
Star Citizen and Squadron 42 are using Amazon’s Lumberyard game engine - dv35z
http://venturebeat.com/2016/12/23/star-citizen-and-squadron-42-are-using-amazons-lumberyard-game-engine/
======
TheAceOfHearts
The link should probably be updated to point directly to Venturebeat [0]
instead of the AMP version. I think submitting the AMP version might break the
guidelines, which ask you to submit the original source.

I preordered Star Citizen a few years ago, but I stopped keeping track of all
updates after a while. To be honest, I kinda assumed it'd just become
vaporware.

Although I'd heard about Amazon Lumberyard before, I hadn't considered this
before: I wonder if Amazon will start a game studio at some point, since they
seem to have a hand in pretty much every other tech scene. Are there any big
avenues open for disruption in the videogame scene?

[0] [http://venturebeat.com/2016/12/23/star-citizen-and-
squadron-...](http://venturebeat.com/2016/12/23/star-citizen-and-
squadron-42-are-using-amazons-lumberyard-game-engine/)

~~~
dualarte
Amazon actually already runs a game studio:
[https://games.amazon.com](https://games.amazon.com)

~~~
TheAceOfHearts
Well, that doesn't surprise me, but still... I'm absolutely amazed at how many
things they seem to be doing over at Amazon.

I wonder if Amazon will follow Google's route and start splitting up into
smaller companies at some point?

~~~
spullara
I think it is already split into a lot of sub-companies.

[https://www.quora.com/List-of-all-Amazon-properties-
subsidia...](https://www.quora.com/List-of-all-Amazon-properties-subsidiaries)

------
scrollaway
I didn't expect this, but it makes a lot of sense in retrospect. CIG had
already hired a bunch of the crytek devs and invested a ton into their engine.
They're also already pretty tightly coupled with AWS.

I suspect this is the nail in CryEngine's coffin.

I massively disagree with the decision, though. I think CIG could have taken
CryEngine under their wing and continued developing it, releasing StarEngine
(their fork) as another competitor on a field which simply doesn't have enough
_high quality_ competition as it is. Maybe they thought about it; maybe they
couldn't get the rights, or didn't have enough cash for it. Maybe Amazon made
them a massive offer just for the name recognition, too.

~~~
mikhailt
I don't see how fragmenting CryEngine benefits that much considering they're
all on the same licensed CryEngine. Amazon paid $50m for the CryEngine and
Amazon said Lumberyard is free to use with their AWS services.

I think it makes sense for CIG to use Lumberyard's engine with AWS
integration, especially it saves them a lot of money not licensing their own
CryEngine fork and they're using AWS anyway.

~~~
wavefunction
As far as I knew, the plan was to use the various Google Cloud services for
the backend, but I wonder if CIG found the offerings from Google too paltry.
AWS seems to have better geographical proximity for Australia and South
America, along with Asia in general, which was a complaint/concern among
backers from Asia and Australia and South America.

As far as the license for CryEngine, I believe that wasn't an ongoing cost per
se. I know CIG has done a bunch of customization (64-bit floating point
precision vs 32-bit floating precision the biggest) but they were originally
talking about folding some of those changes back into the general CryTek
offering. I wonder if they're instead going to offer that to Amazon for
Lumberyard as a cost offset to their use of the services.

Star Citizen would be a pretty big feather in the cap for Lumberyard, as well.
I'm optimistic about the game's development.

------
bm3719
After getting my refund, I've been watching the SC narrative unfold from the
sidelines with interest. There's enough things that've gone awry in this
project to write a book about (and I guess if you were to collect all of Derek
Smart's writings, that's what you'd have).

For me, the main deal breakers and why I got out were that I felt
substantively bait-and-switched when you compare the current "game" to what
was originally promised, and a complete lack of any confidence whatsoever in
this game actually coming out. The latter is mainly due to things like this,
where core technologies are forever iterated on at a fundamental level even
this far (5 years) into development.

