In the age of free AAA game engines, are we still relevant?

The game development industry just got hit by a tidalwave of free. Unity 5, Unreal Engine 4 and Source 2 all give away their flagship product for free now. They’re all different brands of free, but who cares? The average game developer certainly won’t. The little guy now has access to more tools than what could be mastered in a lifetime. There’s absolutely no excuse any longer: Go make that game!

[AudioEppa]

can't wait to see if any games come out of this that i would want to play..

[fitfox]

depends, who are the "we" you are referring to.

[Ck1x]

Epic and Crytek completely underestimated how popular Unity would become amongst indie developers, or how larger studios would choose to make their own graphics engines this generation. So, this is why they are offering them for free now!

[Baka-akaB]

I doubt so . For starters each of the big publishers owning their own in house engine for a selection of a few project is nothing new .

And even then with the time needed to hit the ground and find a good footing , we see all of those publishers using middleware and engine they wouldnt have considered for many titles before .

Look at the fighting game genre alone . Even last gen , when japanese studios were behind tech wise , they still used their in house engines , or even created yet another when their defaulte ngine didnt work , instead of running toward Unreal Engine for everything .

And yet today , all of the major and upcoming fighting games are announced on UNreal Engine . Guilty gear Xrd for starters . Tekken 7 is on UE4 . Street Fighter V will be ... Mortal Kombat is soon out with it too .

And that's just one genre .

Epic is being smart , and see an opportunity to take over the booming indie market , when some of them were swearing by Unity and other solutions . WHo's gonna resist the allure of some of the most powerful engine for "free" ?

[Ck1x]

Yes Japanese publishers are chasing middle ware because they fell behind in that area. But what major western 3rd party publisher is using middle ware engines? The western 3rd party publishers are driving the industry and using their in house graphics engines to do it. Indie developers primarily use Unity. Yes more will jump onto the UE4 bandwagon, because it will probably create a headline. It's the smart bet to use middle ware for fighting games. Why would a company create a graphics engine from the ground up just for a fighting game and use it for nothing else? That would be a waste of resources.

[Baka-akaB]

But it's not exactly new . Those western publishers , even with growing have been using their in house engines for a while now , last gen at least . Ubi soft with Dunia and their multiple Assassin creed based engines ..
EA with Frostbite etc ...

They still punctually used other solutions and will probably still do it for the occasional odd or problematic title .

Square Enix remains , with the Eidos part of them , and most of their upcoming games will be UE4 too .

And on a case by case basis , there hasnt been a decrease of unique "AAA" project with UE or Cry engine lately ... like Batman Arkham or Dead Island 2 .. and so far many of Microsoft's own games

[GokuSolosAll]

Nice, now we need a new RPG Maker and Fighting Game Maker.

[--bienio--]

For person how's totally unfamiliar with create games with engine could be for starting???