2025年大型游戏引擎报告 内包引擎时代的终结

The Big Game Engine Report of 2025 End of the Era of In-House Engines VGinsights.comSupporting creativity through data Contact: sales@vginsights.com Table of Contents 8-12 13-15 16-17 Game engines space has been changing rapidly with strong established publicengines winning share from historically dominant custom game engines Overview of the Report Overview: •This report explores the game engines used in games released onSteamovertime. Summary •Unity, Unreal Engine and custom game engines of large AAA studios continue to dominate the game enginemarket.•However, the trends have been shifting significantly over the last 10 years, especially so in the last 5.•Unreal Engine is quickly winning share from custom engines, becoming the go to game engine for many AAA studios. Methodology •The methodology relies on VGI’s estimations and tagging of games against game engines. The final slides of the reportdelve more intomethodology. This report looks at 3 groups of game engines–from the industry leaders tosmaller open-source projects Key Game Engines Covered in the Report State of Game Engines Over half of the games released in 2024 were made in Unity, but only 26% ofthe units sold as Unreal Engine and custom AAA engines dominate large games Commentary: •Unityis still the dominant game engine in termsof sheer volume of games being released onSteam•However, in terms of actual units sold, bothcustom in-house enginesas well asUnrealEnginebeat Unity in 2024 Smaller games still skew heavily towards Unity while larger end of the marketgets increasingly dominated by custom game engines Commentary: •Smaller games, especially indie titles, are morelikely to be built in Unity. Godot andGameMaker also do relatively well in that space.•Notably, Unity and Unreal Engine have strong presence in every size category of games. Game Engine Market Share Trends Unity has been the preferred choice by over 50% of games made on Steamsince 2021, but Unreal Engine, Godot and GameMaker have gained share Game Engine Market Share on Steam Over Time-# of Games Released Commentary: •Over 70% of games released in 2012 were made with custom engines–this has declined to only 13% by 2024•Unreal Engine keeps winning market share year by year while Unity has seen a slight decline since 2021•Godot and GameMaker have also grown in the recent years, albeit mostly among smaller games In terms of units, custom engines still dominate, however, Unreal Engine 5 hashad a very strong 2024 with more and more studios opting for UE5 instead Game Engine Market Share on Steam Over Time-# of Units Sold Commentary: •Custom game engines have been losing share year by year, with less than half of the units sold in 2024 coming from custom engines•Unity and Unreal Engine had almost equal market shares up to Covid; Unity saw a big jump in 2020, but hasn’t grown significantly since•Unreal Engine lost share in 2020 as major Unrealprojectswere delayed during Covid and teams were preparing for UE5 to launch•Ever since UE5, Unreal Engine has won back its lost share, culminatingina very strong 2024 (some of the biggest games of that year were VGI estimates that custom engines will continue to be swapped for UnrealEngine while Unity struggles to capture additional share Game Engine Market Shares on Steam, 2020, 2024 and Estimated 2030 It does not always make sense to switch away from an in-house game engine,but there are many cases where a third-party engine can be beneficial Rationales for and Against Moving Away From Custom Engines -Negatives of a Public Engine + Positives of a Public Engine •Price increases–Market dominance allows a few enginesto dictate pricing•Customization requirement–Many projects still requireheavy modifications, limiting workload reduction•Cost of moving engines–Studios with existing legacyengines and tenured employees require significant timeinvestment to switch •Immediate start–For a new studio, being able to start on“day one” rather than having to build your own engine isa huge advantage•Known quality–Engines like UE with Nanite and Lumenare proven quality in terms of performance and graphicalfidelity unlike a new in-house engine•No in-house maintenance–Much cheaper thanmaintaining a custom engine of a similar quality Deep Dive–Unreal Engine New Unreal Engine version takes 3-4 years to feed through to game launches;UE5 is now maturing, having made up 72% of all UE projects in 2024 Some of the largest games of last year were built on Unreal Engine, including afew of the surprise Indie hits Adoption of Unreal Engine on Steam & Console Deep Dive–Smaller Public Engines Godot has been the only smaller game engine that has seen significant growthover the last years (though still remaining very small VS larger incumbents) Game Engines Popularityby Genre Game Engine mix varies widely by sub-genre–high graphics requirementgames skew UE while strategy & sim skews Unity Learn More With VGI This report created usin