~~~
sandworm101
>> compare the current "game" to what was originally promised

That's a real issue with crowdfunding. More often than not, the devs truly
have no idea what the final game will look like. Much of the early funding
goes into what are essentially extended market research projects. Alphas are
released, feedback taken, and changes made. Everyone expects that devs have
some final version of "done" in their heads, but the truth is that such
pictures constantly change in response to user/market feedback.

There are only a handful of indi games that ever developed towards a finite
picture (Prison Architect). Most bounce around trying to please all the fans
until some financial tipping point causes them to slap "1.0" on the latest
build and push it out the door (KSP). That crowdfunding and traditional
funding result in very different game development should be no surprise to
anyone. StarCitizen will release when they need to release. Until then the
cycle of feedback and iteration will continue.

~~~
eterm
KSP was steam early access rather than crowdfunded per se, and was one of the
early successes of steam's "early access", the funding made it into a very
complete game and had regular updates and progress throughout the early access
stages and didn't re-invent itself.

~~~
sandworm101
It wasn't only on steam. They also sold through their own store. I certainly
didn't buy through steam. Whether the game is complete or not depends on when
you got in on the process. What it does have is the layered and rather
disconnected set of features that are typical of game development in response
to market feedback rather than cohesive vision. It's a good game, but does
show the telltales.

------
acemarke
Given their comments about having rewritten over half of the original
CryEngine codebase (including things like 64-bit map sizes, local physics
grids, physically based rendering, and more), my guess is that this engine
switch is primarily about licensing, networking, and use of AWS. They'd also
stopped taking updates from CryEngine a while back, so at most they've swapped
out some of their networking code.

------
MatthiasP
This sounds more dramatic than what it actually is, a merge of two CryEngine
forks.

------
gulaschadasical
Apparently "The most open game development in history" involves briefly
mentioning an engine / platform switch at 5pm on a Friday before christmas

~~~
caseysoftware
Did you see their EULA change a while back? If you upgraded to the latest
beta, you absolved them of all liability if they never deliver the actual
product.

This is a sinking ship, they just won't (publicly) admit it yet.. though a
bunch of their staff jumped ship, so they realize it.

~~~
scrollaway
"A bunch of their staff" jumped ship? What are we talking there? 5 people? 10?
50?

Unless you're talking about a mass exodus, more high ranking employees left
Blizzard Entertainment the past couple of years than that. Is Blizzard a
sinking ship as well?

~~~
ssully
Blizzard actually puts on new games, content for their games, and turns an
enormous profit. So no they are not.

I am really curious if you are either an employee at CIG or just a really
passionate backer of the project based on your unrelenting defense here. I am
not sure why you are surprised by the candor of the comments here - CIG is
seen as a running train on fire and is quite literally a joke in the gaming
industry. It's unfortunate for those who work there and the people who want
the game to succeed, but CIG has earned this reputation.

~~~
scrollaway
I'm not affiliated with CIG (edit: I am an early backer as I mentioned
elsewhere), but I am passionate because I work in the games industry and I see
what CIG is doing as incredibly beneficial to the industry; open development
is huge for both studios and consumers but it needs all the love it can get.

So I'd really love a source for your "is seen as a joke in the gaming
industry", because that is not _at all_ what it's like here and is making me
doubt your intentions. CIG is producing a game that people are passionate
about years before it's released, completely self-funded and all that off a
kickstarter. They're the reason Kickstarter got so popular in the gaming
industry: everybody wants to be them.

~~~
blakeyrat
I agree it's beneficial but not for the reasons you think: it's turning
thousands of people away from the ill-conceived crowd-funding model of game
development.

BTW it has roughly about $140 MILLION of "all the love it can get". Does it
really need any more than that? It has enough. That's well more than Skyrim's
budget.

> They're the reason Kickstarter got so popular in the gaming industry:
> everybody wants to be them.

If you're backing Star Citizen because you think it proves the crowd-funding
model, I'm sorry to break this to you, but it's more likely people in the know
are _rejecting_ the crowd-funding model due to Star Citizen, not signing up
for it.

~~~
scrollaway
> _it 's more likely people in the know are rejecting the crowd-funding model
> due to Star Citizen, not signing up for it._

And your source for that nonsensical statement is?

