, don't build your own engine. Build your game; the engine comes out of that.
Probably is doing heavy lifting here
"Other" in that document means custom game engines.
Except a ton of successful indie games, including some of the best of all time:
Minecraft, Braid, the Witness, Dwarf Fortress, Stardew Valley, Terraria, Fez, Animal Well, and probably a bunch I haven't heard of or forgot.
Also most AAA studios and a lot of AA studios.
Most game engines were also born out of a game. Source, Unreal, IDTech all were games first, then the engine was extracted.
But then things like Fez as you mentioned, back in 2012 when it came out, it would have been a real struggle to put together with off the shelf engines. I could see it being much easier now but still a product of its time.
One studio I am endlessly impressed with is Enhance games. Tetris Effect (UE4),Rez Infinite (UE4), Humanity (Unity) and Lumines Arise (Unity). When you fire them up, you would be really hard pressed to know what engine they are running as they have made the end results so unique that the base engines traits are almost completely gone. That is a real talent.
But if you have some unique tech that just needs to see the light of day or a work p=flow that just doesn't fit what everyone else is providing, go with your own engine. There will never be a one size fits all.
I'm not necessarily making any judgement about what someone should do. Rolling your own engine for a story based game is probably a bad use of time. But the idea that few successful indies have rolled their own is false.
I agree - if you're just doing something that needs some assets placed, some interactions, rendering, some physics, use an off the shelf engine. But the idea that it's impossible or not worthwhile to roll your own is repeated too much.
But most indie games do not roll their own engine. Even this widely shared post aiming to show off games with custom engines, ends up listing a ton of games with notes like "OGRE-based" or "MonoGame-based." I'm sorry, but that's not a custom engine. That's an atypical engine choice (OGRE or MonoGame) with tweaks. Maybe I'm being a pedant, but I think the difference matters.
https://gist.github.com/raysan5/909dc6cf33ed40223eb0dfe625c0...
Unfortunately I don't think there are good numbers on how many truly original / custom / no-engine games are out there, in absolute or market terms. 13% is the ceiling, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was much smaller (e.g. <5%).
You compared a full-on 3D renderer to something that's basically the same as SDL or Raylib. Ogre could be considered a game engine but XNA/Monogame definitely isn't (nor is SDL or Raylib).
> But most indie games do not roll their own engine.
Most indie games are slop that are barely more than a template with pre-purchased assets and sell zero copies. There's no point talking about most of something when 99% gets thrown straight into the garbage.
> The most successful indie games often have their own unique aesthetic, and rolling their own game engine, while not strictly necessary, does make that uniqueness the default outcome rather than something you have to strive hard to achieve.
Yup and that's the point. Code is art as much as art is art. Sure, you can get a basic game made in a couple hours with Godot, but what's the value or uniqueness when anyone can do the same?
It kinda doesn't though
What it provides is the tools to build on top of to make those things yourself
Is there any chance they meant most "real" indie games? If they did, does the observation about chances of rolling one's own engine change?
Regarding Source, Unreal, etc, that was back in the day when making an engine was much easier than today, due to lower player and graphics demands, which they then iterated on.
Yeah there's successful games that used an off the shelf engine but saying very few roll there own is plainly wrong when a bunch have. And that's without mentioning the whole flash era...
Around 300 of those are successful, making over $1 million [1]. VERY few of those successes are using custom engines. Your list is probably close to complete, being far less than 1%.
[1] https://www.shanethegamer.com/research/indie-games-statistic...