| JEMC said: I may be wrong, but the Unreal Engine became so popular because it was "easy" to use, Epic provided a lot of tech support and, during the transition from SD to the HD era, the PC origins of the engine made it better prepared to deal with 720 and even 1080p resolutions. Also, as of late, they've changed their revenue system to make it more attractive to publishers and small studios. But well, Godot may be good, but I'm not usre how many 2D games were build with UE to begin with. Unity seemed to be the one with more chances to compete with Epic. |
I'm not too familiar with Unreal Engine's history, although I suspect it has something to do with engine development becoming increasingly expensive, which in turn made devs turns to commercial engines instead of their own. For one reason or another, Unreal Engine fared really well there, and I suspect it has something to do with both its capabilities and, yes, its relative ease of use compared to the competition. I remember at least CryEngine having been considered a more difficult engine to use.
I mentioned Godot more as a potential alternative to Unity, since you didn't seem too fond of Unity either (and for good reason). There are probably relatively few devs using Unreal Engine for 2D games, whereas Unity is likely to be more popular for 2D games.
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