Star Citizen is _the_ most successful crowdfunded project to date and second
most successful kickstarter project at the time of its completion (after
Oculus Rift). The two successes together that year were what made Kickstarter
famous and turned it from a niche site to "the american dream 2.0" where
anyone's greatest ideas can be funded.

I don't care about the crowdfunding model and you're completely mistaken about
my reasons on why I backed Star Citizen. I don't particularly like or dislike
it and I do appreciate your stance that you prefer buying the finished product
- I think it's a healthy stance.

But your comment on people rejecting the crowd funding model "due to star
citizen" is absolute nonsense. And so is your comment on budgeting, by the way
- You should keep in mind that the number on there isn't "Star Citizen's
budget", it's CIG's budget. There's no particular point in time where anyone
says "Alright guys, time to pack up, stop making sales, we'll do with the
money we have right now because it's more than enough to finish the game".

~~~
nrjdhsbsid
Most successful? Measured in what, money spent? I'm sure other kick-started
projects are more successful in that they actually produced a product that
resulted in profitability.

~~~
scrollaway
Please stop trolling and read my actual post.

~~~
adamgray
I don't see the trolling? How is Star Citizen the most successful crowdfunded
game? It's still not released.

~~~
scrollaway
The point I now made several times is that it's one of the two major projects
that turned kickstarter into a popular platform. It was extremely successful
at the time it was released and while projects have since outranked SC in most
spend on Kickstarter, it's still one of the most successful crowdfunding
campaigns of all time by any financial measure.

As for "not released", they've released a lot more than other projects have.
Colossal failures such as Everquest Next have absolutely nothing to show for
it - if SC stops development tomorrow (which is unlikely), they have in fact
released an early stage game and a ton of near-game content.

------
Sir_Cmpwn
Still waiting on that Linux support. I only backed because it was promised.

------
frik
Amazon Lumberyard game engine = fork of CryEngine maintained by Amazon. So
they just changed from were they get Engine support, the engine is the same.

CryEngine got forked and improved from Ubisoft before and is used in FarCry
2-4 series (now called Dunia engine). The original FarCry 1 was from Crytek.

------
ebbv
This isn't nearly as big of a deal as the headline sounds since Lumberyard is
just a free version of CryTek with extra bells and whistles. Why would any dev
that was using CryTek _not_ switch to Lumberyard?

~~~
Netbeing
Because they could never again use any 3rd party cloud services for their game
except AWS?

~~~
ebbv
Yeah I didn't check the agreement before, I had assumed the integration with
AWS was there to make it attractive, but you're right it locks you out of any
other third party service. That does make it a real choice.

------
Bombthecat
When do they start with the "bottom line" and try to finish the game?

A month more here, another month more there another switch of engine,
concept,plan etc there.

~~~
yborg
It's basically the next installment of Duke Nukem.

~~~
diimdeep
exactly.

------
mungoid
Soo, how different is this new game engine since it a offshoot of the crytek
engine? Is it going to add another x years to the development? Because it took
my company almost a whole year to switch engines for a game that is a tiny
fraction of the size of SC

------
zitterbewegung
Does anyone know if there is a comparison or even lumberyard is comparable to
Microsoft's azure game services ?

~~~
mynameisvlad
Azure for Gaming [1] is just a collection of Azure services that are related
for games, like Notification Hubs, Media Services, etc. Presumably, there's
some common SDK for games but I haven't really used it so I can't say.

I suspect (although I haven't looked into it) that the backend services that
Lumberyard uses are also just standard AWS services packaged up in nice way
like Azure.

Lumberyard is really just CryEngine with the AWS integration I mentioned
above, so it's not really directly comparable. I'd say the two backend
services would be a more apt comparison, but as I said above, I haven't used
the two myself, so I can't give more details.

[1]: [https://azure.microsoft.com/en-
us/solutions/gaming/](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/solutions/gaming/)

------
JohnHaugeland
I was gonna be like "that's gonna be so expensive when they hit a large
playerbase"

Then I thought about it

------
AlphaWeaver
Is there a reason why this links to the AMP page as opposed to the actual
VentureBeat article?

~~~
the_mitsuhiko
Most likely because there is no user interface to get a non AMP link when you
follow a link from Google. It's nuts.

~~~
jacquesc
Yep, this drives me crazy. Finally found a solution (Request Desktop Site) but
it's incredibly buried.

Shocked that content providers arent suing over this. Google removes all ads
(which as a user I like), and any links to the content they are serving. If I
were a provider I would be pissed.

------
euyyn
Can we get the redirect link changed to the target of the redirect?
[http://venturebeat.com/2016/12/23/star-citizen-and-
squadron-...](http://venturebeat.com/2016/12/23/star-citizen-and-
squadron-42-are-using-amazons-lumberyard-game-engine/)

~~~
dang
Sure thing.

------
1_2__3
To abuse a phrase: it is difficult to make a dev finish a project when his
livelihood depends on him not finishing it.

~~~
indy
I think the devs deserve slightly more respect. Nobody wants to spend years of
their lives on an unfinished product.

~~~
scrollaway
CIG deserves a _lot_ more respect than that. I'm appalled at the quality of
the comments here.

They are one of the best studios in the industry right now when it comes to
consumer and dev friendliness. Their blog is a treasure trove of interesting
posts on the internal development of the game, far more often and rigorously
updated than anything else.

Seriously, keep the unsourced/unresearched flames to Reddit. You'd think that
HN of all communities would be more appreciative of what CIG brings to the
table.

~~~
1_2__3
You're praising them for being developers, rather than actually making
anything finished. I'm glad you respect their effort so highly but that
doesn't mean anyone else is "flaming" them for pointing out the constantly
pushed-out schedules and the convenient fact that they're making plenty of
cash without ever releasing anything... and the betas they have released shows
an ever-more-ambitious vision when even 3-5 vision-elevations back it was
doubtful they could do what they're trying.

~~~
scrollaway
> _You 're praising them for being developers, rather than actually making
> anything finished_

This is a developer forum more than a gaming forum, so I think it's
appropriate, don't you?

> _plenty of cash without ever releasing anything_

Come on now. I haven't at all kept up with the game for the past year and half
and I can still tell you that they are regularly pushing out content simply
because my inbox gets _spammed_ with their content update newsletters.

In fact, the latest email is from 17 hours ago, announcing Lumberyard
alongside "Alpha 2.6 with Star Marine", their big FPS patch. Saying they
"aren't releasing anything" is disingenuous.

If you're saying they're not releasing anything you want to play, then sure -
they haven't released anything I want to play either. It doesn't change
anything.

~~~
sleepybrett
Sample Email: "Here's another pretend ship you can buy for a game that isn't
remotely done!"

~~~
scrollaway
The post I was replying to claims that the game is releasing zero content. I
replied with the most readily available example that it in fact is releasing
content.

That _you_ are unhappy that they're making money before the game is done is
another problem. I don't get why you would be; there's far less chances of the
game ever being done if they're _not_ making money than if they are.

I dunno what to tell you. Don't buy the ships? I stopped buying the ships a
long time ago, nobody needed to tell me to do that.

~~~
mynameisvlad
Nobody said _zero content_. The parent comment even mentions the Beta
(technically, Alpha,) so it's clear they meant that no finished product is
being released.

------
rasz_pl
Dont get your hopes up, this game is shaping to be something between Theranos
and No Mans Sky (aka No Mans Gameplay[1])

Here is a critique of FPS portion from seasoned FPS player (Beagle - former
ShackTac etc)
[https://www.twitch.tv/beagsandjam/v/109477776](https://www.twitch.tv/beagsandjam/v/109477776)

TLDR: devs dont have any idea how FPS games work and what makes them fun.

[1] I used that sentence during the hype train and got downvoted to hell and
back ;-) People are blind when they go fanboy mode.

~~~
scrollaway
There is a big difference between a game that was developed entirely in secret
that does not live up to its hype once released, and a game in early alpha
that has disappointing gameplay.

Of course, I have _no fucking idea_ why this has to be explained on hacker
news, to people who most likely are familiar with the differences between an
alpha-quality product and a release-quality product, so I'd love your input on
that.

